Americans Want To Read More Books. Or Do They?

Summary

Book Riot - The Podcast: Americans Want To Read More Books. Or Do They? Release Date: April 14, 2025

In this insightful episode of Book Riot - The Podcast, hosts Jeff O'Neill and Rebecca Schinsky delve deep into the evolving landscape of American reading habits, industry trends, and the challenges facing the publishing world. Titled "Americans Want To Read More Books. Or Do They?", the episode unpacks intriguing data from an Ipsos poll, discusses a breakout success in the YA Romantasy genre, and examines significant shifts within key publishing institutions like Publishers Weekly.

---

1. The Ipsos Poll: Aspirations vs. Reality in American Reading

At the heart of this episode is a compelling discussion about an Ipsos poll revealing that "most Americans want to read more and just don't." Jeff and Rebecca analyze the poll's findings, highlighting a disconnect between the cultural aspiration to read and the actual reading habits of Americans.

Key Points:

• Aspirational Reading: The poll indicates a strong desire among Americans to read more, with 98% wanting their children to develop a love for reading and 63% striving to become better readers ([15:27]).

• Discrepancies in Responses: A striking 41% of respondents do not consider listening to audiobooks as a form of reading, underscoring a traditional view of reading ([15:27]).

• Leisure Time and Priorities: The conversation probes into why, despite aspirations, reading remains low on many people's priority lists. Jeff suggests, “We want to be a reading nation, but only 51% have read a book in the past month, compared to 80% engaging with streaming services or social media ([19:13]).

• Genre Popularity: Thriller, crime, and mystery dominate at 37%, followed by historical nonfiction at 24%, while young adult and romance genres lag behind, raising questions about cultural visibility and media coverage ([22:11]).

Notable Quote: Rebecca reflects, “Reading is much more popular in theory than in practice” ([26:16]).

---

2. Breaking Ground in YA Romantasy: Lauren Roberts' "Fearless"

The hosts spotlight the phenomenal success of "Fearless" by Lauren Roberts, the third installment in the Powerless series, which sold 266,000 units globally on its first day—a record for Simon & Schuster's YA books ([05:32]).

Key Points:

• Market Segmentation: Jeff and Rebecca grapple with understanding why such a high-selling book in a niche genre like Romantasy hasn’t permeated mainstream literary conversations.

• Cultural Impact: They ponder whether genres like Romantasy can achieve the cultural penetration of phenomena like "Twilight" or "50 Shades of Gray", noting that unlike these titles, Romantasy hasn't been widely referenced in mainstream media or popular culture ([08:13]-[10:33]).

Notable Quote: Jeff muses, “I think we could be the people” to represent diverse reader interests that might not align with mainstream media coverage ([05:05]).

---

3. Publishers Weekly Introduces a $25 Review Submission Fee

A significant part of the episode examines Publishers Weekly's decision to charge a $25 fee for book review submissions, a move met with mixed reactions within the publishing community ([27:10]).

Key Points:

• Rationale Behind the Fee: Rebecca supports the decision, explaining that it helps manage the overwhelming number of submissions and ensures serious authors are submitting their work. “Publishers Weekly is trying to subsidize their review process... to keep the business going” ([28:58]-[29:00]).

• Impact on Authors and Publishers: The hosts discuss how this fee might discourage low-quality or unsolicited submissions, potentially elevating the review quality. However, concerns are raised about smaller or self-published authors who may find the barrier prohibitive.

• Comparison to Other Media: Jeff draws parallels to other industries, suggesting that just as media institutions charge for certain services, Publishers Weekly’s fee is a reasonable business decision ([30:12]-[33:32]).

Notable Quote: Rebecca counters criticisms by stating, “Publishers Weekly exists to be like a mouthpiece into the publishing industry... it’s a chance for visibility in front of the kinds of people who make decisions about which books are on bookstore shelves” ([33:24]-[34:00]).

---

4. Demographics in Publishing: The Whiteness and Gender Gap

Referencing Laura McGrath’s analysis on her Substack, Text Crunch, the podcast delves into the demographic makeup of the publishing industry, questioning how "white" it truly is relative to various benchmarks ([38:08]-[43:55]).

Key Points:

• Relative Whiteness: Publishing is 72.5% white compared to 58.4% of the general U.S. population, indicating a significant overrepresentation ([41:47]-[42:21]).

• Gender Representation: While publishing may be more female than the general population, there’s a pronounced gender disparity at higher organizational levels, with leadership roles skewing male ([43:20]-[43:55]).

• Comparative Analysis: The discussion includes comparisons with other industries, emphasizing the need for nuanced understanding rather than blanket statements about diversity ([41:47]-[43:55]).

Notable Quote: Rebecca articulates, “Publishing is significantly whiter than the US population. How white is it and relative to what?” ([38:08]).

---

5. Book Recommendations: Front List Foyer

Interspersed with their analysis, Jeff and Rebecca share personal book recommendations, enhancing the episode’s relatability and practical value.

Featured Books:

• "Care and Keeping of a Pet Black Hole" by Michelle Cuevas: A middle-grade novel that beautifully explores grief and the imaginative adventures of a young girl dealing with her father's passing through her interaction with a mysterious black hole ([45:05]-[47:53]).

  Notable Quote: Rebecca praises the book, stating, “Books are so much better for kids at doing this big emotional work” ([47:39]).

• "Who Is Government?" edited by Michael Lewis: A collection that highlights the unsung heroes within the government, showcasing the intricate and impactful work of lifetime civil servants ([48:33]-[51:06]).

• "Exit 0" by Marie Helene Bertino: An upcoming release discussed with anticipation, where Jeff shares his personal journey of reading her backlist and preparing for an in-depth interview ([54:11]-[57:07]).

Humorous Moment: Rebecca delivers a witty joke inspired by "Care and Keeping of a Pet Black Hole": “Have you heard the one about the new anti-gravity book? It’s impossible to put down.”

---

6. Closing Thoughts and Industry Reflections

Towards the episode’s conclusion, the hosts reflect on the broader implications of their discussions, emphasizing the importance of recognizing and supporting diverse voices and genres within the literary world.

Key Insights:

• Economic Realities of Publishing: The fee introduced by Publishers Weekly is seen as a necessary adaptation to sustain quality in book reviews, despite initial resistance from authors ([33:24]-[36:35]).

• Cultural Segmentation: The success of niche genres like Romantasy underscores the fragmented yet vibrant nature of modern readership, where diverse tastes coexist but may lack unified visibility ([05:32]-[10:33]).

• Diversity and Representation: Grounded in data, the conversation underscores the ongoing need for strategic diversity initiatives within publishing, aiming for representation that mirrors societal demographics ([38:08]-[43:55]).

Notable Quote: Jeff encapsulates the essence of evolving reading habits: “Reading is much more popular in theory than in practice” ([26:16]).

---

Conclusion:

This episode of Book Riot - The Podcast offers a comprehensive examination of the current reading landscape in America, highlighting the aspirations, challenges, and evolving dynamics within the publishing industry. Through thoughtful analysis and engaging dialogue, Jeff and Rebecca provide listeners with a nuanced understanding of what it means to be a reading nation in today's fast-paced, media-saturated world.

---

Stay Connected: For more insights and updates, follow Book Riot's website, subscribe to their podcast, and support their Patreon for exclusive content.

Transcript

[Announcer]

HBO's the Last of Us returns with a new season on Max. Every path has a price. Five years after the events of the first season, Joel and Ellie are drawn into conflict with each other and a world even more dangerous than the one they left behind. CNN calls the Last of Us exquisite, fully realized, and worthy of the hype. The new season of the HBO original series the Last of US premieres April 13th on max. And listen to the official the Last of Us podcast. Wherever you get your podcasts, PayPal lets.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

You pay all your pals like your dinner dates. How are we splitting the bill? Um, evenly. Well, I only got soup. Let's Split it on PayPal based on what people ate. Get started in the PayPal app. A PayPal account is required to send and receive money.

[Jeff O'Neill]

This is the Book Riot podcast. I'm Jeff O'Neill.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And I'm Rebecca Schinsky.

[Jeff O'Neill]

It's a busy week. I don't. I don't know if it was. I'm covering today in books this week and there was a lot. It was a target rich environment. We've got a lot to talk about here, Rebecca. April. I guess this is a busy month. It feels like there's news all over the place.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, it feels like a good, steady news cycle. Like there hasn't been one huge story that has dominated publishing this week or in the last couple of weeks, but just a steady drip. Things are happening. The wheels are turning. Books are coming out. People are fighting book bans. We're talking about stuff, right?

[Jeff O'Neill]

Let's see. Programming notes. You dropped something here. I was going to drop this into. It's not a link, but it's a fact that came from publishers lunch. It's going to be an amuse bouche for the Patreon episode we're gonna record right after this. That's gonna go out tomorrow or early next week for Patreon subscribers. Check that out. The Book Riot Patreon link in the show [e-mail] listen. Also, you can always email [e-mail] okay, you're articulating that. So specifically for no reason. But we're gonna do a hot list check in in which I, I continue. I continue to evolve this product.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay.

[Jeff O'Neill]

But I think this is for the first time ever, it may be durable from one.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay. I'm looking forward to this.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I'm just looking at. I've done it before where it's like 50 or nine and there's different tiers. I just stopped putting things in. We're like, nope, that's not. That's not it. That's not even a contender. And I think I've got 18 to throw at you.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And that's on the Patreon. So check that out there on First Edition. Recently, my conversation with Katie Kitamura. If you enjoyed our conversation about that, even if you didn't go listen to her talk about her book and me talk to her about pastries and deaths and how it's weird to have a different human one day to suddenly wake up and Your son is 14 and 5'ten and his voice is deeper than yours and how that's a strange thing to happen to all of us.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And we're not the only ones who had our minds blown by that book. I saw online yesterday that Jennifer Egan was in conversation. Oh, was she with Kitamura going, no, for real, how did you write this book?

[Jeff O'Neill]

Well, if Egan is coming to that, you have done something truly that's really amazing. Whether or not audition is on that list. You have to check out the Patreon to find out. But actually we'll do our first sponsor break and then I'll get into this first story lit thing that we have.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay. This episode is sponsored by Accidentally on Purpose by Kristen Kish. Stick around after the show to hear an excerpt from the audiobook provided by our sponsors at Hachette Audio. You probably recognize Kristen Kish's name because she won the 10th season of top Chef, went back to host it years later for season 21, and can be seen all over media and the food world in Accidentally on Purpose. What defines Kristen's story aren't the missteps or even the pleasant surprises that crop up, but how she learned to find her voice and use it. Because while accidents may be unexpected, they don't have to be at odds with purpose. And as Kristen approaches life's milestones, big and small, with intention, she realizes that those junctures, the ones beyond the border of the map, behind the scenes and off camera, are where the decisions and discoveries are really made, where the unexpected meets the intentional. And that's where things get really interesting again. Stick around after the show to hear an excerpt from Accidentally on Purpose written and read by Kristen Kish.

[Commercial Announcer]

It's time to find appliances that fit your needs and your style at the Home Depot Shop Spring Black Friday savings and get up to 35% off select appliances like GE profile plus free delivery from all in one washer dryer combos that can wash and dry a full load in under two hours to feature Loaded refrigerators with built in autofill water pitchers. GE Profile has appliances made to simplify your life and elevate your home shop. Spring Black Friday savings on top brand appliances and get free delivery happening now at the Home Depot. Free delivery on appliance purchases of $396 or more off about April 3rd through April 23rd. US only C store online for details.

[Announcer]

Marvel Studios Thunderbolts will take the world by storm.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yes, there's a big threat out there.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And you're gonna help me stop it.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Us.

[Dan Souza]

Why?

[Announcer]

You got someplace to be on May 2nd?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Avengers are gone.

[Jeff O'Neill]

No one' coming to save the day their time.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I think we could be the people.

[Announcer]

That are coming has come. There is no higher calling.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Let's do this.

[Announcer]

Marvel Studios Thunderbolts only theaters may 2 get tickets now. This film is not yet rated so.

[Jeff O'Neill]

You put in here that Fearless by Lauren Roberts which is a YA Romantasy in the Powerless series. It's the third book in this trilogy sold on day one. Rebecca, tell the people how many.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

266,000 units globally on day one. That's in all formats. This was the highest ever first day sales number for a Simon and Schuster YA book.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Third book in the series. The other two books have sold a combined 5.5 million units globally. And if you had told I don't know what to do with this. Have I heard this name maybe? Did I know this is happening? Absolutely not.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I had not heard this. And this is one of those like, we struggle with this when we do the IT books episodes every month of like, what do we do with this romantasy thing that is huge, but seems to exist in a different space than like literary culture. And even then like mainstream casual reader literary culture, it's its own. Like there of course are some overlaps. These are not mutually exclusive reading groups. But the headline in the publisher's lunch email was like, Lauren Roberts book sells 266,000 on first day. And I was like, who is Lauren Roberts?

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, I was trying to think of some way of understanding this and some of it may be trying to with my fingernails hold on to some kind of relevancy. I recognize that might be the case.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Might it be liberating to just not.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Well, but. But here's the thing. How do we as a podcast that cares about books and reading and we're covering this from a news angle, but we're not going to cover it from. This is not our genre. This is not our interest. And I think we look at this with some, with some Kind of consternation of how to understand it. I was trying to think of some other area of culture where there's something similar, where it's a huge and popular, but it seems to exist in its own ecosystem. And. But some things bubble up, like Romantasy, we have to say. We can't just put it over in a snow globe and it's over there. Like that's a thing. And at this point, like the Onyx storms of the worlds, the Sarah J. Maas of the worlds, they have now bubbled up to at least be names where people maybe have heard of them, they've read them their casual life. The one I was thinking about is video games, where there are really popular video games that you and I have never heard of and they sell none of them. Well, no, but you know, Mario, you know, Zelda. But I'm saying, like, there are some. Maybe even heard the name Grand Theft Auto or.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yes, okay, okay. You're helping me out with some millennial.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Where they do actually bubble into mainstream culture. The thing that I'm trying to figure out here is are these part of. Is there a mainstream. That's book culture and what is this thing's relationship to it? Maybe this is mainstream book culture. I don't know.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, I think this is a central question right now. Like, one of the admittedly imperfect ways to start to gauge these kinds of things is like, if characters on popular sitcoms are reading these books or joking about them, like, would it be familiar enough to enough people for that to land? Like, 50 shades of gray crossed that threshold. Twilight crossed that threshold. I don't know that I've. I haven't seen Romantasy, like, hit that space.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Can you make a fourth wing joke and have a prayer that someone is going to get it sort of in a general purpose setting.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Right. And those have not been discussed in the same kinds of, like Today Show, Good Morning America, mainstream media, sorts of spaces that, you know, Twilight and 50 Shades of Gray were. And the Hunger Games when dystopian, because the Hunger Games introduced the big dystopian wave, you know, of the early 2000s. I also don't know what to make of this. Like, surely some mainstream readers, you know, like civilian book people are out picking these up for something to get as big as Onyx Storm and the Sarah J. Maas books. A lot of people who read very, very casually are picking them up, but it's, it's like carved into this strange zone. And I also don't know how to talk about it when when something can be this popular that more than a quarter of a million of them sell on the first day. And the industry has not been talking about this name. Like, it's. It's kind of fine with me if I don't know the names of all of the popular genre series that are just going to show up on, like, the Goodreads list at the end of the year. Because a lot of those genre fandoms do exist in their own, like, separate spaces or spaces that I don't spend a lot of time in. But if it's popular enough that you're selling a quarter of a million units on day one, why is book media, like, not covering this in a different way? Or, like, why. Why haven't I heard about her?

[Jeff O'Neill]

I think because it's getting covered on individual social media account and platforms. I think that.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

But even this. This seems like the kind of thing that Publishers Weekly would be like, hey, the first two have accumulated 5 million copies sold. We're gonna wait and see what happens when the third one comes out next week. I didn't know that this was even a thing. I should be waiting to know how it would perform.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Well, and we talk about this when we do the winter drafts or the IT books or whatever. Where. Cause we do, you know, we pull from various sources, and one of those is the Goodreads most anticipated. And we get face blindness to the covers where this looks like a lot of other books that are coming out this month and for the rest of the year. And they're the tops of these most anticipated lists on Goodreads, which is indicative of something like, I'm trying not to brush this off. I don't want to brush this off. It's not something to brush off. But in terms of how to understand it at all is really, really hard. Is it? And I don't trying to besmirch anything. It's different books for different people. But is it more equivalent to Dogman than the Da Vinci Code in terms of its Dogman and Wimpy Kid sell more than these. And they exist for those kinds of readers that are reading that book. Maybe you can make a reference because you're a parent, but Da Vinci Code sells, again a lot more, and it becomes a part of the whatever, right?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And everybody knows about it. Right? And 20 years later, we're talking about it, like, you know, 15 years later, we can still refer to 50 shades of gray. And folks who were old enough to be reading adult books at the time, remember what that was. And it remains Unclear to be if we're going to still be talking about this romantasy pop or any of these individual titles beyond the Garros and Sarah J. Maas into the future. If future Jeff and Rebecca looking back on the 2020s will be like, oh, yes, and Lauren Roberts, she was also among them.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Well, yeah, I think that's interesting. It's amazing. I think the thing you're hearing us listener be blown away by the volume and attention and also the kind of segmentation at the same time. Because I did not. Should I put this on the hot list? Well, if I'm just looking at numbers, absolutely. But there's a part of me like, absolutely not. Like that's where I am.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And yeah, I think so. And maybe TV is the analogy that I'm going to reach for, but this feels to me like it might be similar to how like procedurals are the thing NCIS. Right. And right. And there are 25 spinoffs and there's. Then you have the CSIs and then all of the streamers have their versions of all of the procedurals. And those are getting a lot of viewers and they're also not noteworthy in the conversation about the television.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Way more people watch those than will watch the Pit. But for those who care about tv, sort of in an existential way, the Pit is. That is the business or the White Lotus or some of these other places that do they have a 50th of the viewers of whatever. You know, what's the, the woman from Big Bang Theory that's now a judge on a CBS sitcom or whatever. It's like, I don't even know what that is. Or Kathy Lee or Kathy Bates in the Matlock reboot or whatever.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Right? Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Like those get so many more viewers. It's a different kind of audience. It's also important for the TV ecosystem that those things exist. Does Fearless by Lauren Roberts selling a bunch of these books selfishly subsidize books that I care about?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Probably.

[Jeff O'Neill]

That's what we always say about these. That's what we always say about these. If you care about Fearless by Lauren Roberts or know something about a [e-mail], i'd love to hear. Is this something you knew about? Is it something you care about? Are you as shocked as we are?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

How did you learn about it?

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. Did you learn about it right now? Because here's the truth. I'm going to forget the name of this book and author tomorrow. I will not remember this tomorrow. And that is interesting. That's a fascinating thing. Well, I guess in terms of fascinating things, this was an Ipsos poll that actually show something that the headline doesn't. This is what I said about it today in books, which is weird. It's a fascinating poll. The headline is the poll shows most Americans want to read more and just don't. As far as I can tell, Rebecca, there is no single question that out and out asks the question, would you like to read more? It's all inferred from other things. But having said that, where did your eye lead you? What do you find some of the more interesting takeaways or results in this?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

They lead this piece with a chart that is highlighted as reading is aspirational and that resonates with what we talk about in terms of like, vocational awe and the sort of halo of like respectability and nobility. And you know, that reading is a, that reading confers something on people who are reading readers in terms of cultural cachet or respect that they, you know, like 98% of people want their children to develop a love of reading. That reading is a way for me to learn about the world. People rank that highly. That reading is relaxing. They say they like to keep collections of books in their homes. You know, very few people are willing to say that reading is a boring activity. Sadly, as you pointed out in today in books, 41% of themselves still say that listening to audiobooks is not a form of reading.

[Jeff O'Neill]

We've got. I was stunned. And it's exactly the same for the overall. And readers. Readers being someone who said they listened to an audiobook or read a book in the next year.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And. Right. That's an interesting thing about this is that the data are broken out between the overall respondents and people who are considered readers or consider themselves to be readers. And a reader in this survey is just someone who has read a book in the last year. So. And some of these are pretty big discrepancies or interesting discrepancies where like the difference between having read one book and having read zero books does seem to be connected. But Mallory Newell, who's the vice president of public polling at ipsos, says like, we want to be a reading nation. Like, people say that they aspire to read, but only that.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I mean, but what I'm, I think I'm just sort of doing a penumbra thing. Like, would you. Do you wish you read more? Why isn't that.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

You just wanted them to ask it directly.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Just ask it directly. Because the closest they get is reading is low on my priority list. Right.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Well, and then they get to like, I don't have enough time because of other things. So, like, I agree with you that it would have been nice if there was a question that was straight up, like, do you read as much as you wish you had? As much as you wish you did?

[Jeff O'Neill]

But she doesn't even reference. I mean, she's like, we want to be a reading nation, and then doesn't cite any of the specific results. Like, I'm so confused.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I mean, I think, think things like, I want my children to develop a love of reading indicate, like, we want reading to be sure a thing that we do. I want to become a better reader. 63% of overall respondents and 71% of readers said yes to that. They're. They're just, I think they're ascribing aspirational to this collection of questions. But you are correct that no one actually asks.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I just don't want, don't. I mean, don't spin the data. There's no reason to spin the data here. I mean, one of the interesting, you know, I like to look at the spreads like you mentioned, like, where do we get a big difference between the overall and people who are categories as readers in this. And again, for people listening to this show, reading one book in the last year, I don't know that we ourselves would say, hey, you're a reader if you do that. But that's what this is going on here. But even that difference, reading or listening to a book is relaxing. For me, that seems to be the single biggest difference between someone who's read a book in the last year and the overall. That's a spread of 16 points from 92% of people who did one book said it was. So if you find it relaxing, you are more likely to have read a book last year. And I guess that makes sense. But the biggest spread, like, there are people who read books and don't find it relaxing, ergo, they read less often. I hadn't thought of the relaxing nature as being so. Because that's what I don't read to relax. So I'm like, that's not what I do.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, yeah. And I think we're weirdos. There are extreme outliers in any kind of survey like this. One of the other pieces that they pull out is, you know, that as they, they're, they're saying here, they're interpreting this as that we want to be reading nation. But only 51% of people report that they've read a book in the past month in this poll and in comparison, 80% of people watched streaming services, used social media or watched a short form video. And that's usually where a piece like this diverges into. So books have so much to compete with. And it's seems like folks are reporting that, that like, I just don't have enough time. There are other things in my life. But we know from our conversation with Laura McGrath last month about the most interesting stats in the world of reading. And this piece notes as well that respondents who classify themselves as readers are also more likely than non readers to consume other forms of media. So it's not competition with other forms of media that make the difference between being a reader or not being a reader. Playing video games doesn't make you less likely to be a reader.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I still dispute the logic of that. Can I get on my high horse for a second? The logical chain could be that people who read books still consume other media. Doesn't necessarily follow that the extensive of other media doesn't cannibalize people from reading books. All that proves is people who read a bunch of books do not consume less other media. It does not suggest that if you compute, consume other media because those are going to be two completely different kinds of co. That's true.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I mean, I think what we're probably circling around here is a confounding factor that nobody's talking about, which is access to leisure time. And that if you have access to leisure time, you can read and watch a bunch of movies. If you don't have access to leisure time, you're not going to be doing either of those things. And then you're among the respondents in this poll who are saying that I just don't have time because of other life activities. And when they say other life activities, they don't mean because I'm watching something on Netflix. They mean because I work two jobs or I have to take my kids to soccer practice or it's honestly just not that important to me.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Well, I don't think they explain what because of other life activity means. Are these other things here a subsets of this? Does that even the respondent understand? Yeah, because how they don't they just throw it into one big category, like.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Right. I'm just saying I think that like socioeconomic class probably influences this.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I mean, I just, I just don't know. I mean, I, I think I'll hold in possibility that it doesn't cannibalize. But there are, there are way more people watching streaming services that are reading books and that's Just true.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

So I also think this book, leisure.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Reading has gone down over the last two decades. So I, I think we could, we don't need to overthink this.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Well, and there's social incentive to say that you would like to be a reader.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Sure. Well, and you may not even know that you're dissembling. Right. Like you, you may. Oh yeah, want to be a reader. And maybe you don't like the hegemony of reading has gotten to you to some, to some expense. Like I think too like the genre stuff is interesting. Thriller, crime mystery being the most popular, historical, non fiction being 24%. That's one where I have my where are the dudes that Laura found? That's when I was like, aha, yes. Memoir, biography, autobiography, thriller, crime mystery, historical nonfiction, those are the three top genre here. Historical fiction. Those tend to be more dude friendly is the wrong word. They're marketed to and bought by men on the whole. And then interesting romance. Even as we're talking about the Lauren Roberts thing, I think there's another thing that we know in our Lauren Roberts fearless Y Romantic romance is bottom middle.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Young adult is bottom middle. So there you go. Thus our consternation too.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

One thriller, crime mystery is the only one that crossed more than a quarter. They got more than a quarter of respondents to say it, that 37 is the highest. The next one at historical nonfiction is 20. Everything ticks down from there. And that's a pretty big difference between 37% and 24. And then on the way down, almost three times as many people cite reading thrillers, crimes and mystery as reading romance. And the young adult hits at 8%, which I think there's also social incentive stuff happening here maybe that like many more people are reading these young adult novels and reading romance then like more than 8% of readers are doing young adult novels.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I have a theory about that.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Tell me.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Most people responding to this don't know what young adult means.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Oh, that's probably true.

[Jeff O'Neill]

They're not. I mean we say YA in like a headline on a BR Instagram post. Like people like what are. What. What's ya?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

So I mean I, I think they, they're like, I don't. Whatever that is. I don't read that because I don't know what it is. But if they picked up Sunrise at the Reaping or the Hunger Games or I don't know what we're doing with Onyx Storm these days because they're 20. Have fun with that categorization.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Oh, and there's a note here at the bottom, actually, that in terms of some of the patterns, it's women and people over 50 driving the thriller genre to the top of the list. And that the men's interests were coalescing around nonfiction and historical fiction. And then of course, this makes sense just on its face. Respondents over the age of 65 are the ones who are actually carving time out of their day to read.

[Jeff O'Neill]

What do they have to carve out of? You're over 65?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Well, they're making it a part of their day because they're, you know, less likely to be.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Because I think, I think, I think they don't have to carve it. It's like they have to soft scoop that soft serve ice cream. This is not, this is not bedrock.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

That we need to send your editorial notes to. Megan Sullivan.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, that's, that's, this is almost, this is very interesting, but almost very interesting. I do like this idea of. And maybe this is note for them next time just ask them, do you wish you read more? What is the principal reason you're not.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. Or like actually do something like how much time do you spend reading? And how much time would you like to spend reading? And look at the separation there.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. I mean, the theory of the case and most of these things when it comes to reading in the modern age. This is my hypothesis is that a lot of people would like to read more, but they'd like to do other things more. They're like consciousness wants to read more, but they don't actually want to. They actually want to spend their time differently.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Well, yeah, I think that if you're reading just. If you're thinking of reading as just for pleasure, there are other things that you can do that are more likely to give you a greater amount of pleasure or be relaxing or entertaining than reading is. There is some work involved in that and people are. I just really think we are incentivized to say that you care about reading. And it does happen when I meet people casually who like my husband's clients at a cocktail party.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yes.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Oh my gosh, I wish I had time to read. I wish I read more. And I can see that they're like a little bit concerned that if they tell me that they aren't into books, I'm gonna like be standing, be standing there judging them for saying it. And I'm always like, I don't care what you do with your time.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, I mean, the thing, I guess they only really ask about two reasons to read. One, it's relaxing or one it's a way to learn about the world. I think there's another core piece that they, they, I think they didn't tap into is that it keeps me something like it keeps me sharp. It keeps me just like good for me. Like there's this is good reading is good for you. Like yeah, that one looks closer that 99 to 90. Do you believe that reading is good for you?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I bet that would be an extreme very high.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. And then you would see a disjunction between that and how you know where it is on my priorities or where it relates to other activities they could do with their discretionary time. Then you could really see. But I think the Q rating of that would be extraordinarily high.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Oh yeah. Reading is much more popular in theory than in practice.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. Nordstrom brings you the season's most wanted brands. Skims, Mango Free People, and Princess polly. All under $100. From trending sneakers to beauty must haves, we've curated the styles you'll wear on repeat this spring. Free shipping, free returns and in store pickup make it easier than ever. Shop now in stores [e-mail].

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Some things work better together like NARS Soft Matte Complete Concealer and Radiant Creamy Concealer. Soft Matte Complete Concealer erases and blurs imperfections with full coverage. Then Radiant Creamy Concealer evens and brightens with a luxurious texture and radiant finish. Two concealers, one flawless look, perfect for a no foundation base. NARS better together. Visit Ulta to shop now.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Publishers Weekly this is a real insider baseball kind of a story. Except that I think it's a micro data point that's indicative of macro thing that I think it's interesting to talk about. Publishers Weekly is now charging $25 to have your to submit your book for review consideration. So yes, that means you're not guaranteed a review. That means you just get put on the pile that they will consider to be reviewed. I saw a couple of people decrying this.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Me too.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Which. Which I understand.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

How dare.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, but Rebecca, did you read my Today in Books?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I did.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Where was I? Right. What do you want to make my case for me? What do you think of that?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I totally agree with you on this. I understand why Publishers Weekly is doing this and I bet that they are kicking themselves for not having done it sooner. They receive, I would assume, tens of thousands of books in the mail every year from publishers and authors that are hoping to have those books reviewed. Just sorting through those or and just sorting through catalogs like I don't know what the process is by which Publishers Weekly determines which books they're going to review. And the fact that they review as many as they do is incredible. Like, it's a feat. So the process to, like, sort through everything and see what's available and assign reviews to people is cumbersome. And book reviews in general do not pay nearly as well as they should for the amount of time that it takes to read a book and then write something cogent about it. And Publishers Weekly says very clearly, this is not pay for play. We are trying to subsidize our review process, which is code for we are trying to be able to, like, pay ourselves to do this work.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Keeping the business churning. Right.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Keep the business going. This is very work intensive. Maybe they want to give book reviewers a raise. I don't know. This seems very, very reasonable to me. And as you point out, like, it's either $25 per book that is submitted or, you know, entities that have site licenses to Publishers Weekly, which start at $950 a year, can just put their books through. And it's a safe assumption that all of the major publishers have shocked if they didn't shop. Right. So it's not a new expense for big publishers and smaller publishers. I think this is a reasonable investment to ask, like, this is a reasonable lottery ticket, $25 to have your book considered. If you do get a Publisher's Weekly review, like, and if it's a starred review and that is some good attention on your book, I'm pretty confident you're going to move a couple of units and make your $25 back. I feel about this, like, also, just to give listeners some perspective, like, if I had charged five or ten bucks to be able to send me a book in my blogging days or my early book riot days before I, like, went on my grand just send me E galleys campaign. Like, I could have paid my mortgage every month with the number of books that were coming into my house. And I am one person.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. So I think there's a couple of things I don't actually know. Maybe Publishers Weekly has gamed out how much additional revenue they would get. Maybe they're going to get some. The other piece of my case for why they should do this is to keep the submissions down. If you do not believe in your book enough to pay $25 to get it to be considered for Publishers Weekly, which I think, tell me if you're wrong for people who are in the business, is probably the most important trade Facing review outlet. I don't think there's anywhere that's, that's. I mean there's Library Journal and there's some other places that are important. But if you're going to pick one to have it in, I think you're picking publishers.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

If you're seeing, especially if you're thinking about like where bookstore buyers might be looking to find out which to determine books that they're going to order into their stores. Like $25 is not just your chance of getting your book reviewed so that you can like put it on your fridge like a gold star. It's a chance for visibility in front of the kinds of people who make decisions about which books are on bookstore shelves. I think that's very reasonable. And Publishers Weekly also has a different program for self published books. If you get the print editions of Publishers Weekly, there's like a 10 page section called Book Life that is paid reviews of self published books. So like you don't get a guarantee that your review will be positive, but if you want to be guaranteed the Publishers Weekly will review your self published book, there is already a way to do that. So. So that also means that where those self published folks who are least likely to float up from this, like the slush pile of things that just go to Publishers Weekly, you can pay to guarantee it, or now you can pay this $25 consideration fee and maybe boost yourself up in line or at least be swimming in the same pool of titles for mainstream review consideration that are not in that separate Book Life section. But I do think it's probably both a we have to subsidize our time to do this. And also if it curbs submissions even a little bit, that helps Publishers Weekly do their job.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yep. And they're requiring physical copies. I don't know if that's something that existed before this. I'd love to know that if you work at Publishers Weekly or no or you're part of this, because that's another good way. Because a secondary reason to curb submissions is not just already there's a lot of books, but we've been hearing from literary magazines, especially in the genres that the LLM AI generated slot machine is now infesting submission boxes. So if you have to have a couple of physical copies, you can't just sort of ask chat GPT to write historical YA romantasy, crime, thriller, poetry, young adult, children's book starring, whatever, and then shoot it over an email as a PDF. Like you have to have a physical thing that's a gatekeeping thing. That's a. Like we want to. We want you to be serious. I mean, I think it's. We want you to be serious. This is a token chart charge for that.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. And the people that I've seen decrying it are coming from the, like, it's hard enough out there for authors. How dare they do this to us now? Most authors that are considered for Publishers Weekly are coming from the big five because the big five publish most of the books. So like you're fine. Your publisher is not having to spend any more money. They all have these site licenses. Do not worry about it.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And if they don't self publish.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Right.

[Jeff O'Neill]

If they're. If your publisher is going to pony up 25 bucks for that publisher, I would get a new publisher.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, I think that's. That's fair. And the other piece is that like Publishers Weekly exists to be like a mouthpiece into the publishing industry to provide information for people who work in publishing and people who like work at bookstores and are trying to determine which books they should put onto their shelves. Their primary purpose is not to help authors. And I understand that it's hard out there for authors, but like to expect businesses, especially media companies in this day.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And age, we may have more sympathy for bookish media than other people, but the only thing harder than being an author is right. Is running a bookish media company.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I mean, I just think it's important to hear that perspective. Like we know it's hard out there to be a writer. And also you are not owed a review review consideration anywhere. You are not owed someone's time. Like a review of a book means six to 10 hours reading it, depending on how long it is just in general and hopefully a couple of hours of work of synthesis at least thinking.

[Jeff O'Neill]

About it or considering it or what else might goes into. These are not long reviews, but they're right. They're professionally done, they're consistent. I think they're quite fair. You don't hear a lot of like Publishers Weekly is a bunch of dicks. Like that's not a conversation I hear. You know, don't at me. Well, I don't know if there's something that's interesting.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I mean very rarely does something get get skewered in a Publisher's Weekly review.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Like little like the this is a Patreon episode I've had in my mind for a while is to sort of collect like the six or seven. Well, there's more than this moves positive and negatives that Publishers Weekly does in that Last sentence. But that's a, that's another. The House style is very interesting to me. So this is, you know, I think this is a good window into the book world. Like this. This 25 bucks is indicative of a lot that goes on. I have another note for Publisher Weekly and I'm, I'm on your side. Charge more for your site license. If Random House is going to get all their books, they can submit a million infinity books. Charge them five grand they've got. Or sliding scale based on revenue or something. More money. Like the publishing industry should be thrilled Publishers Weekly exists. Charge more for this.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yes. Or like your 950 site license gets you 10 a year or something.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Or with a minimum advertising, like money. Supporting Publishers Weekly from the publishing industry is an aggregate good and riverhead. And all these people should be thanking their lucky stars this exists because this is one step above. I think this is only one step above from looking at the matrix of Edelweiss yourself. Like, this is the next thing you do after this.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And like, one of my hobby horses, as you know from our text thread, is paying attention to who ponies up the billions of dollars for the COVID of Publishers Weekly, which, like, no knock on Publishers Weekly, but I do not think that spending like 15 grand to put your book on the COVID of Publishers Weekly is gonna have a positive roi. So if, and it often is small publishers and, and sometimes even independent publishers. And I've seen a couple self published. Like, if you are thinking that that is a good investment and you're also railing about $25 to have PW seriously.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Considering, you need to flip yourself around.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

For the review section. You need to flip your priorities and save yourself like 14 grand.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. I mean, I do think that, you know, the value of institutions in any walk of life, I think becomes underrated. I may be talking about this for political reasons. Who can say, stay tuned for my presentation. But some of these tentpole places, you know, in the world of journalism writ large, you know, the New York Times, in the world of books and reading, like, honestly, Publishers Weekly is a tentpole institution.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And. And I think this makes a ton of sense.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It does make a ton of sense. And it's one of those things that, like, when I'm talking privately with book riot contributors and saying, I just read this, I thought it was overblown. Has anybody else read it? It's not uncommon for someone to say, yeah, I had the same experience and my expectations were higher because it got a PW star.

[Jeff O'Neill]

It matters. You can hear in our Voices and our expectation. This is one of the places we go to, to like, we also look at Edelweiss directly, but we also miss stuff.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And Edelweiss is just marketing copy. Like, you know, an evaluative, like, okay, pay attention to this in the form of a star or the prose. I think I, I'd love to know again, maybe we should get some publishers. We could be on there. But the, the star. The. The star awardance procedure, because there's positive reviews. Like, if you took 10 reviews that were positive and asked me which one got a star, I don't know that I could pick it out. But that's a, That's. That's a different game for a different day. Okay. Wow. I felt a lot about that. Where do we want to go next? Oh, McGrath. I think we've gone along on a couple of these.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Oh, yes, yes. Speaking of Laura McGrath, who, if you're just tuning in, is a. An English professor, a data scientist. She came and hung out with us a couple episodes back to talk about stats. She has done some number crunching on her substack, which is called text crunch, about the demographic data in the publishing industry. And her central question is, like, we talk about the unbearable whiteness of the publishing industry, but how white is it and relative to what? So I don't know that we want to go like super into all of the numbers here. It's worth. I think it's worth looking at Laura's substack. This is a free post and you can subscribe and support her work. But she confirmed terms like, yes, publishing is whiter than the general population, but she's grounding. She's pushing us to ground, like, rather than just saying this is a white industry. Like, what. What are we talking about? White compared to the general population, White compared to college graduates. White compared to what? And she pulls. Actually pulls the data to help us have that conversation.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. And I think even her sort of humanistic intro of like, she got pushed by a peer reviewer for a title which we're anticipating with great excitement. Yeah. We can't wait on this show to have a, to have some sort of lodestar for. Wait, how wide is it in her resistance? I think I have a little of this. I think a lot of other people might too, which is. That feels like dismissing or other undercutting sort of the urgency. The felt, the real felt urgency of diversification is important and underrepresentation is real. But this is something you and I have dealt with, frankly, on the HR side. Of the business a little bit of, like, what is a reasonable goal? What is a legal goal for diversifying a workforce? And how can you work within our extant legal procedures? Because you cannot discriminate based on race. You cannot do that. You cannot discriminate based on gender.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Right.

[Jeff O'Neill]

So how do you, how can you advocate in your hiring processes for under rep. You can only really, you can only, you can only really advocate for them or build for them in your hiring process until they are, quote, unquote, represented.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yes.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And so what does represented mean? So you and I have thought about this directly in our own process. So, like, I am more sympathetic to. You need to have a goal so you know what the hell you're doing and when you. You've reached it and if progress has been made.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And I think that's fair.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I think that's fair.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I think that's fair too. And so, like, we can use the US population example here. So publishing is about 72.5% white, and the US population, according to the census that Laura uses, is 58.4% white. So publishing significantly whiter than the US population. She then also looks at publishing like the breakdown of Publishing's Trends vs College Graduates Trends, the whiteness and gender representation of publishing and other professions. That's particularly interesting. Like, is, if publishing is unbearably white, is it actually unbearably white relative to other industries? Or are we just talking about, like, it's a problem in itself that publishing is wider than the US population? But how widespread is this problem? How is publishing doing relative to other industries? So that's really interesting to see. Like, she's got numbers from the, from medicine, from the legal professions, from the education sciences and stuff from the U.S. census Bureau. If you like data, you are going to enjoy this and you will get a lot of value out of clicking on Laura's substack.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, I mean, I think just as an example. So one thing she finds is that publishing is 14% whiter than the US population and 20% more female than the US population. Population. I don't think anyone that I want to talk to is like, you know what? We need to get more dudes into publishing because it's overrepresented. But I do think it'd be like, you know what? If you think that if you're, if you feel like one of your issues or something you care about is we need more women in publishing, maybe check that assumption. Right. If you think that. Why. I mean, or maybe, or maybe it should be in different levels of the company. Like we could be a little more nuanced.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I think Laura gets into some of that and she's using data from the Lee and Lowe survey, which is more robust than the data. They survey a wider group of people than the publisher's weekly salary survey does each year. But that publisher's weekly survey does break down gender representation at the different levels of companies. And that's where you can start to see that publishing is very female, but it becomes very male at the top.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yes. So it's like I don't, I, I think of this way. I don't think it's sort of a binary of do is there work to be done? Yes or no. It's more of can we target the.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Work needs to be done. This is helpful in seeing those places like rather than just a like a blunt instrument approach to diversifying the workforce. Where are the places that we need work? And getting more women into publishing is not it promoting more women into the higher echelons of publishing?

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yes, and certainly getting more and then you know, different kinds of racial breakdown. Even within that breakdown there's going to be variances by group and identities and other things that I think are worth so that's, that's a welcome here. We better go to Thriftbooks at this point. Frontless foyer brought to you by Thriftbooks. Did you know there are millions of books you can buy on thriftbooks and probably 95% of them were submitted to Publishers Weekly for review. Probably so I wonder if I've ever bought a book or read a book that wasn't submitted to publishers. I guess I've read a couple of self pub things for like friends.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Oh okay.

[Jeff O'Neill]

But beyond that I would be generally very surprised if I've read something that wasn't at least submitted to Publishers Weekly.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

For I think that's fair.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I just bought some stuff from Thriftbooks to actually is related to my front list FOIA we'll get to in a minute but they have a reading rewards program free shipping on orders of over 15 bucks to people in the US and you can join their rewards program in which you know a certain you spend money on books you get a free one every now and again. Who doesn't like that? Also we're getting into moms, dads and grad season. Shoot us an email podcastookride.com if you like to be submitted. You'd like to submit your question or request. We will get that over there. You know this is a good place. You can buy movies, DVDs games and other kinds of gifts. So you can all put into one bundle, get your shipping. Put it under the. I think for dads you put it under a rotating tie of. Rotating rack. Tie of ties they don't use. And for moms, you put it under the documents that pile up. That mom tends to be responsible for permission slips and other things. This is very essentialist, but also. So there's some truth to that. I'd say at some point there, I don't know, a tree. What kind of like, you know, there's like the. The Festivus pole. What kind of items would be totems of these other.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

A Thai tree, something made of like golf tees.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Oh, that's good. Yeah, I like that. Anyway, let's see. Why don't you go first with your front list foyer?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

All right, well, my front list foyer is brought to you by your daughter, Rowan.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

At our live show at Powell's about the most recommendable books of the century. Rowan recommended the Care and Keeping of a Pet. Pet Black Hole by Michelle Cuevas. And she talked about it a little bit more when we were hanging out at home. So I was sold immediately. It's a middle grade novel. It's about. It opens with the main character on the bus coming home from NASA. She's been trying to get into NASA, this is the late 70s, because she wants to meet Carl Sagan and give him a recording of her dad laughing. I know, I know. I'm sorry, Jo. Dad has recently passed away. Now I'm gonna cry. And she believes that this recording should go on the Voyager's golden record that Sagan is gonna send into outer space so that when the aliens find it and they wanna know what it's like on Earth, they can hear about it. That has not gone the way that she wanted it to go. She didn't get to meet Kyle.

[Jeff O'Neill]

You can't just show up with an eight track and say, put it on the disc. Sorry. Sad.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

But she gets off the bus. The weather turns all of a sudden, like it gets really dark. And she finds this box on the sidewalk. And there is like a small black. There is a black blob in the box. And somehow she comes to figure out that this is a black hole. She takes it home. She notices that it consumes random things. All of her left shoes, the family's really smelly hamster gone. And she names him Larry for singularity. Incredible stuff.

[Jeff O'Neill]

So, okay, so that's it. So what do you think?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, so that's it. It's great. So as it goes on, this main character is tempted to, like, toss everything annoying from her life into the black hole. Like the itchy sweaters her aunt gives her, the homework assignment she doesn't want to do, all the Brussels sprouts from dinner. And eventually some of the painful. Some of the things that remind her of painful memories of her dad. Things happen. And through her adventures with. And maybe in the black hole, she comes to process her grief and understand this loss and kind of come to a new way of living with the loss of her dad and wanting to hold those memories. I thought so many times about how much better books are for kids at doing this big emotional work.

[Jeff O'Neill]

That's right.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Than they were when we were young. Like, this is.

[Jeff O'Neill]

It's. Your dog died. That was your emotional catharsis you got when that was it. Your dog dies and we're all sad. That's it.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It's charming, it's funny, it's really clever and creative. Rowan told me it would destroy me and it basically did. But it also gave me one of my new favorite jokes, which is. Have you heard the one about the new anti gravity book?

[Jeff O'Neill]

Oh, yeah, I have.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

But tell the people that it's impossible to put down stuff. I texted our good friend Amanda Nelson and she was like, first of all, how dare you?

[Jeff O'Neill]

When the last time you read a middle grade book, Rebecca?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Oh, God, I don't know. Like, I. I don't know, but it was really lovely. And again, like, so funny. I think if you have a kid in your life who is reckoning with something related to grief, it would be a great thing to give them. But I just thought it was lovely and charming and sweet and a good read all the way around. And I hadn't heard of it before. So Rowan gave me something new, an A recommendation.

[Jeff O'Neill]

A wonderful audiobook experience, I should say.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Good.

[Jeff O'Neill]

If you've got a mixed. I mean, a mixed age group, really.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Of any kind, there's like little songs and like, funny characters. It was a good time. And I'm also reading who Is Government? Which is. Is edited by our boy, Michael Lewis.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I'm interested to hear about this because Edited by Michael Lewis is interesting, but edited by. Is also not interesting.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Right. Well, so Michael Lewis wrote two of the pieces in the book. I did not know this was coming out, but he's making the podcast rounds and I heard him talking about it. So here's. I think I can get you with the setup.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I'm sure you already. I mean, yeah, okay.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

When Donald Trump was first elected in 2016. And they had all the, like, transition team of hundreds of people, people that are going to compile their binders about what their specific department and government does and then train the incoming government on it. Trump just fires all the people and says, we're smart enough, we can figure this out on our own. But those binders of how the government works continued to exist, and somehow Michael Lewis gets access to them.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Sure he does.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. And then also because he's. Michael Lewis convinced the Washington Post to give him some money to pay reporters to go through those binders and find interesting characters, which this is the thing Michael Lewis is good at. Like, who are the people that we can capture in this who are doing fascinating things? And so this book is a collection of, like, lifetime government workers who are doing important work that they have never been recognized for and they never expected to be recognized for it. And they're also, like, Midwestern in sensibility, if not in actuality, and don't want to be.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Right.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Recognized for, but fascinating stuff. So, like, a guy who figured out how to make a formula to actually help prevent the roofs of coal mines from caving in. And once he did it, coal miner deaths decreased by almost 100%. The person who figured out the formula for how to determine when an object or a body dropped into the ocean, how it drips based on all of the factors, so that, like, like, if you fall off a cruise ship and they don't realize it for two hours, they shouldn't go back to the place you fell in, but where should they go?

[Jeff O'Neill]

Skate to where the corpse is going.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Right, right. So how. But how do you do that? One of them is a person who runs, like, the national cemeteries, which have, like, an incredibly high customer satisfaction rating. And how he has done this for decades, caring for families in a time of great grief, just like lifelong bureaucrats doing really incredible work. So Lewis writes two of them. W. Kamau Bell writes one. Sarah Vowell, haven't heard from.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Come on. God. All right.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yes. And it's. I think the pieces ran in the Washington Post in, like, late 2024, so before Doge did all of its things. But this is a really nice moment as a person who, as you were saying earlier in the show, like, believes in the value of our institutions and the work that is done behind closed doors where no one has ever, you know, cared about being praised for it. But they recognize it's important work. There are just thousands of these kinds of stories and reading them told, like, and these are characters who were just never gonna Seek praise or recognition for it. So it's been a nice little like liberal morale boost, I would say.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. Okay. I'm going to check that out. I hope there's an audiobook version.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Oh, that would be great.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Mine is a little bit boring. Well, not boring, but I did all my Bertino reading. I'm going to be talking to Marie.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. Not boring at all.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Well, it's. It's a little samey, I guess. Not boring. I'm going to be interviewing her. A new format for First Edition where just walking through her backlist all the way up through Beauty Land. What's the story behind this book? What do you remember? So I went back. There's only one I hadn't read her initial short story collection called Safest Houses, which was University of Iowa in 2012. And I read them in order. So I reread Parakeet to him in the cat's Pajamas. In Beauty Land, it's gonna. They're great. I think to him at the Cat's Pajamas is both better and more body than I remember. I remember it being a little cozier, but it's a little more difficult.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay. It's been a while.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Well, I think one of the reasons we like it is it has a little more. If it were as cozy as my memory has it, we wouldn't have liked it. If that makes sense. It's got a little more edge to it. But here's the thing. I'm finding I'm a little nervous about talking to her for a lot of reasons. Well, I've gotten to a point where I'm not nervous about talking to people for First Edition. I used to be. I've done enough of them now and I feel I can. I can have a good 30 minute conversation with someone who wrote their book.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Like you hung with Katie Kitamura. You did great.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Did I? I hope so. But like, I feel like I know what I'm doing with this situation. Reading someone's whole body of work quickly. It feels very personal all of a sudden. And there's certain recurrent themes that, you know, not. There's not a lot of great dads in these books. For an example, we've got stuff going on. Yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Like.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And that's not my want. Even for people I do know intimately. I'm not really comfortable.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I will attest to this for our listeners.

[Jeff O'Neill]

So I'm gonna. I need to be very careful. I'm both interested. But. And I might even bring it up to her directly. That might be even a talking point. But it's been very interesting. I've never done, done this before because I read all of them in like a week's period and you really do.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Start to see things when you do.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And I don't know that'd be true for every author, but I, I guess I wasn't quite ready to say. Yeah, I mean a little bit more sense of like her personal what I assume for the moment, backstory being on Front street once you sort of connect some doc dots and some recurrent themes and conditions. So interesting.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. The only experiences that I've had with reading like a writer's whole oeuvre together was my one summer of Toni Morrison and then my other summer of James Salter and those. They've been written about a lot and you know, discussed a lot and I've thought about them a lot and we've talked about them like. And also I didn't have to interview them.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. You were not in real danger of confronting either of them. Salter was dead and Morrison was Morrison. She was still alive at that point we weren't going to get.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Well, I'm sure it'll be wonderful but I'm looking forward to listening to that.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And this is all in anticipation of the excuse I have with the publicist is Exit 0 comes out in a couple weeks which I also read. It's also very good, unsurprisingly indifferent and strange.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And we will be doing a Patreon episode where we rank the stories in Exit 0 for how Marie Helene Bertino they are.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I was a little worried when I suggested that because we initially used that format for Saunders and I had a little bit more data in the Jeff GPT for processing those news stories and since I hadn't read the Bertino in a row, I wasn't sure I was going to be able to have a like a ranking algorithm internally. But now I absolutely do. By the time I got to Exit Zero, like I know how to, I know how to handle some of this stuff.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. I mean it's been, I mean I read Beauty Land at the end of last year so it'll have been a while for me. I haven't revisited 2am or any of the previous ones, but we'll see. She's a vibe. I think we're on a like a low key mission here to have Marie Helen Bertino be much.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Is it even low key? No, not even. What else could we do?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I'm Tattoos Team Maria.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I also say for people who've read Beautyland and or Cat's Pajamas which are the two most popular? Those are Bertino at her most normal. If that's good or bad. For me, that is. It's not bad. It's just is. So that. That's something else to know. Okay. Shoes. Email podcastookriot.com book riot.com listen for show notes. The Patreon. The sub stack. I put. Oh, I put myself on our Instagram. I know a picture of me doing stuff with books and you have to go follow.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I'm very proud of you.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I mean, look, you. Everyone laughed at me and I'm not sure that this dispels any of that, but I just wanted to. I just wanted to lean into that, if that makes sense.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Good job.

[Jeff O'Neill]

All right, thanks so much, Rebecca. We'll talk to you soon.

[Dan Souza]

Hey, everyone, it's Dan Souza from America's Test Kitchen. I'm super excited to let you all know that we're launching a new video podcast that takes you behind the scenes into the messy, imperfect, but riveting day to day life right here in our test kitchen. Not only do I get to talk to my colleagues about the latest taste test they attended, I just came from.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

A tasting of salted caramel apple pie bars and then roasted garlic. So I. I apologize.

[Dan Souza]

Or about a recipe they're developing.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

The thing about this recipe is it's a secret. The restaurateur refuses to tell people what her secret ingredients are.

[Dan Souza]

We also chat with amazing guests from the culinary world and beyond. The lamest joke I've ever said, I said to Marie Bamberg, it's the definitely great joke. Thanks, Anna. Make sure to subscribe to in the Test Kitchen so you don't miss an episode. You can watch in the Test Kitchen on YouTube and Spotify and listen to it wherever you get your podcasts. Can't wait to see you in the Test Kitchen.