← Book Riot - The Podcast
Book Riot - The Podcast
Blume is a Big "No Comment" on her biography, ACOTAR adaptation takes a step backward, and more.
01:00:29
Jeff and Rebecca try to read the tea-leaves from Judy Blume's biography silence, ACTOAR rights reversion, and more of the week's book news.
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- [00:01]
State Farm Sponsor
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- [00:31]
Rebecca Schinsky
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- [01:01]
Jeff O'Neill
This is the book Riot Podcast. I'm Jeff o'. Neill.
- [01:03]
Rebecca Schinsky
And I'm Rebecca Schinsky.
- [01:05]
Jeff O'Neill
My roof is leaking. It's snowing in Virginia.
- [01:09]
Rebecca Schinsky
Welcome to hell.
- [01:10]
Jeff O'Neill
I didn't know how banal the end times would be. The banality of the end times. Is that what Susan Sontag said? Something like that?
- [01:16]
Rebecca Schinsky
I think so.
- [01:16]
Jeff O'Neill
And if not, she would have no Hannah Arendt. Sorry. I'm so sorry. Everyone's gonna be like, no, no, Hannah Arendt is penalty.
- [01:24]
Rebecca Schinsky
Here we are.
- [01:25]
Jeff O'Neill
Here we are. So let's see. Speaking of everything getting worse, but also staying the same. Vineland slash. One battle after another is in the zero to well read feed. Vineland is Thomas Pigeon's 1990 sort of modern masterpiece. It's like people don't think of it as the first rank. They think Gravity's Rainbow. But because one battle to other a exists in battle is maybe within three or four days of winning the best Picture Oscar. Do you have a pick for me, Rebecca? You want to do this real quick? What's winning today?
- [01:58]
Rebecca Schinsky
By the time folks listen to this, the Oscars will have happened.
- [02:01]
Jeff O'Neill
It'll be over.
- [02:01]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah, yeah. I'm really split on Best Picture. I'd be. I'd be happy for one Battle. I think that I'm coming around to actually, like, I think One Battle is a better movie, but I want to see Sinners win Best Picture. I loved it. I want to see Ryan Coogler take that home. It's such a. It's just huge. A big swing in a really original work in best adapted Screenplay. I think one battle after another is the will have run away with it. Like you've got other good contenders. Hamnet is in there, but I just don't think that's going to happen for Chloe Zhao. Train Dreams would have been wonderful in a different year. Really would have been a contender for 1998.
- [02:42]
Jeff O'Neill
That is a real contender.
- [02:44]
Rebecca Schinsky
I know. Like, do yourself and your nervous system a favor and go watch Train Dreams.
- [02:48]
Jeff O'Neill
It's just so not your tear ducts. Your nervous system is not your tear ducts. For that, I've got a take for you that maybe will reinforce your sense of one battle, another versus Sinners like you. I think as a sort of filmmaking achievement, one bath or another is just more ambitious. There's just like a lot of stuff going on. Do we grade on the curve for best picture? For this reason alone, which is Sinners is an original story. Like you had to come up with a story and where One after Another is a good adaptation of Vineland, but it's like it's working with clay already. Sinners had to get the dirt and get the water and mix all this stuff together. That's a harder task, I think.
- [03:26]
Rebecca Schinsky
And I'm not actually sure that one battle after another is a more ambitious undertaking than Sinners is, partially because Sinners is an original screenplay. But there is so much going on with trying to shoot Michael or having to shoot Michael B. Jordan as two characters. The editing for that is bonkers. I listened to part of a podcast episode that talked just about the first scene where we see smoke and Stack and they're sharing a cigarette and how complicated it was to have them pass that cigarette back and forth. Plus, like, what Coogler is doing with the history of music and black art is so impressive. But I do think that that one battle is an adaptation, or that in general, something is an adaptation makes it lower on the difficulty scale. Now, maybe that's counteracted by the fact that One Battle is like a very loose adaptation. We said on the episode more of a translation of Vineland, but the kernels of the ideas and the kernel of the vibe of the movie came from Thomas Pynchon from somewhere else.
- [04:28]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, that's why I would. I would cheer for. I would root for Sinners to win Best Picture if it were up to me.
- [04:35]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah, I will be like, I will be jumping out of my seat Sunday night if that's what happens. It'll be very exciting.
- [04:41]
Jeff O'Neill
But anyway, that's. That's just two people, you know more about the movies and what's out there than I do at this point I. Ambitious isn't the word. One Bath, another is a bigger movie. Just the car chases and the scenes. Like maybe I'm using that as a proxy for ambition. Sure. Maybe not necessarily fair. Machine. I guess there's machine guns in both, but big battle sequences and chase sequences through modern American cities. I also would say this, and I'm now going to go back on myself in thinking about books and movies especially. I also want to give credit to people telling relatively contemporaneous stories, because historical fiction, you know, this is something that Dan Sinniken wrote about in Big Fiction and that we just see more and more is historical fiction providing some cushion, barrier, buffer to contemporary life. And contemporary issues like Sinners is very relevant, but also set like 100 years ago. Right. Whereas One Bath to Another is present moment, dealing with political issues that are still around. And I think that is harder than doing historical fiction and dealing with similar issues in a historical fiction kind of way. So maybe that washes it out. But kind of like my. I give extra points to TV shows that don't use guns. Like, I think it's harder to create tension when people aren't going to die or get shot. I give credit to if it's an original story, but also if you're trying to speak in contemporary language with contemporary moments and like contemporary life, I think that's just harder to do. You can imbue like we've seen with historical fiction and spy novels or whatever. You can imbue a lot of that with just the ambient importance. We know that like World War II or the Vietnam War or the Depression or the Civil War had. It's kind of. I don't want to equivocate it. It feels to me much more difficult to make sort of a random Tuesday in 2008 with characters and stakes feel important because it feels so close to it.
- [06:31]
Rebecca Schinsky
I hear that and I generally agree. In this case, though, since sin, like the vampires and sinners are vampires, kind of always symbolic, but the vampires and sinners are really doing symbolic work about white people preying on black art, taking black art to achieve their own ends. And that is not just historical. It stays relevant and present. That even though it's set in the past and you get the sort of genre cheat code of vampires like that ups the stakes in the same way that machine guns on screen up the stakes. I do think that what Coogler is commenting on is present and contemporary. So they're like neck and neck for me.
- [07:10]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah. Oh, they're neck and neck and that's why you get to have an interesting conversation, I think, and sort of try to parse the between there thinking of things you need to parse. If you happen to get an email that's impersonating that's from Rebecca or from me or someone at Book Riot, say hey, go, come advertise your whatever, or we can get in touch. We are getting a lot of phishing scams impersonating us and our staff right now and some people that listen to the show and follow us on socials have told us about it. Unfortunately, there's nothing we can do to the best of our knowledge. Here's what's happening. There's publicly available data about our company, like who has what jobs and they know basically what I do. I think these are largely AI based scams to my, to my estimation. And they create a dummy email account and they put Rebecca's name or my name or someone else's as the owner of that account because they can do what, whatever and it's from like whatever at whatever email address and you don't really know when you click it open. And people sometimes get excited, they're interesting and they know it and they're basically preying upon the brand trust that we have to try to get someone to click on a malicious link and send them money for something. I really don't know what the outcome of these mostly are. I think like a lot of things it's probably give us some money at point something.
- [08:18]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yes, it's just give us some money and your money has gone into the void. I did hear from one author that, that found out a little bit too late that it was a scam. And if that happens to you or if it happens to someone that you know, you can contact your bank or the credit card company and inform them that you've found out about this and they'll stop the payment or put a hold on your card or whatever it is that they need to do. I did hear back from that person that they were successful in stopping it. But these do as you're saying. They do look legit. Like the email signature on this phishing scam impersonating me is way fancier than my actual email signature. It has an old LinkedIn photo, it has like color text links to like a bunch of social media and all kinds of things. And at least the ones that I've seen impersonating me are like pretty flattering emails about, hey, we found your book and we really love it and we think it would be great for the Book riot audience. We'd like to feature it in some of our content, which is indeed a type of email that I send to authors. But what I won't do is ask you to pony up money after you respond. And that is what happens with the scammers. Then they say, here's how much you need to pay us and we'll do it. And of course then the money goes into the void and your book doesn't get featured. We work directly with publishers for advertising. We do sometimes work directly with self published authors for advertising. But our editors are never going to ask you for money to feature your book in our content. So please just be careful out there. Double check the email addresses. The ones that were pretending to be me were coming from like success. Patrick725gmail.com like, come on, man.
- [09:54]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, so as you know as being a human out there in the Internet and world right now, it's hard enough to stop people just calling your phone with spam emails. There's nothing we can do about it on our side, unfortunately.
- [10:06]
Rebecca Schinsky
I'm sure that these are rife in other industries where people have art that they're trying to get out into the world, but it's all over the place in books and reading right now. Authors are getting them, agents are getting them, and like, I just hate it. This really preys on how hard it is in general for authors to get editorial features places. There's so few opportunities and there's a real sense of desperation in some corners for that kind of attention or engagement. But just if it, if it looks like it might not be real, it's probably not real. Take a beat. And Google at least does have ways. If you're receiving spam from Gmail addresses, you can report that email address as fraud, but it has to come from the recipient. There really, unfortunately, isn't much that we can do. As you were saying?
- [10:48]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, we wouldn't even know it was happening unless people told us and shared with us. So thanks to those of you who did. If you see other versions of this more pernicious or altered, do send us email podcastookriot.com and we can at least do public service or get in front of some people there directly. All right, let's take our first sponsor break here real quick.
- [11:08]
Rebecca Schinsky
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- [13:07]
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- [13:37]
Jeff O'Neill
This is an interesting one Rebecca. There is a new biography of Judy Bloom by Mark Oppenheimer that's out now. You may have seen it around. It's From Scribner. It's the kind of biography that one of the titans of arts and letters should get at some point in their life. And it's not necessarily about like a Nobel Prize sort of situation is like we want for posterity especially while a lot of the players are alive or willing to comment to contribute to a biography and the story here it's in the Times. We'll link in the show notes as always bookriot.com listen or the podcast player looking at right now. This is written by Elizabeth Egan. It's chronicling the. I guess I'll try to do the short version of this is that initially Judy Blume did not want anyone, let alone this guy to write her biography. She changed her mind and agreed to give a series of extensive interviews. She was given a draft and chance to comment it on it. She gave a very long like 40 page PDF with corrections and comments. Some of the errors were corrected. Oppenheimer did not take all the notes and that at some point in the process Bloom decided not to be a part of the biography anymore. She is not commenting or her agent is commenting on the publication. They are not participating in any related sort of like it's Judy Bloom's time. Like this often happens with the news biographies that other outlets. There would be a big interview with Judy Blume today, this week or this month that connects to this book and gives an opportunity people to celebrate consider Judy Blume. I as far as I can tell, Rebecca, we haven't talked about this at all, you and I. It doesn't look to me like Oppenheimer, quote unquote deserved to be frozen out. Nor is Judy Blume obligated to participate in the publicity. But clearly she's unhappy with something.
- [15:28]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah, the headline I put on this in Today in Books was it's complicated. And that's really all that we can know. It's. I mean it's even a little bit more tangly than than it sounds on first blush because she reached out to him like way back in the late 90s, Oppenheimer wrote a tribute to Judy Blume in the New York Times Book Review. She reached out to him at that point they got to know each other. He and his family went to hang out with her family over the summer and they maintained they had been loosely in touch all throughout the 2010s. Then she emailed Oppenheimer in 2022 and said, Hey, I think I'm ready for someone to do a biography and I'd like for it to be you. They Did a bunch of interviews. She provided him access to tons of her personal documents and notes, which she has tons. Like I know from watching the documentary about her, just like storage rooms full of letters from fans and all kinds of other things. Drafts of her books introduced him to friends, colleagues, family members who also gave interviews. Like really let him in. Yeah. And then at some point after she had seen the draft that includes apparently, you know, some like very personal and also not always flattering pieces of information gleaned in that process, she decided that she didn't want to be part of it. They haven't. If they've spoken about exactly why he's not revealing it. And as you said, she's not talking about it. I think this actually, I'm kind of surprised this doesn't happen more often because a good biography is not going to be 100% pleasing to the subject of the biography because none of us can come across as flattering all the time. If the person really has deep access to our stories, our personalities. Like Judy Blume's got like a 60 year long career at this point. It's not all roses for anybody. So I don't know. I mean, we don't know. Like, this really invites speculation, but there's no real information about what were the particular points that she was stuck on. Oppenheimer declined to share Judy Blume's notes and edits that she had sent him with the Times. He said he didn't think that would be appropriate. So the professionals are also not speculating on what those details are.
- [17:44]
Jeff O'Neill
From this, Oppenheimer is praying it pretty straight. I think this is a PR sort of. This is what he should be doing when the worm seems to have turned. Like there's this thing called an authorized biography, which is basically like the authorized is there for a reason. My understanding of those. They basically have final cut, quote, unquote of what the book is. Most good biographies that stand the test of time are unauthorized. And that doesn't mean they're hit pieces or they can be. It means it's a warts and all situation. All of us have warts. All of us have unflattering angles through which to put us. And if there. It doesn't sound. Again, we don't know we are speculating. It doesn't sound like there is gross falsehood happening here. I would imagine if that were the case, there might be some sort of legal intervention at which at this point we believe that is not happening. Egan speculates very, very gently that perhaps some disclosure of medical information could be the kind of thing that maybe would be, I don't know, the most unappetizing. The kind of thing that maybe would have turned Judy Blume off to being with it directly. I could understand that. I think there are some interesting questions to be asked about even in a. What are the limits of like hipaa, essentially? Right. Again, like not, not just the actual law, but like, where does your privacy end once you become a historical figure? It's not something I've really thought about all that much. I mean, but it's fascinating.
- [19:13]
Rebecca Schinsky
The other question there though is where did Mark Oppenheimer get that information? Because presumably he didn't glean it from like someone violating Judy Bloom's hipaa.
- [19:22]
Jeff O'Neill
No, no, I agree that like, if someone told it to him, like, is that fair game? Probably.
- [19:27]
Rebecca Schinsky
If a person who's writing a book about you, like you. This is, I think maybe where I bump up against the edges of my generosity for this is like if you reach out to a biographer, you engage in the process of disclosing information about yourself. You participate knowing that you're not going to get final cut. Like every conversation that you have with that person unless you tell them this is off the record, is on the record, and is fair game for inclusion. Maybe she thinks that, that those pieces of information didn't need to be shared to be relevant to like, information about her writing life or the subjects of her books. But that was also her call to not share it with him in the first place, if that's what happened. And like now we're in speculation land because Egan is also just gently speculating.
- [20:18]
Jeff O'Neill
I mean, I think this is the kind of thing I haven't. We should say we haven't read this. I hadn't planned on reading it. I probably still still won't. Maybe in the fullness of time, I still have a bunch of Hermione Lee literary biography, so I want to get through.
- [20:29]
Rebecca Schinsky
It's your retirement plan.
- [20:30]
Jeff O'Neill
But, but it's, it's fascinating. And you, I think you put this in our company. Slack is like, welcome to this dry sand effect Judy Blume. Because if she had sort of given some nothing burger. Well, not nothing burger, but like warm non committal interviews about her life. Are. Is anyone talking about this book like this is the best publicity a book like this could possibly get at this moment?
- [20:51]
Rebecca Schinsky
This is like breaking containment. I got texts from two civil my life who were like the flavor of one was, whose team should I be on here? Am I mad at the biographer? Or like, you know, are we Just, do we feel bad for him? Because Judy Blume now won't promote this book that she participated in the making of. And I was like, nobody knows. And that's why. But like, it's getting out there that she's not like, saying no comment is a comment in itself. Judy Blume is also very savvy, and she had to know that this book was going to get a lot of attention either way. But I do think that this scales it up and. And maybe even an interview that says, I did share that with him. I don't see how it's relevant, like something substantial if that is indeed what's going on here. Engaging in it would have tamped down some of the speculation if you just provide an answer. Of course she's not obligated, but I do think there's a level of, like you. There's some responsibility that you own. If you agree to participate in a biography of yourself and you give a biographer information. Like, if you're gon do a biography of me, and I hope no one ever does, you have. You're gonna have to wait till I'm dead. I don't want to be here for it.
- [21:59]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah. Unless something really changes. I wouldn't. I mean, we don't have a career that's really notable for a big biography at this point. But even if she, like, this is a thorn. I find it a thorny sort of heart issue because any individual person, I feel like, shouldn't be subject to the whole universe knowing everything about them. But at some point, for historical figures, people who have mattered and Judy Blume has mattered, the nature of that mattering means that their life is interesting and on the record of or off the record or tangential to the record in a way that that matters. And your right to privacy is extremely interesting. But also, people can say things. And that could be. You could have been a sibling, could have been an ex husband, it could have been whomever, a friend that you told something. There's all kinds of sources this information could have come from. You are not obligated to participate from the beginning. Nor is Judy Bloom obligated at this point to say anything. Yeah, she's not. Oppenheimer could have written this book without her participation. It sounds like he didn't. He wasn't interested in it because so much of the interesting in the meat of it would be from Bloom herself. That's a situation that biographers of dead people, they don't have the option if they just work with God.
- [23:07]
Rebecca Schinsky
It would have been much Harder for him to get a book deal on this, I think, without her participation.
- [23:11]
Jeff O'Neill
I think that's an interesting piece to think about, too, is the advance. And the whole thing is about that he's got. Got the juice. And the juice in this case is original, de facto proprietary conversation with Judy Bloom.
- [23:24]
Rebecca Schinsky
And this was, as you were saying, going to be a big book no matter what, because Judy Blume is important. But now the historical halo around it will be. Someone wrote a big biography of Judy Bloom and she never commented on it. Like, that'll be in the obituary sometimes
- [23:38]
Jeff O'Neill
that'll be in the Wikipedia page for Judy Bloom about the biography. It's like also that, like, also, Judy Blume herself didn't comment because there were speculations. Like, that's on the record now, too.
- [23:47]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah. It's a real rock and a hard place. I do not envy anybody involved in this.
- [23:51]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah. It is mentioned here that Bloom has championed another biography that just came out February 17th. It's a picture book called otherwise Known as Judy the Great. So that is interesting to enter into the record as well. I don't know what else to say about this, Rebecca. I find it quite interesting, but it's going to be a Rorschach test for different people's sense of what is in the spirit of history and what's privacy and what's fair and what's not. I think in this regard, you use the Lester Bangs of being honest and unmerciful if you're doing a biography. That's what I want from my biographer. And Oppenheimer says, I'm trying to serve the reader. I'm not actually trying to serve Judy Bloom. And I think that's right.
- [24:28]
Rebecca Schinsky
Right. And all kinds of things, as you said, could be happening if someone close to her disclosed things that she would prefer not to have been shared about her. That's. I'm sad for Judy Blume and sorry for whatever kinds of conversations she might be having to have with her loved ones about that. But this is. This is how it goes when you agree it's in the envelope of things that can happen. It's a risk that is that people take. And that's unfortunate, but I agree with the Lester Bangs approach that biographies are about the historical record. Here we are.
- [24:59]
Jeff O'Neill
I'm reading between the lines here. This is my last thought about it is it looked like Bloom maybe was thinking she would write a memoir someday and then decided not to or didn't want to and handed over some of the notes she made for a memoir. Maybe she was thinking of this would be. It would feel a lot like more like a memoir. Like it would get her story into the record without her writing the memoir itself. And then when, then you see it is a big third party account of your life and only a part of that is your own testimony and it's not the whole story. That could have been a shock of recognition. Sure. That makes a complete amount of sense to me.
- [25:39]
Rebecca Schinsky
Me, a 360 review sounds like a nightmare. And I think she's really bold for agreeing to it. It's a really brave thing. Like truly, if I were as famous as Judy Blumas, I'd be like, y' all are just gonna have to wait until I'm dead and then once I'm gone, whatever.
- [25:55]
Jeff O'Neill
Like, well, you won't even know you're dead. So that's one of the great things I won't know.
- [25:58]
Rebecca Schinsky
Right? I'll be dead. It'll be fine. Hopefully my best friend will have burned my journals by then. But like that's, it's just part of the risk. And, and we're now never going to know unless at some point down the line Judy Blume does decide to comment or like give a big interview about what happened with this or her emails
- [26:16]
Jeff O'Neill
to her agent go to the university of whatever records and someone digs it up like a secondary biography. Right. Or does a long New Yorker profile of this of something that happens here. Because now the most interesting non. Something that non book that Judy Bloom thing wrote about Judy Bloom's life right now is what pissed her off about that. Am I wrong? Like right now that's the most interesting thing about Judy Bloom's life, besides her actual work, to get into this. Well, speaking like, like our biographies that no one will write. Speaking of things that aren't going to happen, the adaptation of A Court of Thrones and Roses, as you say here, takes a real body blow in never happening.
- [26:50]
Rebecca Schinsky
Never gonna happen.
- [26:50]
Jeff O'Neill
Because the rights to it have reverted to Sarah J. Maas from Hulu. Is that my. Am I understanding this correctly? Yes.
- [26:58]
Rebecca Schinsky
Hulu had the rights and Sarah J. Maas in this, in that big two hour interview that she gave with Alex Cooper on Call Her Daddy. Like now that we're out of the first wave of headlines about it, which were she's reve that books 6 and 7 are coming in October and I think March, which people have emailed us to say it's actually one book that's being divided into two. Like listen, she's talking about them as books six.
- [27:19]
Jeff O'Neill
That's another word for two books right there.
- [27:21]
Rebecca Schinsky
Just so that people know, I guess one of the stories is the book is the story is too long to actually be physically published as one volume. So they're breaking it up into two books. But I've seen some long one volume books, so how long would it have to be?
- [27:38]
Jeff O'Neill
Rebecca, It's a great page. What's the longest single novel that's been published? No, in one. That's a really interesting question. Actually.
- [27:45]
Rebecca Schinsky
The Oxford English Dictionary exists, so I don't think it's a question of can't be published. It's probably a question of like they don't think readers will want to carry it around. It's so big. Which is super fair. Anyway, now that we're out of those headlines, deeper into that conversation, Sarah J. Maas reveals to Alex Cooper that she's also gotten back the rights to Acotar from Hulu, which had two, I believe, false starts on producing an adaptation. And she says in addition to the fact that she has the rights back, she's focused on the books right now. And if the adaptation were ever going to happen, she would want to be deeply involved to make sure that it's done the right way. And I am sorry, friends, this is all just code for it's never happening.
- [28:31]
Jeff O'Neill
Like it sounds to me. She wants George R.R. martin control. But even George R.R. martin doesn't have complete control in everything that he does. And so write your books, get your checks. Maybe some AI thing will make this like manageable to make from a budget point of view or something. I, I don't know what would need to change. I think probably the economics of the TV and movie industry at this point. I do remember I just looked it up. A Suitable Boy by Vikram set. Vikram Seth, which came out like 12 years, no, 20 years ago, 1474 pages. So I'm guessing, listen, it could be the case that just physically, but like splitting Mockingjay into two movies or the Hobbit into three, you also get to sell two $39 books rather than one $39 book.
- [29:19]
Rebecca Schinsky
The last Harry Potter movie as two or the last book as two movies, like this is maybe about reader preferences, but absolutely about sales. I don't begrudge her at all. Folks will be excited. No, get your bag, Sarah J. Maas. But like the framing of some of the pieces that I saw about this was like, rejoice, Sarah J. Maas has the rights back. We'll get this adaptation and it'll be done the right way. And like that is very unlikely. It is less likely now than it was when a major streaming company owned it.
- [29:49]
Jeff O'Neill
When you go back to the when your rights revert your matriculation rate takes takes a beating. Yeah. Can we get on like those prediction markets for this like Kalshi or whatever and see can we make a long term bet?
- [30:00]
Rebecca Schinsky
Like I'd love to make some money on that.
- [30:03]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah.
- [30:04]
Rebecca Schinsky
And I guess related we did hear from several readers or several listeners after last week's episode where we were kicking around what do we do with Acotar and which adaptations are we going to wrestle with for the fall on Zero to well read and several people who are Acotar and Sarah J. Maas fans responded and said that is actually like the worst written one. It's not the one that is a document to like.
- [30:25]
Jeff O'Neill
That makes me want to do it more. Rebecca I think they didn't realize what they were doing when they said that. That makes my knives are sharpened.
- [30:32]
Rebecca Schinsky
My mind kn There is conversation about there being more books after these six and seven. Like I I think if we do Acotar we come around to it when the finale happens. But also I'm not. I just don't want the the heat, the annoying emails from people who are like you knew you weren't gonna like this and you didn't like it and you should have had a fan on your podcast.
- [30:52]
Jeff O'Neill
Well zero, I mean we people listening to Twilight, we don't sit around and slag on the book. That's not what we do. Like we actually becomes a a a more interesting analytical project to try to make some to say something interesting on something you don't care for. Personally, I think we could do that.
- [31:08]
Rebecca Schinsky
I agree necessarily. But we'll see how it goes.
- [31:10]
Jeff O'Neill
It's not a Patreon book club for this show. That's a Lifelock. How can I help?
- [31:15]
Rebecca Schinsky
The IRS said I filed my return, but I haven't.
- [31:17]
Various Advertisers
One in four tax paying Americans has paid the price of identity fraud.
- [31:21]
Rebecca Schinsky
What do I do? My refund though. I'm freaking out.
- [31:24]
Jeff O'Neill
Don't worry, I can fix this.
- [31:25]
Various Advertisers
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- [31:30]
Rebecca Schinsky
I'm so relieved.
- [31:31]
Jeff O'Neill
No problem. I'll be with you every step of the way.
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Rebecca Schinsky
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- [32:13]
Various Advertisers
An all new season of the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney.
- [32:18]
Rebecca Schinsky
Mom talk has just been blowing up. Whitney and Jen are on Dancing with the Stars. Taylor is a bachelorette. Saying that out loud is crazy. Like that is huge. But all the cool opportunities could pull us apart. It's causing issues in everyone's marriage. My whole world is falling apart right now. It's chaos.
- [32:35]
Various Advertisers
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- [32:43]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah, in the adaptation news I'm excited about where the headlines.
- [32:49]
Jeff O'Neill
I wondered about this. Okay, interesting.
- [32:50]
Rebecca Schinsky
Here's the headline is that Billie Eilish is attacked to star in an adaptation of the Bell Jar. That's the headline because it has Billie Eilish's name. The part I'm excited about is that Sarah Pauley is directing. Sarah Pauli directs. An adaptation of the Bell Jar is a great sentence. That's excellent news. I don't know if Billie Eilish can act. We will find out. The Bell Jar will survive whether Billie Eilish is good or not. But my primary feeling about this was just like, thank God Emerald Fennell didn't get to it first.
- [33:28]
Jeff O'Neill
Sexy bell jar.
- [33:29]
Rebecca Schinsky
Oh, God. I just don't.
- [33:33]
Jeff O'Neill
A lot of Ted Hughes. You get the full Ted in the Emerald Fennell version of the Bell Jar. I mean, certainly Sarah Polly gives me confidence that someone with respect and taste will do this. Her adaptation of Woman Talking was fantastic.
- [33:47]
Rebecca Schinsky
So good.
- [33:48]
Jeff O'Neill
Oscar for best adapted screenplay. You know, this is one where I hadn't thought. I hadn't thought about this as being a modern candidate for an adaptation. I don't know. There was one in 1979 that I know nothing about.
- [34:05]
Rebecca Schinsky
Are the angsty teenage girls still reading the Bell Jar?
- [34:09]
Jeff O'Neill
I think they are. This is infinite jest for the sad literary girls. Just. It's just. They just are. In 2007, Julia Stiles was gonna lead in it. So that's when she was very Julia Stiles. I don't think. I don't know Julia. I have no sense of. I have no sense of Billie Eilish's acting chops. Maybe she's terrific. I have no.
- [34:30]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah, I. I think I'm gonna trust Sarah Pauli here. I can't imagine that she would have signed Billie Eilish up just for the Billie Eilish of it all. Which is a thing I think Emerald Fennell would have done. And, and, and now I'm just, you know, still mad about how ridiculous Wuthering Heights was.
- [34:48]
Jeff O'Neill
Have you seen euphoria?
- [34:50]
Rebecca Schinsky
So two episodes. But I like as a 43 year old person, I feel weird watching people that young having sex on screen.
- [34:57]
Jeff O'Neill
Well, I'm, I just am wondering again, I haven't seen Euphoria but my, the, the index card in my head is that is Euphoria the Bell Jar for the this generation and this like it's kind of mining similar, you know, psychosexual dramas about being unhappy and what you can get into and the world really
- [35:13]
Rebecca Schinsky
wondering and maybe it is working for the sad literary girls. I have not seen the Bell Jar have like a book talk moment so that I'd be interested in knowing that are the like mainstream normie teenage girls reading the Bell Jar or is it, is it more like in the Infinite Jest for the girls?
- [35:29]
Jeff O'Neill
Interesting. I mean if Sarah Pauley writes this and direct this, I will watch it no matter how they, who they put out in front of it. I was surprised to see Billie Eilish, that's all.
- [35:38]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah. Would not have been in my top 100 guesses about who, who Sarah Pauley or anyone would cast in an adaptation.
- [35:44]
Jeff O'Neill
But I would think for this, with Sarah Pauley's credentials and the name recognition of this book and like this is almost a fact trash to a Academy Award nomination. Whoever stars in this I would almost guarantee.
- [35:57]
Rebecca Schinsky
Unless it's terrible, unless it's very bad. Yeah. Like Wuthering Heights could have been a fast track to an Academy Award nomination. Alas.
- [36:05]
Jeff O'Neill
Alas. All right, so we do have a new CEO of Simon and Schuster. Jonathan Karp made one of the great flexes of all time, the former CEO of SNS who stepped down to run his own imprint and just do like six books a year.
- [36:19]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yep.
- [36:20]
Jeff O'Neill
And what is six books they're doing? The new CEO, is this at some. Should we bring our own game? Something or nothing? Rebecca? Is this something or nothing? Because all these need to have a CEO. Is this just replacement level big five CEO talk? Is there something else going on?
- [36:35]
Rebecca Schinsky
I think this is replacement level big five CEO talk. This guy's name is Greg Greeley. He worked at, he started his career at Simon and Schuster, then he spent 19 years at Amazon. And that's what's what the headlines are picking up on. Former Amazon executive goes to Simon and Schuster but he hasn't been at Amazon since 2012 I believe.
- [36:57]
Jeff O'Neill
Could you figure out what he's been doing? Oh, Airbnb's home business. Sorry, I'm sorry.
- [37:01]
Rebecca Schinsky
He's been doing all kinds of things. He's been in tech. Of course the fact that somebody and Simon and Schuster hired someone from Amazon is good rage bait for a certain segment of publishing. But he's not coming directly from Amazon. This if anything and as the piece from Jim Milliad and publishes weekly notes, this is a signal about Simon and Schuster's priorities. Jonathan Karp was a books guy who rose up through the editorial ranks. Greg Greeley is coming in as a business person with decade with a decades long career in business business and tech thinking. He worked on some of the reader discovery programs for Amazon prime members like first reads, prime reading and audible spoken word offerings. That might mean something for Simon and Schuster or it might just be part of his resume like some of the things you touch if you work at Amazon and you have a books background. It's an interesting thing. This feels to me like a moment in the industry where a shift towards people like there's a lot of volatility and a business focused hand at the wheel makes sense to me from this perspective. But I don't think it's anything. This is a business guy gets chief
- [38:14]
Jeff O'Neill
executive job and looking at his CV and just kind of trying to look through the matrix here. So he was Airbnb's home business, was later president and CEO of lab automation company Opentron. Opentron was my favorite transformer. I think it was a VW bug that turns into a person and then he was investor advisor to a range of technology technology. So what I'm seeing here remember to. I don't think we mentioned this in this segment we're talking about now. SNS is currently owned by KKR which is a private equity company. This is a. We're going to also take this thing and sell it or spin it out like this is a pro. Well yeah, done a lot of different kinds of jobs in he happens to have come from Amazon and done some reader focused thing. But I think more interesting than anything is that this is a competent generically capable, not generically Swiss army capable corporate executive that can do a lot of different things and would be the kind of person you might get to usher your company into a transition of some.
- [39:10]
Rebecca Schinsky
Sure. Yeah. I mean the dust settled from PRH getting shut down trying to acquire Simon and Schuster by the doj. The was it Dana Reed, who was the head of Simon and Schuster at the time, exited that position and then Jonathan Karp stepped up. I think it was probably an interim thing for him.
- [39:27]
Jeff O'Neill
Him. Yes.
- [39:28]
Rebecca Schinsky
You know, they were waiting like. And now this is another move to Simon and Schuster wants to get acquired by somebody and they've put a business person in the head role for it.
- [39:37]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, that's very interesting to see. So we'll pay attention to that one there. At the same time, what do you think of stunt publicity things like this? Rebecca? Our next story here. Thousands of authors publish an empty book in protest over AI using their work. Long story short, it's called don't steal this book and 10,000 authors. Just, just the name of it is in there. Ishiguro, Richard Osman, a bunch of British people. This was a London book fair. Kind of circulating on the floor. Is this. I guess we're talking about it. I don't know, I've like, I don't have the next sentence here. I don't know the next thing to say about this.
- [40:09]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah. My progression of response to this and to a lot of these sort of PR stunts in protest is both I support protest in general as a way of building public awareness and shifting public sentiment about things. Things. And this also feels to me like a failure in that it's very much a preaching to the choir situation. Like anyone who's not already on these authors sides is unlikely to be swayed by this act. It gets them headlines. And the point of this specific exercise was to put pressure on the UK government because officials are set to reconsider stuff related to copyright and AI usage over the next few weeks. So they wanted to do something. Do I think these authors time and money would have been better spent legally lobbying or. Yeah, right, exactly. They got their headlines. They've made a point. Artists are going to protest in artistic ways. I don't know. I, I'm not ready to say. This is totally nothing. I kind of rolled my eyes about it. Like can we please get into the part where we're. And we are in the part where people are doing things, there are lawsuits. Like this is. Is an issue, a question that's going to be resolved in court and in legislation. This is a way to try to pressure officials. But like can these 10,000 authors or even just a few of them sit down like Kazuo Ishiguro has a Nobel Prize. Surely someone in the government and maybe he's doing this and we don't know, would meet with him and hear directly about his concerns. Richard Osman, one of the best selling and most beloved authors of the moment in the uk also participated. Like if this is a. Yes. And they're doing this and they're also involved in more direct forms of action and political pressure and lobbying. Great. If this is the thing of like, yeah, let's prove. Like if this is it. Yeah. Let's make an empty book that makes a statement like we got to do better than that, y'.
- [42:12]
Jeff O'Neill
All. You know what? There's a breeze in here, Rebecca. I need to check on it. Oh wait. My Overton window is open. I want to talk about. Because you know what is not mentioned in this story? This story is about legislation where companies have to pay. This is not a story about AI companies shouldn't be able to do this at all. Has the Overton Window moved
- [42:33]
Rebecca Schinsky
in reality? Yes.
- [42:35]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, I agree with you.
- [42:37]
Rebecca Schinsky
I don't think spiritually for many off for. For a segment of authors. I don't think it has like I still see at least on social I come across of like a lot of like your somewhere between dumb, a failure or a traitor to the cause. If you ever use anything with AI, which is just not operating in reality.
- [43:00]
Jeff O'Neill
I mean I, I guess certainly those have that. But it's notable here that this is not actually about disallowing AI companies from doing this at all. It's about making sure there's a clearinghouse and calculate. So again a year or two ago, three years ago, whenever we first heard about these, that they could be used at all or should be used at all, this is really about. Okay, we are acknowledging or at least going to throw our lot in with this version of it, which is. Well, we need to be paid.
- [43:30]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah,
- [43:33]
Jeff O'Neill
there's nothing here about. I can take my name out of the hat.
- [43:35]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah. Establishing mo. Well and establishing licensing. You know, like processes and payments will be key. Maybe there will be something in that process that where an author can say I'm not allowing my copyrighted material to be licensed for AI use. Like, but all of that has to get figured out between the courts, the tech companies, the publishing companies and the authors. And it. I think you're right that something has shifted where authors, some authors are more ready to have the conversation about licensing than they were two years ago.
- [44:08]
Jeff O'Neill
Yep. I've got a couple of listener feedback things for you, Shadow. You didn't know there. Yeah, let's do it pretty quickly. Heather wrote in to say this was about the Audible pricing of the new standard 899. She reached out and contacted Audible and they Said that's a discount only available for three months. The actual price will be a little bit higher than that. It looks to me. I. I didn't do a lot of poking around, but it's going to be less than 14.99, but it is not 8.99. So there you go. Those are buyer caveat emptor over there with that one. This is another one Molly wrote in to say, make your phone dumb turn. This is. This is.
- [44:44]
Rebecca Schinsky
Praise be Molly.
- [44:45]
Jeff O'Neill
This is their strategy, which is turn on grayscale on your iPad or phone because it then feels like a rock and you don't want to interact with it as much.
- [44:55]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah, I've seen this. This tip in other places.
- [44:58]
Jeff O'Neill
Yes.
- [44:59]
Rebecca Schinsky
I think I tried grayscale for a couple days and it made it too hard for me to use my phone because I'm so used to the visual cues of, like, the color of the app. I'm trying to find that. I went to, like, iPhones have a setting where you can make your apps all the kind of basically the color of your. Whatever your. Your background photo is. And I've done that. So, like, there's just a little a blend. But a lot of people love grayscale. Do whatever you got to do out there to make your phone.
- [45:25]
Jeff O'Neill
Well, I'm just saying there's another hack. Yeah. Yeah. How about this one? So you. How about this as an app where every time you open your app of choice, TikTok, whatever you're trying to avoid, every time you open it, your phone, your app sends a random text message to someone else to your social media accounts, just puts it on blast. You don't know what it's going to be. Could be banal, could be real bad.
- [45:48]
Rebecca Schinsky
I would never have a phone ever again.
- [45:50]
Jeff O'Neill
Well, I think I just solved it for you.
- [45:53]
Rebecca Schinsky
I've been saying for years that I wish that E readers had like, little scrolling displays across the back of them so that when I'm on the train or on a plane, I could tell what somebody was reading in the same way that you can look at a book cover if they're reading in print. And I think we should do some shame displays that, like, the back of your phone is like, scrolling TikTok for the last 80s seven minutes.
- [46:14]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, that's right. It's all Timmy Chalamet. Apologies for slagging on our arts.
- [46:21]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah, he picked weird timing to do that. When Oscar voting was still open, I
- [46:26]
Jeff O'Neill
saw the Internet sort of came around him a little bit, saying, like, you know, I kind of get what he's saying, which, yeah, that's okay. I don't mind that. At the same time, let's say we also got an email from an Australian listener saying, I'm so glad you're clued into Helen Gardner and some other stuff going on on. But note that most of the Australian authors you talk about tend to be white. And I hear you, I see what you're saying. I think that's a good note. Oftentimes when we are talking about books from other countries don't necessarily apply the same lens, but we should. But I thought I would shout out, I appreciate that kind of feedback. I also want to encourage other kinds of feedback that people may have of how we can do our job a little bit more interestingly, if that's something, say, I want to do. Sophia sent in the March IT Books update. So a couple things that were above average time on chart. If you don't know. Sophia keeps track of books we've talked about on the IT books episodes. And then she has her own sort of proprietary rubric for movement. How long things are on her chart. What means to go on the chart. The oldest book still growing at 10% on Goodreads. I think this is reviews and or shelvings and or ratings. So some. Some activities. So the oldest One is from February 2025 and that is one day everyone will have always been against us. By omar El Akkad March 2025. Wild Dark Shore April 2025. I was surprised to see this. I'm glad you and I were lukewarm on the book, but I'm glad that people are reading about this topic. That's Girl on Girl, which was about, you know, the 90s 90s pop feminism. April 2025. You love to see it. The Rose to Tender Hearts is finding its sort of book club indie bookstore. And then I saved the Best for Last that we're Most excited about. April 2025 audition by Katie Amura. So there you go. Things Falling off. The Antidote by Karen Russell. Where the Ax is Buried. Mark Twain by Ron Chernow. Isabella in the Pot of Basil. Above average time on chart. I interviewed Oliver Darkshire for First Edition over there. And then the Book of Records by Madeline Tin. Things that have been retired. That means they have 30 to 130,000, a hundred thousand ratings and less than 5% growth or more than a hundred thousand ratings and 1% growth or less. So Playground by Richard Powers. That's September 2024. Holly by Stephen Kings and Love Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood, which was a June 2023 okay title and that is the last remaining June 2023 title. A really fun service that Sophia.
- [49:08]
Rebecca Schinsky
It is all of us. It is and I guess related to it books. We are next week on Wednesday as you're listening to this Monday. On Wednesday we will be bringing what's been a popular segment on the Patreon called the Hotline List. We're gonna be bringing that into a monthly episode here on the BR pod where we will talk about the books that are trending for a variety of reasons. It's probably some TikTok conversation, but also awards, contenders, things that get buzz, bestsellers, book club picks, adaptations, all sorts of things. We've had a really good time doing that on the Patreon and we're gonna start doing it sort of mid month as a companion piece to the IT books. So you guys will enjoy hopefully enjoy hearing that that next week.
- [49:50]
Jeff O'Neill
Let's talk about our current reading which is brought to you by Thriftbooks. We're we're kicking off our muddy, snowy rainy shoes in the foyer to talk about our recent readings. Thriftbooks.com of course, 19 million used and new titles in games, books, movies and more. You can buy all the books we're talking about right now on Thriftbooks. Well, actually I'm talking about. Wait, is this out yet? One of mine I'm not sure is actually out yet. I read a review copy. Also, if you're picking up Zero to well read, we have a couple librarians email us this week for zero to red saying they can tell on their holds when we talk about a new book. They can see a change in the dynamic way down in Australia for one of them too. At the same time. That was a super fun, very cool email to get over there. That was very cool to see.
- [50:31]
Rebecca Schinsky
We have made the holds list for Bartleby the Scrivener two months long at some library and that might. Yeah, that might be my best victory. Yeah, in 15 years of working.
- [50:41]
Jeff O'Neill
Pretty good one. A public domain, no less. On orders of $15 or more you can get free shipping in the U.S. i don't know what it costs to get over to Australia. Sorry I haven't looked that one up. And each purchase gets you closer to a reading rewards program. I just bought a bunch of books for my daughter for her summer reading or next reading. Next year's reading challenge is doing the organ battle of the books and it got enough where I got a couple extra books for free as a part of it. So go check out thriftbooks.com thanks to them for sponsoring the show. We have a shared front list foyer because we had homework privilege. Homework to do. Rebecca, why don't we talk for a minute about Python's Kiss by Louise Erdrich.
- [51:18]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah, Louise Erdrich's second collection of short stories as we have been corrected. She did have a collection In I think 2008 called the Red Convertible. We will be interviewing Louise Erdrich. It'll be on the show next week. Getting to talk about Pythons Kiss. These are short stories from 2012 on up through the present. This is my first time with Louise Erdrick short stories. I've read some of these in one offs like in the New Yorker. One of them, all of them were
- [51:45]
Jeff O'Neill
in the New Yorker. I looked at the back.
- [51:47]
Rebecca Schinsky
I'm now I think most of them. Yeah, most of them. One of them was in an anthology called Anonymous Sex that Hillary Jordan edited a couple of years ago. So I. And I read that one, I believe. But most of these were new to me and like Louise Erdrich, if you have not read her, can pack so much information and so much power into short sentences and you just really understand who these people are and the world that they live in. Often it's the upper Midwest, often we're dealing with Native American people, but not always. Some of them stray into almost like Jennifer Egan candy house territory. Uploading your consciousness and what's gonna happen after you've uploaded your consciousness. Like real sci fi stuff. This was the first time I had seen Louise Erdrich do anything with science fiction and I thought that was really exciting.
- [52:41]
Jeff O'Neill
The sentence we started to do some supernatural kind of ghost story, mystery stuff and there's some other elements of. Not necessarily the corporal world and some of the other books. But like this is different. I hadn't read something like this. This for sure. I'll say this just in passing. I think I preferred this to Brawler. And I like I did.
- [52:57]
Rebecca Schinsky
Oh, I for sure did. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [53:00]
Jeff O'Neill
The variability, the, the range is really on display. The. Maybe the best story I've ever written about. Written about snoring. I'm not sure. Rebecca, where's this one on the list of books about snoring?
- [53:12]
Rebecca Schinsky
I don't recall anything else I've read that that deals with snoring. Also really notably, I think the first time I've seen this. This Erdrich's daughter did the COVID design for the book and then created drawings and illustrations that accompany each story. Some of them are. It's really cool. Some of them are full page. Some of them look more like a bunch of cells from a graphic novel. But we're, we're talking with her right after this recording, and I'm excited to ask her about how that collaboration happened. It's a beautiful little hardback. I'm always happy to have Louise Erdrich on my shelf. One of our top contenders for future American winners of the Nobel Prize.
- [53:49]
Jeff O'Neill
Very much so. Her daughter's name is Aza Edric Abe or Abe. I didn't look for a pronunciation of last name. I apologize in advance for getting. I hope one of those is right. I Hope I get 50% right on the last there. You also texted me about the Flower Bearers by Rachel Eliza Griffiths. Rebecca, tell me more about the Flower Bearers.
- [54:04]
Rebecca Schinsky
Is this on your radar at all?
- [54:06]
Jeff O'Neill
No, it wasn't. I. And then once you sent it, I immediately forgot the name of it because it's like a generic title. It is. I don't really know anything about about it at this point.
- [54:13]
Rebecca Schinsky
Okay, so Rachel Eliza Griffiths is married to Salman Rushdie. And like you would think that that might be one of the more interesting parts of this book, but in fact, everything about her else about her life is even more interesting. This is a memoir by Rachel Eliza Griffiths. I read a profile of her a month or two ago and this went on my TBR where I was like, oh, let's do it. And everything I'm about to say is not a spoiler, it's in the synopsis that's on the publisher's description. But on the night before her wedding to Salman Rushdie, her best friend of multiple decades died unexpectedly. And the book opens with like a brief conversation about meeting Salman Rushdie. It kind of feels at the start like this is mostly going to be a memoir about being a poet and a writer who then meets this man who has had the kind of career that Rushdie has had and what is their life like? But as she starts talking about the run up to the wedding and the night before the wedding and waiting for her best friend Camila Moon to show up. Camila Aisha Moon is her friend who's also a poet, waiting for her to show up and then like that, she doesn't. My heart was just in my. I was listening to it on audio. She's a really riveting narrator. And then in a genius move of book structure, you. You move off of that night before the wedding and into the meat of the book is a memoir of their friendship. It rang wasu stay true Bells. This is how these two women met. What it was like to connect with someone who shared her artistic sensibilities, who understood her background, that she was able to share things about herself and her history. Her mental. She has disassociative identity disorder, which has been popularly understood as multiple personalities, but, like, really popularly misunderstood. What it was like to finally be able to talk with a friend about that and like. Like just on up through how powerful and formative the friendship was. And then to lose the friend at the height of her, like, personal romantic happiness, having this unexpected relationship with Rushdie. They get married, and then, like, shortly after they got married, Rushdie was attacked. And sort of the presentation of the book, like, the packaging of the book is she was on her just ride through life, and then these two things happened. She lost her friend and her husband was attacked. But it's really. Listen to the story of this transformative relationship. It's so powerful. It makes me want to go read all of her poetry. And just like, what else do you have to tell us about life? Rachel Eliza Griffiths, like, like, that she's Salman Rushdie's partner is like, not even in the top 10 most interesting things about her. Really says something fascinating. It's. It's wonderful. It is so good on audio that I was like, I'll do the dishes. You know, like, just to get 10 more minutes with it was. It's really excellent.
- [57:12]
Jeff O'Neill
Mine also is a memoir where I found myself listening to it in any interstitial moment I could find.
- [57:18]
Rebecca Schinsky
So glad to hear this.
- [57:19]
Jeff O'Neill
Called in the Days of My Youth, I Was Told what It Means to Be a Man by Tom Gennad. It is a memoir principally about his relationship with his father. His father is named Lou Genaud, who this undersells tremendously. A character, a handbag salesman in the middle of the century who was a rogue, a fashion plate, a crooner, a flaneur, a father, and many other things, some of which are darker or maybe darker, depending on what Tom has uncovered or what he understands about what he has and hasn't uncovered. Essentially, Tom Genaud has been spending his whole life writing about his father. The movie A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, starring Tom Hanks as Fred Rogers, is also based on a Tom Gennad piece he did that involves his father. Chris Cooper plays his father, Lujanad. I did this on audio, and it's. I'm so glad that I did. And I will never forget Lujanad, Tom's father, for this reason is that Tom Gennadd's performance of his father's lines and dialogue is amazing. Like he's got. He's a very like. He's doing versions of his dad's mannerisms and ways of speaking and his. His. His sayings and his maxims filtered in. Honestly, it could have been shorter. It was an extremely long book. I mean, Tom's doing his family history. We wander away at the beginning, towards the end of the book to like further reachers of his family history and aunts and uncles and people maybe not be related and ancestry and that stuff. I understand why Tom wanted to write that and put that in there as a listener. It gets a little fuzzy, but then it comes back around. I would not recommend this for Father's Day. I would not. Absolutely. Because. Because part of what Tom is trying to figure out is how it could be that this man he feared and loved was his idol, but also probably is a guy and maybe a pretty bad guy. Like not murdering people, but not someone you in a pattern your life on. And how to understand that, how to understand his own family history. But also there's some generational things like maybe it's not just him and what he. Where he got his habits. I'm trying to be very circumspect here because part of the book is uncovering and discovering what's happening here. But as a memoir that's about someone else. I don't remember any experience quite like this about someone I have no reason to care about. But it's. It's quite good.
- [59:41]
Rebecca Schinsky
I have been waiting for your review of this to decide if I was going to do it at all, if I was going to do it in print or audio. So now we know for sure. Is it in the zone that we sort of guessed it might be of the Tad friend in the early days?
- [59:54]
Jeff O'Neill
Yes. Memoir about fathers again, my. My only hesitation REM is very. It's a commitment. I think it's like 16 or 18 hours on audio.
- [60:03]
Rebecca Schinsky
Okay, I might do it in print then because I'll be faster that way. But.
- [60:06]
Jeff O'Neill
But you might listen to. You might listen to a bit like even the audio excerpts. Like listen to him do his father. Maybe there's an audio clip or something out there. It's worth hearing if you read it in life it. Or even if you don't. Him talking about doing his father because there's something about the performance that exceeds his ability to articulate his father's dynamic in the performance of it. So I don't know. I found it extremely compelling, warts and all, as a reading and listening experience. But I didn't care because what it did well and special was great and special to me as a reader and I don't remember.
- [60:44]
Rebecca Schinsky
So glad to get it.
- [60:45]
Jeff O'Neill
Also, if you don't want to be written about poorly, maybe don't do that thing I guess also this is one of those lessons. Not that Judy Bloom anything poorly, but having a writer Esquire feature magazine writer at this on is maybe the worst thing that could have ever happened to Luja Nod. But that's a. It's a fascinating dynamic. It really, really. I never saw the movie Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, but I really want to watch it now because I'm interested in this.
- [61:09]
Rebecca Schinsky
I've only heard that it's a five alarm snotbo and I mean yeah, yeah, in a good way, but yeah.
- [61:17]
Jeff O'Neill
Okay, so that's our show book riot.com listen you can choose an email podcast bookriot.com shoot us. Not shoot us. You can go check out zero to well read Vineland there. We got new things coming out next couple week. The train keeps a rolling the Patreon. You can find our discussion of Brawler but also new stuff coming out next week in the feed over there there. We're going to be kind of hurrying up and getting the ship in order because I'm going to be going on PTO for a little bit and then you are. So there'll be a little bit of behind the scenes twirling and some guests and other things happening. But we continue to marshall on. Thanks everyone for listening. Rebecca, did I think anything? Did I forget anything there?
- [61:56]
Rebecca Schinsky
No. That's it folks. Okay everybody, have a good week.
- [62:00]
Jeff O'Neill
Have a good weekend. The Book Riot Podcast is a proud member of the Airwave Podcast Network. Talk to you all later. Later.
- [62:13]
Rebecca Schinsky
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