Book Riot's Most Anticipated Books of 2025, The Unbearable Whiteness of the Goodreads Choice Awards and...Jeff read ALL FOURS. And Jeff and Rebecca Both Read FOURTH WING

Summary

Podcast Summary: Book Riot - The Podcast

Episode Title: Book Riot's Most Anticipated Books of 2025, The Unbearable Whiteness of the Goodreads Choice Awards and...Jeff read ALL FOURS. And Jeff and Rebecca Both Read FOURTH WING
Release Date: January 13, 2025
Hosts: Jeff O'Neal & Rebecca Schinsky

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1. Introduction and Recap [00:32 – 01:24]

Jeff and Rebecca kick off the episode by welcoming listeners to the new year amidst a backdrop of personal and global challenges. Jeff humorously mentions Rebecca's plumbing issues, setting a relatable tone.

Jeff [00:35]: "An eventful year already. Already seems to be."

Rebecca echoes the sentiment, expressing her frustration over their hiatus from podcasting and hinting at exciting news for listeners.

Rebecca [01:11]: "This is one of the longest stretches of podcast or not podcasting together. And it's been killing me because you've got news for front list foyer."

2. Book Discussions: "All Fours" and "Fourth Wing" [01:24 – 07:17]

Jeff reveals that he read "All Fours" during the break without informing Rebecca, sparking playful tension.

Jeff [01:24]: "...I read all fours over break and I have not said word one to Rebecca about it."

Rebecca and Jeff both discuss their reading experiences with "Fourth Wing," expressing their general disinterest in the book without delving into a full book club analysis.

Jeff [02:21]: "Both Rebecca and I read Fourth wing over break."

Rebecca [02:25]: "We rode that dragon."

They decide to reserve a deeper discussion for their Patreon subscribers, maintaining their main feed's focus on broader topics.

3. Most Anticipated Books of 2025 [05:42 – 07:17]

Jeff and Rebecca explore Book Riot's list of the most anticipated books for 2025, highlighting their unique approach compared to other lists like Publishers Weekly. They emphasize the diversity and eclectic choices stemming from their contributors' varied interests.

Jeff [05:54]: "They have not dropped theirs yet. I don't know that we're last like this first full week of January has really been when the most anticipated lists have hit."

Rebecca notes specific titles and authors that caught her attention, such as V.E. Schwab's "Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil" and Charmaine Wilkerson's "Good Dirt."

Rebecca [07:17]: "I have my eye on that too."

4. Critique of the Goodreads Choice Awards and Publishing Diversity [14:31 – 20:19]

The hosts delve into the problematic lack of diversity within the Goodreads Choice Awards, criticizing the dominance of white authors despite Goodreads' efforts to seed a more inclusive shortlist.

Jeff [15:37]: "It's a bunch of white people. And certainly, it's happened this year. Kelly, I'm not going to get into the specifics here unless you want to, but let's just say it's extremely so."

Rebecca adds that the awards reflect broader industry biases and the impact of social media algorithms in perpetuating these trends.

Rebecca [20:12]: "It doesn't take much and you will find that you're not sacrificing anything in quality and your reading life will get richer."

5. Book Banning News [24:00 – 26:01]

Jeff shares recent legal developments where a federal judge struck down parts of an Arkansas law that posed threats to librarians by penalizing them for not adhering to certain book selections.

Jeff [25:35]: "A federal judge struck down portions of an Arkansas law that threatened to put librarians in the clink..."

Rebecca connects this to the broader trend of book banning targeting LGBTQ+ and trans communities, noting the intensified efforts with the current political climate.

Rebecca [25:35]: "Book bans have served their purpose as the thin end of the wedge into attacks on specifically LGBT and trans folks..."

6. Christopher Nolan's Odyssey Adaptation [26:01 – 30:31]

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to the news that acclaimed director Christopher Nolan is adapting Homer's "Odyssey" into a major film slated for summer 2026. The hosts speculate on casting choices, plot interpretations, and the film's potential scope.

Rebecca [26:21]: "Christopher Nolan's next film is an epic like world-spanning adaptation of Homer's Odyssey coming out summer 2026."

They discuss potential actors for key roles, the setting of the film (ancient Greece vs. modern day), and Nolan's signature IMAX technology.

Jeff [27:57]: "We're having hot Greek summer."

7. Broader Publishing Industry News [34:08 – 38:06]

The conversation shifts to the establishment of a new imprint, Storehouse Voices by Crown (Penguin Random House), aimed at amplifying Black writers' voices. The hosts critique the initial rollout, noting the lack of diversity in the first six titles.

Rebecca [37:33]: "And they seem to all be white."

Jeff and Rebecca discuss the implications of such imprints and the importance of intentional diversity beyond superficial branding.

8. Discussion on "All Fours" and Emotional Resonance [44:01 – 63:02]

Rebecca passionately reviews "All Fours," critiquing its portrayal of a midlife crisis and the protagonist's lack of self-awareness. She contrasts it with other works like "Night Bitch," praising narratives that more effectively explore personal fulfillment and emotional depth.

Rebecca [44:01]: "But the difference here is that I never really intended to read Lonesome Dove and I will take any chance to get back into the Odyssey."

Jeff provides his own analysis, suggesting that the book fails to offer meaningful character development and critiques its handling of sexual desire as a metaphor for existential longing.

Jeff [47:42]: "... her own physical desire, her subjectness to it makes it impossible for her to ignore it. And maybe that's interesting to think about."

They agree that while "All Fours" offers some critical perspectives, it falls short in delivering a nuanced narrative, prompting listeners to seek more substantive storytelling.

9. Concluding Remarks and Patreon Promotion [63:02 – End]

As the episode wraps up, Jeff and Rebecca encourage listeners to engage with their Patreon for deeper dives into specific book analyses and upcoming content.

Rebecca [63:02]: "I'm still gonna be mad."

Jeff [63:15]: "We're gonna talk to y'all later."

They remind listeners to visit BookRiot.com for feedback, show notes, and additional resources.

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Notable Quotes:

• Jeff [14:31]: "We don't have access to marketing budgets, but that's always one or a one. Big questions..."

• Rebecca [25:35]: "If you are using social media as the top of your funnel, I think for news or for books or for all of the above, that's not really going to be a viable situation anymore."

• Jeff [47:42]: "Her own physical desire, her subjectness to it makes it impossible for her to ignore it."

• Rebecca [44:01]: "I have my eye on that too."

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Key Takeaways:

• Diversity Issues: The podcast critically examines the lack of diversity in major book awards and publishing lists, emphasizing the need for intentional inclusion beyond token gestures.

• Publishing Trends: Hosts discuss emerging trends in literature, including gender dynamics in book readership and the impact of social media algorithms on book discovery.

• Industry News: Significant updates like Christopher Nolan's "Odyssey" adaptation and the launch of new publishing imprints signal ongoing changes in the literary landscape.

• Book Critiques: In-depth discussions on specific books like "All Fours" and "Fourth Wing" reveal the hosts' perspectives on narrative depth, character development, and thematic relevance.

• Listener Engagement: The hosts encourage audience participation through Patreon, offering more detailed analyses and fostering a community of engaged readers.

For more insights and detailed discussions, listeners are encouraged to subscribe to Book Riot's newsletter, follow their social media channels, and join their Patreon community.

Transcript

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[Jeff O'Neal]

I'm Jeff.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

And I'm Rebecca Shinsky and we come.

[Jeff O'Neal]

To you in 2025. An eventful year already. Already seems to be. Rebecca is dealing with plumbing issues of various sorts. That is, you know, too much information. Not, not really. Just, you know, life stuff going on. There's places are burning, we're bearing presidents, getting ready to inaugurate a new one. Feels like a lot's happening, Rebecca. But podcasts are forever and book news is forever. Happy New Year to you and Happy New Year to all of our listeners. I guess they've heard from us and you and Vanessa on Night Pitch, but this is our first 2026, nine days.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Into the new year and our first time back in the saddle with each other since late December. This is one of the longest stretches of podcast or not podcasting together. And it's been killing me because you've got news for front list foyer.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Well, so weirdly, the headline of this show is going to be when we get to frontless foyer. So I'll tell you what. Coming up then. And then we're gonna do new stories. As some of you may have seen on Instagram, I read all fours over break and I have not said word one to Rebecca about it.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Like, I asked for like a one emoji indication of how it was going.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Not how this works.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

And you didn't even respond to say, I'm not gonna send you that. It was just.

[Jeff O'Neal]

That's the gag.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Silence. Just radio.

[Jeff O'Neal]

That is the gag. You have no idea how I'm gonna come down on this so that we're going to. That will probably take up the preponderance of our front list foyer. It's not gonna be a full book club discussion because Rebe read it for a while and didn't read it with those sort of eyeballs on. And I didn't really either. But I think we can talk about the general vibe and I think the one. It was the. The signature, the signal gap in my 2024 new book Reading. The other thing we're going to do in Frontless way and beyond. I should say talk about gaps in our reading.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

We did it.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Both Rebecca and I read Fourth wing over break.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

We rode that dragon.

[Jeff O'Neal]

We didn't plan it, Rebecca. I think we also put on Instagram or you put on Instagram and I shared to the br. It doesn't matter. But we put out on the social that you were reading it and I had already picked it up to read on the plane. Back and forth and beyond. An interesting interleaving with all fours. I think there's something to be said about that.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

I had that thought too.

[Jeff O'Neal]

But that we're gonna get in. In the frontless foyer we're gonna do a general reaction to that. But in Patreon we're going to get into it it. And the reason for that is we don't really like to put on Main when we're not into something. And I'll just spoil it for you all here. It was as we suspected. Not for us.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neal]

And we can say more about that a little bit in frontless foyer and we'll dig into it. I don't know, we'll do a half hour maybe something like that on Patreon. But we really don't like to put stuff out on Main where we're slogging on something. Now if we gonna book club something together and we plan it and we just let the chips fall where they may. That's different. We did that with crawdads. We did that with. It ends with us. And you know, we've done some other things that we thought we'd have it higher. But this one, since we didn't really plan to book club it together, we're gonna do some more amorphous thoughts there. That's in front list for you. Before we get into that, a couple programming notes. The winter draft now is out on Patreon so you can subscribe to Patreon but also a new thing. Rebecca put together some collections on Patreons and you also. So you can buy a bundle of things or you can buy some one offs and you could get the winter draft if you don't want to commit to being a forever and ever and you're going to enjoy it and you'll be so glad you did and you're probably regretting it even if you know you don't know you are regretting not being a member of Patreon over There you can go pick up the winner draft for what is it, five bucks.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Five bucks as one off.

[Jeff O'Neal]

You get it there. We also did an emergency episode, Obama's reading list that's over there. And then also in the main feedback the IT Books of January, a couple things. First Edition notes in the feed now I talked to Adam Vitkavage of Debutiful about his project over there of covering debut authors and we talked about his and my favorite debuts of 2024, mostly literary fiction. What to look forward to in 2025. Really good conversation there. Just yesterday this will be going in the feed as a special drop in for fifth edition. I might even put it in the Book Riot podcast feed just because I think people will be interested.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Yeah, nice.

[Jeff O'Neal]

I talked to Nnedi Okorafor. Her new book Death of the Author comes out week on the 14th, but I did a reading lives seg format with her and we had a whale of a time. We just had a wonderful time talking about Stephen King and libraries and bugs and scared being scared and it was great. So you can check out First Edition. I don't know if I'll put it here. I might just because and audience dev and blah blah blah. It's kind of a crossover event. Got some other stuff coming up there too. I guess that's up. That's it for now. So with that, after we've done our own advertising, we'll let some other people pay the bills with a sponsor break.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

What's the best time of day to get a deal?

[Jeff O'Neal]

All day with Jack in the box's all day big deal meal.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

You get to choose from four entrees like the supreme croissant and five tasty sides plus a drink starting at $5. So hurry in or take your time. You've got all day at Jack. Every bite's a big deal.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Book Riot Always doing things our own way. Do we have the last of the most anticipated books of 2020? I guess not. Lit up the millions. Their big preview tends to be a little laggy.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

They have not dropped theirs yet. I don't know that we're last like this first full week of January has really been when the most anticipated lists have hit. A few came out last week on the second and third, but it's been this week. So I think we are more in the standard time here than we have historically been with the best ofs. We're doing our best of earlier this year, but we're not dropping it on October 15th like Publishers Weekly. We got lots of good books to look forward to this year, though.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Yeah. And I don't know. We're not. See, these aren't our lists. So the way we do our we have done. I don't want to speak for the rest of the year, the rest of all time, because the editorial staff may decide to do things a little differently. It's both for best of and most anticipated. It is a we let our contributors and staff. There's there's basically a mini gold rush. It's like the rope drop at Disneyland and people run for the ride they want to get to. This one is you get to pick what you want and then you get to write a blurb about it. So it's not a aggregate body. It's not decided upon by acclamation or jury. If you write about it, you can, you know, claim your stake. So it tends to be more idiosyncratic because there's more idios in there. Not to put too fine a point on it. There's some crossover. We've talked about some of these books. Rebecca, did you want to highlight any of the things that were included here or trends or what do we want to say about this book right now?

[Rebecca Shinsky]

I have not been on the VE Schwab train yet, primarily because fantasy is generally just not my bag.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Which is being borne out.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

And I was paying attention when you mentioned Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, V E Schwab's upcoming novel. On a recent recording, somewhere in the holiday rush where we were doing 19 things in one week, you talked about this book. But I wasn't really on the hook for it until Danica Ellis wrote that it's about toxic lesbian vampires. And that's a story that I want to find out about. Like, that's a phrase that has my attention. I'm in. So I'm going to have my eye on that one. Of course, Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor was mentioned. I have my eye on that as well.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Sharifa this morning.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Oh, yes. Yeah, Sharifa that y'all know from having heard her on this show. She's talking about Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson, the much anticipated follow up to her debut, Black Cake. I have my eye on a lot of these. And then one of the great things about this coming from our contributor Core is everyone reads so widely and so eclectically that there are always I always discover titles through these roundups that I had not either seen or noticed as I was doing my catalog dives. So things like I Got Abducted by Aliens and Now I'm Trapped in a rom com by Kimberly Lemming, which looks super fun. There's a book by Rebecca Romney called Jane Austen's Bookshelf. A Rare Book Collector's Quest to Fodder.

[Jeff O'Neal]

I'm very interested for this.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Yeah, this looks like first edition fodder.

[Jeff O'Neal]

It really does. There may be some news about that at some point, I hope.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Yeah. Okay. A Rare Book Collector's Quest to find the women writers who shaped a legend. We've. We've talked a little bit about looking forward to the new RF Kuang book coming in August. Katabasis. Katabasis. Who knows we're gonna learn to speak Greek.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Katabasis. We got some pronunciation notes in the email, but I don't know. I don't know.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

There's a new Charlie Jane Anders Lessons in Magic and Dis year. It's going to be an interesting year. Did you have any fun discoveries from this one?

[Jeff O'Neal]

Yeah, there's always stuff I haven't heard of. I think one thing about Book Riot writ large and frankly one of the reasons the site exists is for a general interest book site we do a lot more genre than others do or at least have or that have historically done. So probably a romance site like Bad, you know, is going to have all more romance, of course, a sci fi or horror site. But I think for a general interest site we have more genre than most and some of that is I think by interest by. We have contributors that cover a specific genre as part of their, you know, their gig with us. And I also think there is an inclination to highlight things that maybe other people won't highlight. So interestingly, Onyx Storm is not on here very well. We wouldn't have quashed it if someone had said they wanted to put on there. But no, but I think there is a. Maybe that's some people are interested in, but they think people are going to hear about it anyway. There's also not a lot of, I guess the AAA stuff. Katabasis is I guess the one. There's also not a whole lot of AAA that we know about right now. I guess. V. Schwab certainly is one.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

The fall titles haven't been announced yet.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Fall. I mean, I'm still waiting. I actually do have a calendar reminder for February 6th to see if the, the Random House and some of the other stuff drops. But then there's there's comics and graphic novels and YA and middle grade. So it's really cool to see. And even if you don't read in all the genres, it's a good way of seeing what the, what else might be out there. Who to F wants to know who to f is a middle grade comic graphic novel series that my kids really liked. And I didn't know there was a new one because I don't pay attention to that space on a day or a week in, week out basis. So I was glad to see that. I think that to see, well, that Kelly is a Lumberjack Wilson fan was interesting to me. I think we may need to rope her in for maybe do some Kevin Wilson time.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Yeah, I regret that I didn't rope Kelly in for the Kevin Wilson 90s book.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Yeah. Now Sarah McLean has a debut contemporary romance, which we both like. Sarah maclean, her very first. So that caught my eye. Yeah, there's a lot of it. Silvia Moreno Garcia has a new book out called the Bewitching. I gotta say this right now. I just want to talk about this for a second. Should we talk about Peak Witch?

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Do you think we're reaching Peak Witch? Are we past Peak Witch?

[Jeff O'Neal]

I mean, look, we're certainly, the graph has certainly been up to the right for some time and Peak Witch is out there somewhere. Look, I like a witch book too. Don't get me wrong. I watch Agatha all along. I'm in for whatever here. But there seems a lot. There's a lot, Rebecca.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

There's just a lot. There's a lot of witchy stuff brewing.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Oh, very nice.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

That's right off the dome. It does seem like there's been an increase in that over the last couple of years. Maybe alongside Romantasy picking up, there's, I think they have some similar threads of like, women's empowerment sort of like especially the, like the Change, the Kristen Miller novel about, you know, women who get magical powers when they enter perimenopause. I do think we're in a nice moment, but witches have kind of also always been a staple.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Yeah.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Of fantasy.

[Jeff O'Neal]

No, I, I, and it's not, I mean, witches tend not to be in the, they, they tend not to be high fantasy. There's just not as many. Like, what's the most witch based series you can think of? I would struggle off the top.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

That's true.

[Jeff O'Neal]

So I don't know what, like, what is the witch canon? Oh, did we just summon Sharifa to write a book?

[Rebecca Shinsky]

What is the witch canon?

[Jeff O'Neal]

Yeah, I, I honestly don't know. Podcast@book riot.com. maybe there's something.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Wizards get all the action, all the shine.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Yeah. So that's just one thing I noticed both Here and in looking at edelweiss and otherwise, and we've mentioned this before, I guess I was a little surprised. And this is where the idiot. The syncreticness comes in. So maybe we get some synchronicity on the which side. I guess the inverse of that is I expected to see more horror knowing how much our. Our contributors like horror and then how popular it's been. Multiple lesbian vampire hits.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

No complaints.

[Jeff O'Neal]

If people are into that. That's a great. That's a great hanging. So I saw a couple of those things in there I didn't see. Yeah, literary fiction, like straight up literary fiction. Is there one? I guess maybe the Wilson, because the Kwong is specific.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Yeah. Spec fic. Is it good dirt? Charmaine Wilkerson, that seems.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Yeah, that's right.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

It'll be pretty straightforward literary fiction.

[Jeff O'Neal]

I'm not sure what you call Kristen Arnett. I don't think it has a speculative. But I don't know that literary fiction is.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Kristen Arnett is a vibe.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Yeah, I think it's one of one there or one of not very many. So that's telling. I thought you know, Hong Kong wasn't on here but that could just be, you know, whatever.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

So yeah, and I think the way that the contributors do this is everybody is tossing out like their one or two most anticipated titles. And I think a lot of the ones that we've just listed off are probably on folks radars but they're also big titles that as you were saying a few minutes ago are likely to get a lot of promotion publicity mentions in other places. And our contributors are I think a especially mindful of using the platform and the space of something that's going to get a lot of eyeballs on it like a list that says most anticipated books of the year to talk about the things that aren't on 500 other lists.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Right. Yeah. I like Emily Henry hasn't, you know, as. As the swallows to Capistrano. There's a new Emily Henry this summer. And that's not to say that there is no contributor at all interested. It just didn't take the top spot I guess in the Looking Backwards Variety. Kelly wrote a post that I was hoping someone might write that we talked about, I guess the kernel of this condition, which is the title of this piece. The Unbearable Whiteness of the Good Goodreads Choice Awards. And it's. It's of a theme of something we have talked about of late, which is there's this line in the West Wing where Josh Lyman, I think he's quoting Leo or someone's like did everyone ever consider that the the voters are no great shakes either? Or something like that is like the politicians are one thing, but everyone is there. When do you start to point a finger at the body politic? Because as I think I've said, and rightly so, there's been a lot of gadflyness and I've been a part of this, to be honest. And gadfly is not necessarily a bad thing about the industry's lack of diversity, both in terms of the staff and in terms of the list and in terms of perceptions of support. We don't have access to marketing budgets, but that's always one or a one. Big questions, but that is it. But as some of those other things have changed meaningfully, we have gone backwards, I'm not kidding backwards over the last five years when it comes to signs and signals of readerly attention, interest and acquisition. This is in terms of the voting for the Good Choice Awards. The Goodreads editorial staff does what they can given the structure of this awards by seeding the nominees to be much more diverse and inclusive than what ultimately wins. And what ultimately wins is a bunch of white people. And certainly it's happened this year. Kelly, I'm not going to get into the specifics here unless you want to, but let's just say it's extremely so.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Yeah, there are some eye popping charts in this piece.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Part and parcel of that publisher's lunch the other day had a breakdown of the best selling books of the year from Bookscan. Just looking at the new books right Putting backlist to the side for a second. The new books with the bestsellers quick glance, all white people. I think all the top 20 books themselves there might be. Anna Longs has one of the top 20 up there. This is something I've been following weekly week in, week out, quarter in, quarter out and I don't know how, I don't know what to do. It's it's algorithm like this ouroboros of algorithm and interest that reifies certain titles, certain identities, certain tropes. You know there's a whole thing. We'll get to that in a second. We seem to be in some kind of what's it called G lock in Top Gun where they can't the stick, they can't control the plane and it's just subject to whatever is going on and sales and attention and the algorithm and already extant biases implicit or explicit in the reading public has led us to be. I'm at a spiritual low point about it myself, and I don't know how to get out of it. That's kind of where I am. Rebecca, I'm not sure what. I don't know what else to say at this point.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Yeah, I'm in a similar place because it was really encouraging for several years to see readers actively talking all over the Internet about bringing intention to intention and attention to the kinds of books that they picked up. And this is where we actively push back against the leave us alone, we're just looking for a good story arguments. If that's the way that you want to approach your reading life, fine. You're probably in the wrong place here. We care that the world of books and reading represents a world as diverse as readers are. And when the Goodreads Choice Awards, which is the biggest publicly voted on, really the only big public voting situation for books, especially in the US has such not even just predominantly, but it's dominated by white people every year, what we see is that not enough readers are paying attention to this and many people are. And if you are paying attention to it, this doesn't mean you're giving up good stories. I want to address that in the, in the statement leave me alone. It's not reader's fault. We just want to read a good story. You're implying unintentionally, I think, I don't believe anyone is being intentionally racist, but you are implying that if you were to go out and intentionally pick up books by authors of color or books by queer people, you would be sacrificing something in story quality. This is the oldest negative response to diversity initiatives that exists and the most cliche one, and it's simply not true. There are incredible books by people of color that deserve to be read and deserve to be celebrated. And when they are read and celebrated, and when we reward publishers with our dollars, publishers produce more of those things. This is how the economy works. We need this to happen in all the realms of publishing. So we have been pushing on the publishing industry itself to become more diverse and to give book deals to more authors color and to give big marketing budgets to more debut books by authors of color to get their names out there. But if readers are not paying some attention here, they will just revert to what's dominant and that is books by white people. If you are not paying attention, and this has to do with like just noting are all the books on my TBR right now.

[Jeff O'Neal]

It doesn't take much.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

By white people.

[Jeff O'Neal]

It doesn't take much.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

It doesn't take much and you will find that you're not sacrificing anything in quality and your reading life will get richer.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's just, I guess. And there's news today and I didn't actually. Their website went down, so I didn't have the actual story. But Crown has started, which Crown is an imprint of Penguin Random House, a new imprint called Storehouse Voices, I believe it's what it's called that's focused on black writers and authors. You know, it's a whole new imprint.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Great.

[Jeff O'Neal]

And that's an interesting counter narrative to the we're firing all the black people story that was going on. So I don't think that's going away. And then you look at, say, the best books of the century list that the New York Times Curate is not the right word structure. Solicited system. Yeah, solicited. That was a different. That was a different makeup. So I do think that people who think about books in aggregate have been reading differently and therefore we get a. The awards are different.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neal]

The publishers are different and the readers are worse about.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

I think this is. This is an algorithm problem and a social media problem and it's only going to get worse. Like this week, Mark Zuckerberg announced that they are like meta is removing fact checking on all meta properties. So Facebook, Instagram, they are also removing checks on language that have. That have been in place previously to protect LGBTQ folks and people of color. You're going to be able to like say all kinds of racist, sexist, homophobic stuff on those platforms and it's going to be okay. The more inflammatory it is, the more the algorithm will like it. At least historically, that is how things have worked. These algorithms trend politically conservative. Users of them trend politically conservative. The content that you are served, unless you're really actively seeking out other stuff. And it's harder and harder to actively seek out other things because the algorithms don't want you to. They want you to seek. They want to show you what they believe will suck you in. So it's not that like someone is sitting down at TikTok and programming an algorithm that says only surface books by white people. But if you go on there looking for videos about fourth wing or about Acotar, you're likely to get served more videos about those things and then more videos about other romantasy books by people who are white, about people who are white. There are people out there making content on social media, talking about these politically progressive ideas and highlighting books by people of color. But the algorithms suppress political content, politically progressive content, and especially now that they are making it okay and are amplifying content that is racist, sexist, homophobic, it's going to be even more difficult. So if you are using social media as the top of your funnel, I think for news or for books or for all of the above, that's not really going to be a viable situation anymore. If you are wanting to do something about this and pay attention to it, you want to support the industry's efforts to become more inclusive and more diverse, you need to be seeking out direct resources that are not controlled by algorithms. Whether this is subscribe to newsletters from websites that do it, you know, go directly to those websites, pay for subscriptions to resources that are going to intentionally give you this kind of information.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Yeah, I mean, I think it's a simple question. If you or someone in your life is like, well I just read what I read and the last 25 books were all by white people or 95%.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Yeah. How do you feel about that?

[Jeff O'Neal]

Just ask, ask yourself how did you get there? And do you feel good about that? Because as Rebecca said, the, the counter to that story is why people buy write better books. And that's for me a non starter to consider as a possible reason for that happening. So go read Kelly's long piece. She gets a lot more into it. She has her own thoughts about why there's been ebbs and flows. Really, really solid work from Kelly over there. Quick news on the book banning front. A judge struck, federal judge struck down portions of an Arkansas law that threatened to put librarians in the clink for, I mean, I guess what you could imagine not policing, not adhering to or otherwise, you know, putting books on shelves that the powers that be didn't want there. So I'm not sure. I'm not a legal scholar. The New York Times does a good job of wrapping this up. This is written by Eduardo Medina in the Times. I, I, you know, one of my hypotheses was that, that with the incoming party being in power in three houses of the federal government that there would be less organized right wing attention on this because they, they took home the Christmas ham. And I, I'm wondering that, and I don't know if this is part of this. I'll be curious to see what else goes on. It could be also they're doubling down that you see the, you see that you broke through the enemy lines and you follow through and try to mop them up. But my feeling is just reading the Tea leaves. Both. Both on the left and the right. That the dynamics of what people are going to saddle up for are different now than they were three or four years ago.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

I think that's right. I also watched that. I also think that the book bands have served their purpose as the thin end of the wedge into attacks on specifically LGBT and trans folks and that now that, that the right wing is in control of all three portions of the executive branch, that we will just see them go straight for that. Like, you don't need book bands as a thin end of the wedge when you can just take a bill to.

[Jeff O'Neal]

The house, eat the ham. Yeah. Okay. We've been talking about this, what seems like forever, but we actually have not talked about it on the show, which Christopher Nolan announced that he is a Homerhead and will be teaching a seminar at Cal State Fullerton about the Odyssey. That's what the news is, right?

[Rebecca Shinsky]

No. Christopher Nolan's next film is an epic like world spanning adaptation of Homer's Odyssey coming out summer 2026. I texted you this over the break with just all caps like I am made of exclamation points. The cast that's been announced so far is already stacked. Tom Holland, Zendaya, Matt Damon, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong'o, Charlize Theron, Anne Hathaway, everybody's attached. We've done some speculating about who's going to play who. My best guess is Tom Holland as young Odysseus and Matt Damon as Odysseus returning home. We don't know anything. Like, is this a period piece? Is it a modern day spin on the Odyssey? It could be anywhere in between. But folks, get ready for 2026. We're having hot Greek summer.

[Jeff O'Neal]

I mean, all we know about is the cast and that's based on the Odyssey and it's a myth and mythic action epic shot across the world using brand new IMAX film technology. I feel like it's going to be set in ancient Greece.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Me too.

[Jeff O'Neal]

I just feel like it's going to be. I don't think it's going to be.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

I'd be one because we're reading about.

[Jeff O'Neal]

A Brad Pitt project that was the Odyssey in Space, which I thought was kind of cool but like that's what Star Trek was. So I'm not really sure would be doing there. And just given that he likes to shoot, you know, beautiful scenery with IMAX and, you know, get some. We can get some ruins. We get some ships going on some triremes. We can burn Some bulls, but we get to go see lotus eaters and Giants. Like $250 million budget. I saw. I've spent way too much time trying to figure out the casting for this.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Me too. I'm gonna be really excited to get the details of it. Who is playing Penelope? Who were the sirens?

[Jeff O'Neal]

So the big. Let's do five minutes on this.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Okay?

[Jeff O'Neal]

Okay. Do your. Do your thing. So the big roles are Penelope, Odysseus, Telemachus. Telemachus. If we're going to do young, young Odysseus, maybe, you know, do we have any of the other. The Nostoi, the Greek generals that come back, including Menelaus and Agamemnon. We have Penelope and then we get some really juicy sort of Circe, who's going to be a siren. Who's going to be the cyclops. Maybe Matt Dillon is of. Matt Dillon. Matt Damon is just the voice of the cyclops. Maybe he's at. There's all kinds of stuff we could do here.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

There is.

[Jeff O'Neal]

I don't know.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

I could see Charlize Theron as Penelope. I could also see Anne Hathaway as Penelope.

[Jeff O'Neal]

I mean, it can't be Zendaya because she's too young.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

She's too young.

[Jeff O'Neal]

She's too young.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Yeah. And I think. Too young.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Yeah, I think she's too young, too. Zendaya or Luongo. Whoever gets Cersei is gonna. And not just on Pygmy, just on the screen.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

My guess about Tom Holland and Matt Damon is just that they look enough alike that you could sell them as the young and old versions of a character. Robert Pattinson sort of is. Apart from that, maybe he's Telemachus, but also maybe Daemon is Odysseus and Tom Holland is Telemachus, which I think was your guess.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Damon as like Agamemnon would be awesome.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

That would be great too, don't you think?

[Jeff O'Neal]

The producers of the Return were like, we just.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Yeah, we got this movie out before Christopher Nolan started talking about it. Man, I'm going to have so many questions. We'll be following this and I fully intend to make this a thing for the show next summer.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Read along.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

We'll do a read along. Probably Emily Wilson's translation of the Odyssey. I would love to get her on the show. Maybe the man. And maybe we'll do some Odysseus related stuff. Maybe we'll read Cersei. Maybe we'll read some of the spin offs.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Is often thought of as a. And that went so well. Our miniseries on that was just such a hit that we've really been looking for.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

But see, the difference here is that I never really intended to read Lonesome Dove and I will take any chance to get back into the Odyssey. But who in our industry is sitting around with free time to read the Odyssey? See if they can't say it's for a work project.

[Jeff O'Neal]

How dare you. How dare you. Rebecca's been fully home repealed. It's great to see. We love to see it. Welcome.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

I'm so ready.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Yeah, I love the. I love the Odyssey. The lead's better, but whatever. We'll take what we can get.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Maybe he'll do that next.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Speaking of dudes and reading constant, Grady got into it. I love when someone's like, take one of these things that's flying around and let's really do this about the crisis of men not reading books. I love this subhead the Untraceable Zombie stat heard around the Internet. What's I I encourage people to go read this. I don't want to hollow out the crab meat out of this particular crustacean. It's worth looking at. But Rebecca, is there anything you want to highlight from this? I thought this was a really good and deep divey post, really.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Since the election, there's been a lot of hand wringing about what's going on with the men. And I'm certainly concerned about what's going on with the men. But as book people or want to do a certain corner of pub has been like, if men would just read more fiction, this would all be better. Which, let's just put that over to the side. But that's the case that they're making the zombie stat that won't go away is that like 80% of fiction is bought and read by women. And that's what great Constance Grady is really digging into. But she also refers to a great piece that Jason diamond wrote this summer called we are doing Men don't read books discourse. Again, there was a lot in like late August, there was a lot of like, where have all the literary men gone? And I just want to say like, and I think we're on the same page here. Reading is great, but the thing we're really trying to solve for is where is like empathy, where is connection, where is concern for people whose experiences are different from yours? And books are certainly a way to develop that, but they are not the only way. They are not the best way. There is not a moral valence to reading over pursuing that kind of information or personal development in some other Fashion. So I am less concerned with why are the men not reading if in fact they are not reading. Which Constance Greedy will give you the answer to.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Yeah.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Than I am with the bigger issues there. And this is something I'd like to see publishing sort of pay a little bit more attention to. Like can we not try to offer books as the solution to all cultural ills and we.

[Jeff O'Neal]

I mean one way encounter this is on the. There is a 10 difference. Basically by gender. People identify by gender. I guess it's a caveat that's important. No, I know that's a caveat. It's important that the number of people, the number of men who say they read a book in the last year is about 10% lower than number of women who don't. I guess we could argue about whether that's meaningful. Unless you want something to be exactly tied. That's pretty close, right? Like it's. It's kind of hard to feel like there's. The sky is falling. The difference, the more distinct difference as you say, is in the fiction breakdown. What's not. What people don't say is why aren't women reading nonfiction? Because if men are only buying 20% of fiction or only reading 20% fiction, only 10% off, that means they're over indexed on nonfiction. So why isn't there the women aren't reading nonfiction?

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Right. Like where's the hand wringing op ed about like women should put down all this romantasy and go read a book where you learn something.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Go read about a dead president. I mean we're being facetious here but like you could make a similar. You could make the inverse argument for nonfiction that it's made and that just I think is to highlight that. Okay. We're kind of, kind of arguing about the margins I think on the whole. And unless you think that literary fiction is way over indexed into importance, then I don't see a lot here that I'm super. Would I like everyone to read a little bit more? Yeah. Would I like dudes to pick up more literary fiction? Sure. But I like more women to pick up nonfiction. Sure, I guess. I don't. I don't. I'm having a hard time. My hackles are not rising of their own accord.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

I have a hard time caring about it. Not least because it's not as if like the lit bro, has not historically been problematic as well.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Yeah.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Like I'm not sure we need more of the literary men in the world.

[Jeff O'Neal]

I think you might be onto something though in if we're Thinking about vibes rather than reality, which is important to wrestle with. I think when we talk. Talk about these issues, it's. We don't have friends, enazance, notwithstand or, you know, put that to the side. We don't have a torch bearer who's 35. I mean, I'm just saying this out loud. Who's got a couple of Pulitzers or, you know, who's can be on the COVID of Time magazine. I, I'm not even sure you would go with that. I don't think necessarily that's a loss myself. There's plenty of good one amongst many equals, you know, first among equals. I don't think we need to do that stuff anymore. But in the. In a world where we had Nasgaard and David Foster Wallace and Franzen and then some other people and that, and then going back to Updike and Roth and the things before that, it does feel like that lineage is in abeyance or maybe in a down draft. I don't care. I really don't care about that myself. There's. There's plenty of stories for everybody. I just, I can't get that worried about that right now. When I get a year coming off James and personal Everett's ascendance, I cannot, I have zero time for. For what abouts. I don't, I don't have any time for it. None whatsoever.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

I think in general, a what about is a good signal that like this is maybe a path you don't need to go down.

[Jeff O'Neal]

An imprint News Jenna Bush Hager. I think this is a response to our long questioning about why don't these people do this.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Jenna Bush Hager Partners Random House to have her own imprint. A Thousand Voices Times rhpg. Now, Rebecca, let's do a little branding exercise here. I. I'm loathe to tell anyone who's a multimillionaire on television what is Thousand Voices. X, R, H, P. What do we. I mean literally, what are we doing?

[Rebecca Shinsky]

The good news I have for you is that no one cares about it.

[Jeff O'Neal]

So what is this going to. Why is it called Hager Books? I'm not kidding. Why is this?

[Rebecca Shinsky]

No, that's a great question, Jeff. The bigger question, or I think the most interesting detail of this, is that the imprint will function separately from her Read With Jenna book club, which I take to mean that we're not going to see Thousand Voices Times RH PG titles show up as Read With Jenna picks. She's not gonna cross pollinate or cross contaminate that way. So she's, she's playing on her personal brand and I assume like her personal social media will be the source of advertisement for a lot of these titles. It does not matter. Like, I really do believe that for 98% of the imprints in publishing, you could just remove any indication of the imprint from the book and it would sell the same way. Readers are not going into bookstores looking for where is the latest Hager books release, where is the latest Thousand Voices release. But it doesn't, I don't, I don't know why they're not giving it a simpler and more recognizable name if they're going to, if publishing is going to like continue insisting that imprint branding is a thing readers should pay attention to or continue deluding themselves that readers do pay attention to it. At least make it a good brand.

[Jeff O'Neal]

And Thousand Voices is strong. We're starting with six here. Let's be careful.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

And they seem to all be white.

[Jeff O'Neal]

I saw that too. I think someone brought this up in Slack. I don't want to say who because I actually don't. Am not 1000% sure that Hager has bush. Hager, I don't know how, I don't know how she prefers to be referred to, has done a, I don't know, pretty good. But has included non white people before in this day and age. And I'm going back to our own conversation. You get six cracks at the pinata and all the. All that falls out is vanilla Taffy. Yeah, I mean I just don't know, man. I don't know what to say about the book club.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Picks have been, I think almost half by people of color. Like someone is paying attention to the diversity of the read with Jenna selections. And the question that one of the contributors raised was, okay, so is it that it's somebody at NBC who is like pre vetting titles for her and they're making sure that it's a great loaded. Did the Penguin Random House folks that passed manuscripts to her for consideration, like how diverse was the pool? Did she have an all white pool to pick from or did she just end up picking all white books and did nobody notice this? Like that is. That's the publishing problem. There is like that's where they're responsible is did no one notice? Did they notice and not care? It does matter. In this day and age if you announce your new publishing venture and you roll out with an entirely white slate of releases.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Yeah. It's one of two things. You didn't notice or you did notice.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Right.

[Jeff O'Neal]

And which of those. Would you rather be this story I dropped in here you didn't put in here, so I'm not sure you had seen this.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Oh, no, I did read this.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Okay, you did. Again, I don't want to get into this because it's too long to get into. But it's a New Yorker, a long story. I think on the plagiarism case that we talked about or at least mentioned at one point. Katie Walmart did a great job. It's a really. I mean, this is New Yorker long form cultural writing. You don't even get this at the times just because they don't give space to this. Maybe in the magazine, but this case. And she uses the case, I think tellingly in great New York fashion, New Yorker fashion, to talk about the wider. Yes, dominance, condition, environment around romantic scene, why it's popular and what it is, and how it might be not too surprising that a case like this cropped sort of grew organically about how these romantic books are marketed, quote, unquote, written by multiple authors. Some of them are executives there at some of these imprints. And this, these two specific books that when you look at the similarities side by side, the circumstantial evidence for the one being influenced by the other one feels. I don't know what you thought. Feels very. That's a lot of monkeys typewriting infinitely to get that, if you hear what I'm saying.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Yeah, it's. And I thought Waldman did that really well in the piece that she says it feels like, or it seems like it has to be the case that one of these writers plagiarized from the other one. And yet when you dig deeply into how the tropes of a genre work, it is actually quite possible, like she introduces reasonable doubt. And I think you can go back to like Stephenie Meyer was sued for something similar. I believe there are cases like this in most of the big genres. It's some stuff around this camera up related to EL James as well, that Waldman clearly has read a lot of Romantasy, trying to get her head around what the genre is and then specifically compares the details of the two titles in question. I found this to be like also perfectly timed for our joint reading of 4th Wing. But this is a really terrific piece. And if you have not read any Romantasy, it's also a good way to try to sink your teeth into what's going on there.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Yeah, it's really good. It's a wonderful piece. Also, as a very. I don't know if the cartoons in. In the body of these change, but there's a really funny one about bugs and ceiling lights in the middle of mine too. Just a secondary a recommendation for that. Okay, we're gonna do another sponsor break and then it's time for our front list foyer. I can't remember we talked about maybe holding in abeyance some of the other books that we'd read over break. I've got a laundry list of stuff. Anything you mentioned right now before we talk a little bit about.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Yeah, just two that are out this week that I read that I. That I liked and just want to shout out. The Heart of Winter by Jonathan Evison. Big novel. I sank into it on a snowy weekend about a long married couple, like 60 years married couple that moves back and forth in time between the present day as one of them is going through some health issues and they're navigating like end of life questions and the kinds of things that people face in their 80s and 90s and flashes back to when they met in the 50s and then moves all the way up through the course of their relationship, their marriage, the development of their family. Really beautiful. Felt like a spiritual cousin to I married you for happiness, which is one of our, you know, book riot pod, Mount Rushmore titles. But what Lily Tuck does there in like 200 pages, Evison, like expands to 500 and lets you really dig in. I really enjoyed that. And you'll never believe me by Carrie Farrell, which I hadn't heard of until I was flipping through some most anticipated titles. She apparently known as the hipster grifter in the early aughts.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Oh, that's catnip for you, man.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Yes. Like, there were multiple gawker pieces written about her.

[Jeff O'Neal]

I. That's. We never. Like, that's. You don't want that.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

You don't want that. Like, I was like, how did this happen in the early aughts? And I didn't hear about it.

[Jeff O'Neal]

You don't want Oliver Sacks to knock on your door with a notepad and you don't want multiple gawker pieces.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Yeah, this is high on the list of literary things that you don't want to occur. But she sort of of accidentally became a scammer. Like, it starts with passing something. Well, it starts with like passing a bad check to a friend because she's short on cash. And then it expands into like meeting men at bars specifically for the purpose of stealing money from them, and then misrepresenting her resume to get a job at Vice. And then she goes to prison. And now she is like a prison rights activist and all sorts of. It was fascinating. It was really juicy. I read it in print. But it would probably be great on audio.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Orange is the new hack. Okay, let's do it. I did a lot. Let's. Let's do it. I have a bunch of stuff to talk about, but we're gonna be running long on time anyway and I'll save it for later. None of it is super timely right now. All fours first.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Well, yeah, because we're gonna do fourth wing, mostly on the Patreon.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Okay. Yeah. I read the book on my Kindle and it was spicy.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

I'm like sweating right now.

[Jeff O'Neal]

I liked it better than you.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Okay.

[Jeff O'Neal]

I think I understand better knowing you why it got under your skin, especially the acclamation for it. For those of you who don't know it is the story of a Miranda July shaped figure. I would think it's. It's fair to say who. I don't know if Miranda July is actually 45 or was when this book up. She's 45 and doesn't know how unhappy she is. I think is a way to put it at first. Has a windfall of money and is going to use it to spend a week at the Carlisle Hotel. I was going to say there's some nice hotels. You could spend 25. Anyway, the Carlisle is great, but boy, is it expensive. But she decides to drive along. She tries to drive to have an experience and then only gets 30 minutes outside of her home, which is in Southern California somewhere. Because she sees a dude that's a.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Very young dude, very.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Well, he's 31. We can adjudicate if we want. And becomes obsessed with him. And they enter into a everything but relationship, I think is the way to put it. He becomes a more complicated person and she becomes a less one, I guess, interestingly, as the story goes on. And then she goes back home having not consummated that relationship in the course of spending time in this town of Monrovia. I think my favorite part of the book, frankly, was her nesting in this hotel room and kind of the weird stuff going on around that that she pays this dude's wife $20,000 to be an interior decorator for. It's almost like a Charlie Kaufman short story. I feel like that little bit Schenectady, California might be the. The name of it. And then what happens when she goes home and sort of deals with the fallout of what she hasn't learned about herself, I think is a fair way of Putting it and ends with. And I'm going to start spoiling it here in about 30 seconds with basically having an open relationship with her husband. They have a young son, Sam. They are in second grade, I believe, a young son. And they stay together, it seems largely not to break up his existence. Though they do have a certain new kind of detente. I think if I can tell me if I've got this at all right. I think the thing that bugs you, and I've heard you say some of this, but I'm gonna. I'm gonna say it in my own words is how available other models for not having a midlife crisis for women are. Is that fair? Like, this is a story that's out here. It doesn't seem like there's not a lot of new ground being broken here. And in fact the character doesn't seem to be aware even of like Mad Men or something of like. Of like the whole history of feminism.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Weirdly, she's in this like finger trap where she talks as if she's very self aware, but she's completely unselfaware. And the other thing that I really bristled at was the like. But my art of it all.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Yeah, I actually didn't pick up as much of that. I thought actually the art was very underplayed. I think the thing that the telling metaphor for me to unlocking it is if I distance July from the July Light character. There's a world in which the book is a critique of this person rather than a full throated sort of. Yeah, that is more of a critique of her own laban, you know, her own outlook on life and her own understanding how the thing is put together.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

I think that's right. And that's the kind of book that I maybe wanted it to be or I. I think there are a lot of similarities speaking of the Carlisle Hotel between a lot of. There's a lot of conversation between all fours. And the movie Baby Girl that's out now, which is also a book or that's also a movie that is fundamentally about relationship problems that would solved if the people ever had a conversation. And Baby Girl forces the conversation in a different way. The characters in that film are also experimenting with like what do I want here? How do I get what I want? But they. Nicole Kidman in that movie recognizes that there's something she's not getting and she goes to pursue it in a taboo way or an unconventional way and that. That she is aware of it. And then that ultimately like, I guess to partially spoil Baby Girl. There is a conversation at some point I thought a lot about All Fours when I watched Baby Girl, which I thought, like, this is an interesting. This film is a conversation about shames that people have ways that relationships don't meet needs. Like prisons of our own making in some ways and how relationships can be prisons of our own making that we don't realize we're constructing. And Miranda Jolai's character here feels like she's in prison and has not realized it's a prison of her own making.

[Jeff O'Neal]

I think that's right. And I think there's several ways that that's constructed. I mean, maybe Gilded Cage is an interesting kind of metaphor too, which is a long standing metaphor in feminism. So I didn't invent that metaphor as I like to invent metaphors. I can't come up with that good that fast. There's a moment in the first quarter or part of the book where she talks about her working life. And I kind of almost put the architect feet to the side like it happens to be art. But I feel good, like you could stand in for work in a lot of ways. Where her mode of working is to sort of disappear for years and work in a garage at a desk where one leg is too short, but she never addresses it and then emerge with a big thing and get a big ta da and then go back to it. And I'm reading a book right now called Life in Three Dimensions. It doesn't come out for a few weeks. It's about psychological richness. This is Rebecca quoted in a huge number of ways.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

This is me taking notes as you're mentioning this title.

[Jeff O'Neal]

And so it's. It's like a fortuitous reading because I think she mistook a way of being that she had constructed for a meaningful slash happy slash psychologically rich. It's actually a pretty arid existence. We don't hear she has friends. And she has this one friend, Jordy, where she gets together and eats junk food with them as sort of the daily roam springer. And what. And then. And then the rest of the time she's very regimented about her work, even what she eats and what she makes. Even her sexual relations with her husband is very. It's like once a week. And if you don't do that, then you have a. And you have to initiate in a certain way. And I will talk no more about any of the sex stuff because I really don't want to. I don't actually.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

It's the least interesting part of the book and actually That's a piece that rubbed me the wrong way as well. Is that July uses, I think, some kind of out there sexual fantasies that the character, that the character has. And some like very graphic sexual language that felt like a. That felt not a gimmick, but it felt like that was a way to get attention for this character rather than actually like diving into stuff.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Yeah. And I guess my read is if I think of sex not just as a metaphor, but as a part is in this moment that she has seeing this person that she's super attracted to. I think the aridness rigidity that she didn't understand was she had enforced and society enforced or whatever sort of it happened to her with maybe her implicit agreement falls away. Like her own desire is strong enough for the trappings to become less important. Important. So she'll lie about where she is, she'll lie to her friends. She won't. She won't even do what she likes to do normally. She's not even making stuff. She's sitting around eating, watching rom coms until 4:00 starts. And what she's lacking gets expressed as a sexual desire. But I think it's an existential desire for a richer, more multifaceted life.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

I think that's right.

[Jeff O'Neal]

I think it's more interesting. Maybe, you know, July or other people would say no, this is actually about sex. I could believe that. But for me, I think it's more interesting to think about how. How sex becomes a conduit to exploring the richness of what's out there that wasn't available to her. And her own desire is she. Her own physical desire, her subjectness to it makes it impossible for her to ignore it. And maybe that's interesting to think about. Like. What is like is for some people, it's their encroaching mortality. Here it's a little bit of sexual desire as mortality in perimenopause, which is interesting. We don't get a lot of that, but that's interesting. Interesting too. But the, the stereotypical male's midlife crisis is not too differently figured. Honestly, no.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

And we roll our eyes at those novels.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Well, I don't know if we roll. I mean, we. It's become a cliche. And the cliche is you didn't even realize that what you thought the life you want is actually not the life that was filling you. It's the Don Draper.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Right. And that's the. I think I've heard about life in three dimensions. Because like the, the gist there, right, is that it's not just about happiness and meaning, but also about having interesting new experiences. Yeah. That make life feel rich, richer. And one of the things that I really didn't care for with this character, like, I deeply believe that our lives, when you are like a white person in upper middle class economic situations, your life really is a product of the choices that you make. Like, and the character in this book is in that situation. She has a lot of autonomy, more autonomy than she realizes. More confidence, control and more options than she realizes. And she never comes to the conclusion that like, oh, I did this. I put myself here.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Yeah. Though I do think, I mean, I think there's enough story, I think more stories about. I guess one of the most interesting moments to me, to put it differently, is when she broaches that she's had it. It gets complicated. But she has had a sexual relationship outside of her marriage with her husband Harris. And in broaching that he's like, I kind of am interested in that too. And the polycule, the open marriage, not something I'm super interested as itself, but as a metaphor or as a instance. Maybe it's even better an instance of, you know, maybe there's more way to do this thing than people think. There's more way of living your Oliverian, wild and precious life than you think. And it's a failure of imagination to some degree, but it's also a failure of trust or hazarding that with the people in your life. And. And maybe outside of what the shoulda woulda, coulda is, they're going to be mad or this is what we're supposed to do, there is more room to invent and create. I think the counter narrative here in this book is interesting is that, that the polyco, the open relationship, is not a salve. It doesn't all go. It's not happily ever after for everyone. It's not a disaster. It's not a cautionary tale. It's that, well, it's kind of like Emerson's about travel. You bring your giant with you, where you go, well, you're going to bring yourself into whatever, however many sexual partners.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

You're just going to be a mess with multiple partners.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Yeah. The problem probably isn't monogamy. It might, it might be to some degree. But to think that, that more people, that you're having an emotional, intimate relationship was going to be simpler is like a math problem. Like you didn't think this all the way through.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Yeah, I mean, I really felt conflicted about this because I am glad that we're having a moment where women get to write about all of this stuff in the way that for generations men get to got to write their midlife crisis novel. I'm glad that night exists. I'm glad that baby girl got made I free and loved the substance. Like, I'm so glad that women are getting to do this. And I also want to to see not just messy stories be told. It's okay for us to be messy. But I, like, I fundamentally did really judge this character. Like, I just thought she was weak. Like a lot of this is saddle up and say the thing, sister.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Yeah, I certainly think, I mean, and Harris, the fella, I think has equal share in going through the motions for a lot longer. I do think, even though frog boil isn't the thing, I think people can get used to a lot, lot of things, right? Like your happiness is more of a static point than most people think, for good and for ill. And he doesn't seem to have the courage to hazard something once in until he's given basically a get out of jail free card in the form of her own infidelity. Right. Only when it's like, well, I can't get in trouble does he deign to express that he'd like to role play and there's this woman that he likes and other things that are going on to it. Because, yeah, I kept thinking about outside of Harris and the kid and texting with friends, where else is she getting fulfillment? Because the art doesn't seem to be doing. She's on a hedonic trail, but she's already, she's already reached the mountaintop. Right? She's well enough known, she has plenty of money. Money doesn't seem to be an issue. If she gets $20,000 from a Japanese whiskey company, she can blow it on a week at the Carlisle. But, like, what ideas are she engaging with? Has she traveled? Like, what, what movies does she like? I mean, honestly, it was like, where's the rest of the life?

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Right? Like, it kind of connects to what we were just saying was like, let's put down the argument that books can save us from everything. Like, art is a part of life and it is so important. We believe that and we are here to ride for it. But telling yourself the story that making art or engaging with art is the only thing that will fuel you or that, like, man can live on art alone, There's a conversation to be had about that and there is a version of this book that is a critique of that way of approaching life. And like I would love Miranda July to go to that place.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Yeah. I think it's interesting to think about like the upper. The highest echelons of art world and it's interesting how evacuated this character's art is. Is it painting? Is it mixed media? We don't have any sense of like what the art is. Is at this point it almost doesn't matter. It seems right.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

The only art we see her make is those like interpretive dances that she does on camera for which are a.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Lover reaction to his own.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Right.

[Jeff O'Neal]

It's all reflected in. In its own way. But she goes to all these art events and everything else, but she doesn't talk, they don't offer anything. She doesn't learn anything. It's all pro forma networking, social class, performance stuff. There's no. And like I saw this thing and it moves. Moved me. There's no. I went to the. The forest and I had a great experience. It's a very. I. I think if the best ver or the most interesting version to me is like how routinization creeps in for every. Almost everyone. But it can take so many different forms, you may not even realize it's happening.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Yeah. And I think especially since I just read and saw Night, I think there's a lot. There are a lot of ways that these books are. Could also be in conversation with each other. But I think Rachel Yoder did that more effectively. Like she shows the mon of what it is like to be mostly at home when you are a person who's had a creative enterprise with a toddler, like day in and day out also feeling unfulfilled and where the character in Night Bitch like maybe turns into a dog or maybe just accesses some feral aspects of her humanity. Like that's the thing she does instead of go have an everything but sex affair. But those characters have a lot in common and in the book does a lot better of a job, I think interrogating what the character thinks is going to make her happy versus what actually makes her happy and what a fulfilled life looks like. Then in my reading of it, Miranda julyd does here now the Night Movie is a different story. And you can listen to me and Vanessa.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Yeah, I'm sorry. I was sorry to hear that it didn't work. It's too bad. And so like there's a version of this where I do think, you know, I don't think it was for me in several different ways. I kind of get it though. I kind of get why it resonated with. With Some people, especially the kind of people that shop at independent bookstores knowing about demographics and gender and class and the things that go alongside.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

I'm gonna let you be the one to say that.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Well, no, I mean look, 45 year old upper middle class white women buy literary fiction. This is really in the wheelhouse. I don't know that it's taboo, but I think much like it ends with us, I think it talks about issues that maybe they haven't seen talked about in this way and with a certain candor and lack of shame. Specifically around sexual desire. I think that's notable. It's not anything that this character does. None of it is presented as prurient. I. I wonder, I don't know how much it's supposed to be titillating or not. Reading it with fourth wing is so weird back and forth.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Yeah. I do not envy you that back to back reading experience.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Well, I mean it was illuminative in this way where I think explicitly fourth wing is meant to get you hot and bothered. I'm less sure about all fours. I think it could. I mean for some people, intentionally wise. I'm not sure. Are we supposed to be we the reader, maybe the ideal reader. I don't know. Aroused by some of the scenes here. I could see it both ways. I can see how it's meant to be kind of exciting. I see how it meant to be. I don't know, almost sort of like a documentary about this one person life. It's. It's very unclear to me. And that unclarity I think is interesting. I mean I've read worse books in my life. I don't think I would have put it in my top 10 of the year by any stretch of the imagination. I think if you see how many retellings of Greek stories we're still getting from the woman's point of view. We're probably about by 50,000 retellings of midlife crisis. Until we're, you know, at something like parody.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Let's continue to mine that by all means.

[Jeff O'Neal]

But I guess for both of us. I'll put it this way. The idea of the midlife crisis is not interesting to us.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

No, it's.

[Jeff O'Neal]

It just. It just isn't. Maybe as like an academic, like. Like look at those people. Right. Especially in a current environment, in a current mode, especially of a certain class. Like it's much more interesting to read something like the Unsettled by Animathis is about a woman who's really stuck in a million different ways that's not about, you know, I could, you know, here. My most possibly. I don't know. It could be seen as a real compliment or as a real dad, a jag. It's like this. What if you gender flipped American Beauty and put.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

It's not. Not far off. Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Nat Benning in. In Kevin Spacey's role as a popular entertainment. I don't know how different it is. I mean, it's less sexually explicit, but movies just are in general. But I think there's probably a lot of work to be done there. Much like the getting a young girlfriend and buying a Corvette has become a trope. I think the reasons for that are interesting for some people still. And I think giving women especially, you know, a little crack in the lift. Lie, live, laugh, love, mirror. You could do worse things.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Yeah. I think. I mean, that's a good way to put it. It left me with a real, like, I want us to have this conversation and I want better for us.

[Jeff O'Neal]

I totally understand. I get that's. I totally understood. Like, you're like, we're doing that. Come on. Come on already. Come on already. I totally get that. I really do.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

I'm so glad you read it. I'm still gonna be mad.

[Jeff O'Neal]

How did I do? Did I. Did I give it a fair shake?

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Yeah, you gave it a very fair shake. I was going to be shocked if you loved it. I was also going to be shocked if you hated it because you are the world's most reasonable man.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Talk about a cage of your own making. I have the blueprints, fourth wing. Real quick. Just before we get into it. Not for us.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

Yeah. I want to say we entered into it, trying to take it seriously. So, like, folks who heard us talk about it at the top of the show, we didn't pick it up so that we could slag on it. When we pick up these big books that people like. I feel comfortable speaking for both of us, that we are hoping to have a things people like are good actually experience. We're hoping to get it.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Yeah.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

It's fun to get it and to like, get on board with a. A phenomenon or to at least understand why a thing that has caught on has caught on. Having read it. I do have some theories I like. I. I think I understand some of what's going on here. I have a lot of questions, but the long and short of it is not for me and not because fantasy isn't usually my thing. I've read great fantasy novels that I loved. I didn't find it to be well written. I didn't find it to be innovative. And as for spiciness, it takes 475 pages for any sex to happen, and that is longer than most books.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Yeah, it was very long, Rebecca.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

It was very long.

[Jeff O'Neal]

And if this is your. If this is your bag, I'm excited for you to be happy with this. Like, you know, I don't care if you like Romantasy or not. I think. I think there could be versions of a Romantasy story that I would be much more into, not immune to. You know, I got on some of these trains. I liked. I like the Hunger games. I like DaVinci Code. I can get on a big genre.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

We didn't have the marketing category Romantasy when Jacqueline Carrie series, Kushiel's Dart series came out, and that came out when I was a younger reader. But as a young adult, I read, like, in my twenties. I read several of those and really liked them.

[Jeff O'Neal]

So if you want to hear more detailed. It's all downhill from here, I think, on our generosity for this particular book. But the genre, like, this is just one instance.

[Rebecca Shinsky]

I mean, yeah, go back to the top of the show and listen to the part where we talk about how we don't think there's moral valence to, like, most reading choices. Like, unless you're reading fascist propaganda.

[Jeff O'Neal]

Right, right. Okay. Rebecca, podcast bookride.com for feedback. Podcast. Do book r.com listen for the show notes. Check out first edition, the Patreon Instagram and other things. 2025. We got a lot cooking. We'll talk to y'all later.