Jeff O'Neill (2:26)

What do you think Dwight Garner thinks of Bartleby?

Rebecca Schinsky (2:28)

Rebecca I am interested in what Dwight Garner thinks about anything right now and for the foreseeable future. Someday maybe he'll be redeemed.

Jeff O'Neill (2:37)

I love this look for you. It's terrific. I'm really enjoying it. So check it over there on the Patreon, the January 2026 hot list. Check in this turning of the calendar. It makes for an interesting time. We get some 2025, kind of primarily 2025 stories, but some things coming out. Vigil by George Saunders was certainly on that list before we had read and discussed Vigil by George Saunders. And it was. It's on my personal hot list, really, for the remainder of the year. I'll be super curious to see how. What kind of. What kind of legs it has. Sometimes a January release can get out of the gate or a spring release can get out of the gate and really stick around. Sometimes it gets swallowed whole like James and Martyr in the great 2024 year that we had came out in the spring and they held. They kind of had the field a little bit more open to themselves. Speaking of which, February IT Books episode we're recording today will be released next week. Light February. I didn't get all the way to 10, so I had to do some Jeff shenanigans to pad out the show. And we've got a couple of new ideas and features for that particular.

Rebecca Schinsky (3:40)

I look forward to that. I was looking at my personal list of things I wanted to keep an eye on for February, and I noted that it was gonna be a little quiet. There's only a handful that I'm really, personally stoked about. March is really where we start cooking, but the big ones of February are big, so that'll be a fun conversation for it. Books also, as a note for listeners, next Monday's news show, you'll be out on a business trip. I will be sitting by a beach somewhere. I think I might finally read Demon Copperhead by underrated author Barbara Kingsolver.

Jeff O'Neill (4:12)

Oh, that's. Who wrote that? I can never remember.

Rebecca Schinsky (4:14)

Yeah, just try to rem. And so Vanessa Diaz will be here hosting the news with one of our editors. We'll be back in your ears the Wednesday after that.

Jeff O'Neill (4:23)

Okay, we're gonna get started here in just a sec, but let's take a sponsor break.

Iva Moss Redman (4:29)

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Rebecca Schinsky (5:36)

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Peloton Advertiser (7:03)

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Jeff O'Neill (7:30)

The hot dish capital of the world is a hot mess right now. Rebecca in Minnesota in Minneapolis a couple of things you might be aware of or want to be aware of out there listeners principal. Among them is a book drive for kids who are staying home from school out of safety concerns in Minneapolis and the wider Minnesota area. You might check that out. Also you can see Stand with Minnesota for a directory of organizations and mutual aid groups helping folks stay safe and existing and exerting their fundamental constitutional rights. Rebecca, you have a no free ads. But if we're ever going to do a no free ads, it's for something like the 5 calls app, I would.

Rebecca Schinsky (8:08)

Guess at this point. I love the 5 calls app. I will give them free ads all the live long day. This is an app that helps you make phone calls to your representatives either at the state, at both the state and congressional levels. So there's an issue coming up like on this day that we are recording. The Senate voted on a budget that included or voted on a bill that included funding for ice. And it was the Democrats defeated it. But one of the ways that that happened is that a lot of folks called their Sen. Especially senators who were maybe on the bubble, who needed to be influenced one way or the other. This is one of the most impactful things that you can do as a constituent. And it's also, I think, one of the things that people are most resistant to doing because it can seem intimidating. Millennials and especially Gen Zers hate getting on the phone. I totally understand it. But you download the 5 calls app again, it is free. You give it your information. It knows who your reps are. There's a selection of issues that you can choose from. You choose the issue and then it opens up a script for and it gives you a button to press that will call that representative's office. When you do that, someone whose job it is to speak to constituents will answer the phone and like this is what this person does all day long is take phone calls from the constituents and even if you did not vote for that representative, it's their job to represent you and to listen to your concerns. So you can use the script that five Calls includes. You could modify that like just take it as a working model for the talking points that you want to have. But if you're looking for a way to, to step up your personal engagement in politics to really get involved in the kind of activism that can help push your elected officials to make changes that we need to be making right now and to make your voice heard. Like we need to be loud and strategically loud. And five Calls is a great way to get plugged in to do that. You can just make it part of your daily or weekly routine that you're going to open up the 5 calls app and see what the issues are. Make a couple calls. You can knock this out in five or ten minutes a day, five or ten minutes a week. And it can be really impactful when you're. When your voice joins with thousands or millions of other voices. So I sincerely recommend that stop scrolling.

Jeff O'Neill (10:27)

Start dialing with the five. They can have that for free. Rebecca, that's just drapered it right it right into their digital faces over that. Things that may or may not be coming to our digital faces. We got an update on the fourth week adaptation and I'll preview my take here which is this is a strangely George R.R. martin sounding update about the status of the fourth wing.

Rebecca Schinsky (10:50)

Yeah, I was going to say I'm not sure it's actually an update. It is.

Jeff O'Neill (10:54)

Well, yeah, you want to say what it is? What is it? What are the words? We're looking here.

Rebecca Schinsky (10:59)

Michael B. Jordan is one of the producers of Amazon and MGM studios adaptation of 4th Wing and he is just out there talking now about how they're in the early stages and it's going to be very exciting. But as a reminder for folks, this adaptation was first announced in October of 2023. So we are more than two years from the adaptation announcement and they are still in the early stages. There is not a like the scripts were written but there is not casting. There's not like full director information. This to me looks like let's put one of our guys out in front to reassure people and hopefully they're only that because they think that they actually are going to make progress. But this does not sound to me like actual progress has been made. This feels a little or actually a lot of lady death protest too much.

Jeff O'Neill (11:54)

It is the last item in an interview he did with Deadline about really campaigning for his sinner's Oscar, which is a very interesting campaign and it's, it comes after the Thomas Crown Affair which is coming out in 2027. This is what you say when someone asks you and you've got nothing better to say. This is very much a. It's there, it's not dead. But I really can't say anything else about it. You and I have talked about the state of Fourth Wing right now as being a very interesting moment for the romantasy genre for this particular project. And then the place of a giant hugely expensive fantasy story in the year of our Lord 2026. Now wait till the next story we're going to get to. That might be a countermand to this to some degree. But here's, here's my take on this. A couple ways I want to get your. I wanted to get your thoughts. It's really a three parter. First, is Coogler himself as hot as he has ever been with sinners and he is in entering rarefied air where he can do whatever he wants.

Rebecca Schinsky (13:02)

You mean Michael B. Jordan?

Jeff O'Neill (13:03)

What did I say?

Rebecca Schinsky (13:04)

Coogler.

Jeff O'Neill (13:05)

Coogler. Well, both, it's true for both of them. But I should, I meant to be talking about Michael B. Jordan because he's the one that through his partnership with Amazon, which actually goes back to his Tom Clancy adaptation which I think is going nowhere. I don't think we're doing any more.

Rebecca Schinsky (13:16)

I don't think we're going to see that anymore.

Jeff O'Neill (13:17)

So there's that sometimes these things don't happen. But more importantly is like if I'm Michael B. Jordan, I'm interested right now in Michael B. Jordan projects.

Rebecca Schinsky (13:28)

As he should be.

Jeff O'Neill (13:29)

Yeah, as he should be. What's he doing messing around doing Maybe the hardest thing there is to do in Hollywood, which is wrangle a giant fantasy IP with a rabid user fan base like I just don't know. Now I'm sure there's all kinds of people working on it, but I'm not sure it should is or even could be front burner for him. Secondly, in terms of adapting horny ip, I think you can get into this game for much less expensive and there's plenty of IP out there right now.

Rebecca Schinsky (14:04)

You just need some hockey sticks.

Jeff O'Neill (14:07)

There's sporting equipment all over the place. You can use whatever lacrosse, rugby, Australian Rules football, which I was reading, I mean really, there's so much available to you that would cost approximately and I'm not exaggerating here, 1/100th of what it would cost to make fourth wing and I think it does a lot of the same thing for folks who care about fourth Wing. Not everything, but I think a lot. I think a lot.

Rebecca Schinsky (14:30)

I think so too. And this is also this even being a story is just a product of the Internet aggregation. Like we're reading a headline from Screen Rant, which as you pointed out, like, this is a very small detail in a much bigger interview that Jordan was giving about things that are not fourth wing. And the interviewer happened to ask him about this, so he had an answer on deck. But this is like the vaguest possible answer you can give. If things were really cooking, there would be details here. But instead it's we really want to get it right, so we're taking our time. We're going to make it exciting. I don't know. And I wonder also how much math Amazon is doing about like, there has been no news from Rebecca Garros about the fourth book, which very justifiable. Like, no author of course, owes us anything on any timeframe. But she says writing the third one, writing Onyx Storm last year, almost killed her and she had been writing very quickly. She deals with chronic illness. It's not a small thing for her to be taking on. And I wonder if Amazon is sort of hedging against something like what happened with Game of Thrones. Where do you want to launch a big series where you don't know how the author is going to end the series? The last couple books are not available and this is a much more fickle kind of fad, I think, or Trend because of TikTok than Game of Thrones was, which had decades of fandom before HBO launched it. So Amazon is probably doing some how much money are we really going to spend on this thing?

Jeff O'Neill (16:05)

And that was kind of my, my last one is related to that is like what is the strategic placement of a giant adaptation right now in, in Amazon's business? Like, all these companies are AI ing all over themselves. They can't, they can't say IA And AI enough. They can't think of enough dumb things to do with AI, maybe even interesting things. And Amazon just today laid off a huge chunk of their cloud computing executive staff, which is one of their cash cows. I wonder how interested they are in this. And I don't we're never going to get numbers because Amazon doesn't break things out this way, at least to my knowledge. I've never seen it. I've looked for why they care about this stuff with prime and does it really matter? And they canceled the Wheel of time series and Lord knows when we get another season of Rings of Power. And it just feels like for most of the people involved. Euros Coogler, Amazon this is like a B minus exciting prospect to get into this business right now for something that's going to be hugely expensive and virtually no guarantee of being good, popular or move the needle at all. So it's very rare that a phenomenon like this doesn't get made into something. So I think it will eventually. But there's just something it's flashing. You get enough yellow flashes in a row, those stack and start looking awfully red.

Rebecca Schinsky (17:22)

Eventually can mean a really long time though. And I don't think it's 60 years.

Jeff O'Neill (17:26)

For Lord of the Rings.

Rebecca Schinsky (17:27)

Yeah, right. And I don't think we should take it for granted because the Sarah J. Maas adaptation was started and killed and revived and killed again and hasn't.

Jeff O'Neill (17:38)

That's nowhere. That's nowhere right now.

Rebecca Schinsky (17:40)

It's nowhere.

Jeff O'Neill (17:41)

I wonder if it might be whichever one of these gets made first. I think I made that point before, but is there really room for two of these?

Rebecca Schinsky (17:47)

I don't think so.

Jeff O'Neill (17:48)

I don't know. They're so huge.

Rebecca Schinsky (17:50)

They're different. You know, like fourth wing is dragons, Acotar is fairies. So maybe.

Jeff O'Neill (17:57)

But they're not meaningfully different readerships. Like there's not. Like the Venn diagram is very, very close to a circle. It's much less, it's much more a circle than it is an infinity symbol.

Rebecca Schinsky (18:07)

And do you want to compete with the next six seasons of heated rivalry.

Jeff O'Neill (18:11)

And then all the, all the follow alongs to that? Because there's not going to be. I mean, I'm not kidding. Like we're going to get a bunch of these.

Rebecca Schinsky (18:17)

Oh yes.

Jeff O'Neill (18:18)

It's too big a phenomenon that's too ready to make and ready to go. Whoever at HBO bought that from the Canadian genius should be in charge of something. Maybe it should be Hulu because I don't know who cares about the Testaments coming to Hulu? But it's happening. I and you have both forgotten and remembered and forgotten multiple times that the Handmaid's Tale went for. Let me check my notes here. 39. See? No, I don't know. It's like five seasons.

Rebecca Schinsky (18:44)

It was five seasons, I believe.

Jeff O'Neill (18:46)

But they must get whatever data Hulu wants out of this. They are getting it for the Handmaid's Tale because it kept going, they added new stuff and now we're going back. If you don't know, the Testaments is the origin story of how they get to the Handmaid's Tale. I also like to call it my local news. But if you also would like to see the Testaments, you could do that as well.

Rebecca Schinsky (19:05)

Yeah. The Trump Vance administration has been great for the market for dystopian adaptations.

Jeff O'Neill (19:10)

Yes.

Rebecca Schinsky (19:11)

And I think that's what is happening here. I wrote about this a little bit in today in books and like I could not make it past the first season of the Handmaid's Tale adaptation because it was just so hard to watch it like well made wonderful. But it was really tough stuff and living in this reality is more than enough for me. But that I think we have seen through these couple Trump administrations that there is a real demand in some corners for entertainment that directly engages with these ideas and that's a thing that's helping some people process. And I guess like I will not be watching the Testaments adaptation but I'm glad that Hulu is still engaging with content about these kinds of ideas. Like especially in a political landscape that has gone after any and everything that they consider to be woke. Which certainly a Margaret Atwood dystopian novel is.

Jeff O'Neill (20:03)

Yeah.

Rebecca Schinsky (20:04)

So I guess have fun out there if the Testaments is going to be your jam. But also just brace yourself everybody take a deep breath.

Jeff O'Neill (20:14)

I've got one more adaptation name sliding in before we get to sort of the big news of the week. Is Odessa A. Zion. I don't know how to say her last name. She's in Marty A. Zion as Yan has broke. She's left the Deep Cuts adaptation after some online controversy about casting the main character. Apparently I've not read this. You have. Zoe Guterres is of Mexican heritage and is Jewish and Odessa is not. And there was some turmoil on the Internet about that. Should be played by a Mexican actress or someone whose identity is more closely aligned to this. And apparently Odessa agrees and she's saying she is out and wants to get exit stage left and make room for someone who maybe doesn't get the swing.

Rebecca Schinsky (20:58)

But the main character's best friend and.

Jeff O'Neill (21:01)

I will say this team read the book. Is very proud today because she and her team had not read the book. Or at least that's the excuse. I don't know. And surmising that if she had read the book she would have seen that maybe this is one that it would not be the right fit for her. I would encourage people taking roles and adaptations to read the book. Rebecca. You know I'm going to be a vanguard of fire breathing Bernie Sanders level Adherent proponent of reading the book. If you're going to star in a movie based on it, is that too much to ask?

Rebecca Schinsky (21:34)

No, I think that's a wise choice. If for no other reason besides this like responsible decision making around taking a role or not, you're going to be asked about it on your press tour and about the differences between the book and the movie. And surely there's like a researcher at the studio that would give you those talking points. But spend a couple hours, read the book, know what you're getting into. And I would think that an actor would also want a sense of what fans of the book who are going to see the movie might be looking for.

Jeff O'Neill (22:02)

Mm. Anyway, so I. That was more about the. I guess I'm surprised at those levels even that people don't spend the time to read. Which I imagine is a quite digestible and entertaining book.

Rebecca Schinsky (22:14)

Yeah, it was really fun. I enjoy Deep Cuts.

Jeff O'Neill (22:17)

I will read your book. If I'm going to talk to you for 25 minutes on an interview that far fewer people that will watch Deep Cuts. If I were being the face of a book book.

Rebecca Schinsky (22:26)

Right.

Jeff O'Neill (22:28)

I know, I know. This is. If there's one place that's going to really insist on that. Okay. The big news here. And I will say I'm genuinely shocked.

Rebecca Schinsky (22:36)

Me too. But like stoked for him.

Jeff O'Neill (22:39)

Yes. Brando Sando is getting into the adaptation business with the people that seem most willing to spend all the money and commit to giant genre storytelling with huge budgets. Apple tv.

Rebecca Schinsky (22:58)

Yes.

Jeff O'Neill (22:59)

The Cosmere fantasy universe is being picked up by Apple tv. This is a huge deal, Rebecca. This is a huge deal. And it really seems to fly in the face of our Fourth Wing Sith. Does it? Does it? Or does it? Or does it.

Rebecca Schinsky (23:13)

I think that we. It's a separate conversation. I think that actually what we are seeing is that in the world of fantasy, Brandon Sanderson is a one of one that he has raised millions and millions of dollars on Kickstarter self publishing his books. He hosts his own fantasy convention every year that he's been running for a few years that has sold out and done really well. He has successfully cultivated direct relationships with his fans that no one else has done. So we should think of Brandon Sanderson as the Taylor Swift of fantasy books. I think. Is that.

Jeff O'Neill (23:47)

I think that's exactly right.

Rebecca Schinsky (23:49)

A useful mental framework like what happens to Brandon Sanderson has nothing to do with what happens to Fourth Wing. Also not for nothing, much more well established and a ton of longevity on his career than anything going on in the romantasy world. So it makes I think more defensible sense to do a big long term investment, which Apple certainly has done. We don't have financial details of this deal, but Apple has landed the adaptation rights to both the Mistborn series and the Stormlight Archive series. Mistborn is going to be a movie or a series of movies. The Stormlight Archive is going to be a television series. Presumably both of those could be plentiful and run for a long time. There are producers attached already for the Stormlight Archive and the. The really interesting piece of this, besides eventually finding out how much money it was for, is this deal that is being described as unprecedented gives Sanderson more control than any author we know of in the modern adaptation landscape. This Hollywood Reporter exclusive where the news first came out says that he will be the architect of the Cosmere universe. He's going to write, produce and consult and he will have approvals, which is a level of involvement that not even JK Rowling or George RR Martin.

Jeff O'Neill (25:09)

Martin has, as George RR Martin frequently tells us that he does not have approvals over this. Why do you think Apple's doing this?

Rebecca Schinsky (25:16)

Maybe they've recognized the same thing, that he's a one of one that the fans are there and they've been there. They're like generations of Brandon Sanderson fans. Now there is audience for a big enduring fantasy or sci fi thing. They're also not new to this. They did the Isaac Asimov foundation series, I think. I can't remember if that's wrapped already or if they still.

Jeff O'Neill (25:37)

No, they're still going. Unbelievable.

Rebecca Schinsky (25:40)

Yeah. And as you said, Apple will spend a jillion dollars. It will be gorgeous. And they are. They seem to be much less invested in the actual viewership of like in the numbers of these. They like it as a Halo effect of look at this gorgeous thing that we produced because we're Apple and we can do it. And if a lot of people watch it or it gets nominated for things, that's just gravy.

Jeff O'Neill (26:05)

They want you to open up your Apple TV app and see beautiful images of attractive shows even if you never watch them. And I think maybe they've had good experience with like the Jason Segel show shrinking and the Ted Lasso show that giving these folks control. Pluribus, Vince Gilligan show. They're reaping some benefits of that. And the other thing is there's not too many of these properties around and just talking about fourth Wing is all mobbed up over there with Amazon. A court of Thorns and roses mopped up with someone else, I'm sure whatever rights they have, even if they don't do anything for a while, I don't.

Rebecca Schinsky (26:39)

Know who has the rights still, but.

Jeff O'Neill (26:40)

They may have an option for multiple years and it's going to take a whole thing. Apple also is very touchy about really explicit sex stuff. You'll notice that's more the purview of an HBO Max or feature films or other kinds of places. Whereas Brando Sando is pretty vanilla guard, it's not where he is writing from. And so if you're looking, if you want one of these flagship properties, there's just not many of them to go get. And so you go get one if you can. Now, having said that, he is huge within fantasy. Is that enough? Is that enough? It wasn't for Wheel of Time and Amazon and those were. Those were more well regarded at the time. They've been around longer. They're not dissimilar. So dissimilar, in fact, that Brandon Sanderson came in and wrote the end of those when the author died. So again, if they would like to have a beautiful conversation, I think this is a conversation piece within the Apple ecosystem. And sometimes you pay for conversation pieces differently than you pay for an annuity or your car insurance. And this is getting into the Brandon Sanderson game. Interestingly, the Way of King series, which I think I'm not. I'm not a Brando Sando. I'm a. I'm a Brando Sando rando coming into it sort of sideways. Not a fan, though. A Rando. A Brando Sando rando. I think the Way of Kings is sort of like his biggest series. He says you can't do it as a film series. So I think that's interesting. But what matters more is he's got like six different series and he's not going. He is not going to. Nope out on writing the script for the book. He's going to get it done.

Rebecca Schinsky (28:24)

He's going to get in there and you know, maybe this is also Apple recognizing the success of the Dune series that HBO has produced, that those have really successful theatrical releases. They do get nominated for Oscars and then they're available on HBO Max until the heat death of the universe. I imagine that they will be at least considering some of these film adaptations for theatrical release and not just like coming next Friday to your Apple tv and. And there's room for that. I think a big fantasy adaptation can drive people to the theater, but I think it's possible that Sanderson has such a profile that he might be like the one fantasy reader that a bunch of mainstream readers will explore or have explored. I don't know how wonky he is. I'm definitely not the person to be ranking the wonkiness of fantasy authors.

Jeff O'Neill (29:18)

But.

Rebecca Schinsky (29:18)

But it feels to me like there might really be some connections with Dune. The third one is coming out later this year and that will be over and this is an opportunity for somebody to step into that gap and address that audience.

Jeff O'Neill (29:29)

I do feel like, and maybe it's because my family's at the age it is right now, I think we would devour a tween plus epic fantasy serialized story. I, you know, I don't really want to watch even Night of the Seven Kingdoms with my kids. Yeah, I don't think I would want to watch 4th Wing with them either. For related but different reasons.

Rebecca Schinsky (29:56)

We barely made it through talking about Fourth Wing together.

Jeff O'Neill (29:59)

I'm blushing right now just thinking about it. That's but something that is in the mold of a Tolkien or something else like that that's fresh and fun and dragons and swords and magic and wizards and the whole thing that goes into it like this is always part of it.

Rebecca Schinsky (30:14)

And speaking of wizards, this could also a way to compete with HBO's planned 10 year long Harry Potter series.

Jeff O'Neill (30:23)

Deepest of we need to we need to remind ourselves, Rebecca, to enjoy these days before that show comes out because I really don't want to deal with it like 17 different ways. So anyway, tell if you if you know if you're a fan do of Brando Sando and you have a sense of what the plan do for Brando Sando is. Yeah, we're doing it now. She's email podcast bookriot.com I've got no rhymes over there.

Brittany or Meredith (30:52)

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TechCrunch Host (31:39)

Epic adventures from the latest in artificial intelligence to new apps and business upgrades. The tech industry is always changing and growing, so keep up with the Daily Crunch podcast from TechCrunch. With new episodes released nearly every day, the Daily Crunch gives you a brief overview of the biggest tech headlines. And it's all delivered in around five minutes or less, so you can easily hear about the latest updates while trying some of those updates for yourself. Listen to the Daily Crunch now. Wherever you get your podcasts, that's the Daily Crunch. Wherever you get your podcasts from the terrifying power of tornadoes to sizzling summer temperatures, AccuWeather Daily brings you the top trending weather related story of the day every day of the week. You can learn a lot in just a few minutes. Stories that will impact you you such as how a particular hurricane may affect your area or will that impending snow event bring more than just a winter wonderland? Occasionally there are weather related stories from the lighter side, like how a recent storm trapped tourists inside Agatha Christie's house, a setup perfect for a plot of one of her novels. And if there's a spectacular meteor shower or eclipse coming your way, we'll let you know if the the sky in your area will be clear to check out the celestial display you see. Accuweather Daily is more than just weather. It's accuweather. Listen and subscribe to accuweather Daily. Wherever you get your podcasts, that's accuweather Daily. Wherever you get your podcasts.

Jeff O'Neill (33:17)

This is not a headline I was expected to see about Don DeLillo's hockey smut.

Rebecca Schinsky (33:23)

Delightful, though.

Jeff O'Neill (33:24)

A delightful I think you better take this here.

Rebecca Schinsky (33:28)

So Alexandra Alter, one of the regular books and publishing reporters at the New York Times. She's on the heated rivalry beat like the rest of us are right now, and she has gone looking for what kind of heated rivalry headline is also worthy of this is unbelievable.

Jeff O'Neill (33:44)

I want the story of this story.

Rebecca Schinsky (33:46)

Yeah, I do too. But in 1980, Don DeLillo, under the pen name Cleo Birdwell, which just incredible work there.

Jeff O'Neill (33:55)

It sounds like a romance writer made up by Don DeLillo published a book.

Rebecca Schinsky (33:59)

Called An Intimate Memoir by the First Woman Ever to Play in the National Hockey League. And it was like obvious that this was a fictionalized memoir. But it's maybe the OG of hockey smut. And it's no longer in print, but maybe they're gonna run it back now. If you are not familiar with Don DeLillo, it's really hard to describe.

Jeff O'Neill (34:26)

I don't know what to do with this. I didn't know this existed When I was reading this, I felt my immune system rejecting it. Like it was trying to keep this out of my. Not necessarily there's anything wrong with it. I just couldn't process.

Rebecca Schinsky (34:37)

It's just wild. Like, what was Don DeLillo doing when he had the idea to write this? And this is kind of like cooking for him at the same time of some of his other fiction. So he writes this, like, big, weird kind of existential verging on experimental literary fiction. And then he's also got a fictionalized memoir of a female NHL player that has apparently all kinds of spicy moments. Bring it back. I would read this if they would reprint it.

Jeff O'Neill (35:10)

He will not comment on it. He tacitly acknowledged five years ago with the Gray lady, how. God. Oh, God. You remember that? That's all he said. We don't know anything about the origin of this, why it happened, what he was trying to do.

Rebecca Schinsky (35:23)

He does not seem to want to talk about it. Alter quotes. Some, like DeLillo heads who were like, well, yeah, there's breadcrumbs in this where, like, there are some characters. There's a character in Amazons who shows up later in White Noise, apparently, which. That's a wild universe crossover.

Jeff O'Neill (35:42)

The DDU is really something. Here's the most telling. This is like, whatever. The first fish to flop out of the water was the first printing of 20,000 copies sold out, outpacing his previous books. So even then, the people. The people.

Rebecca Schinsky (36:01)

Do you think he was like, oh, God, do I just have to write hockey smut for the rest of his life?

Jeff O'Neill (36:05)

Did he lose a bet? Did he. Did he do this on a dare? Was it a wild hare?

Rebecca Schinsky (36:12)

Yeah. This needs to be in his papers when he goes, someday he needs to tell us the story. If he's not willing to address it while he's living. Let us have it later, please.

Jeff O'Neill (36:23)

Was that episode we did of White Noise a Patreon or.

Rebecca Schinsky (36:25)

It was a Patreon episode. Yeah.

Jeff O'Neill (36:27)

Man, did we have fun with White Noise.

Rebecca Schinsky (36:29)

Yeah, that was such a good episode.

Jeff O'Neill (36:30)

An unbelievable book. DeLillo, who's still alive. And when I remember that I have to re rank my greatest American novelist ranking. When I remember Don DeLillo, he hasn't done anything in a while, and it's been a while since I've engaged with the director.

Rebecca Schinsky (36:44)

Netflix paid Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig and Adam Driver to do an adaptation of White Noise is a real illustration of what peak adaptation was like with peak streaming.

Jeff O'Neill (36:56)

I really think it was Fincher's Mank, which is about the person who wrote anyway, that's a different day. Citizen Kane. Let's see. You have a note here about Everett being the bestselling Black author of 2025. And that is a bummer. It's awesome for Everett, but it's a bummer because his book came out in 2024 and early 2024. So we did not get a breakout book of 2025. The print unit sales of books by Black authors fell 14% in 2025. So there we go. I don't know what Rebecca, what else do we need to say about that?

Rebecca Schinsky (37:38)

Yeah, just. I mean there was not a big breakout. There wasn't a big breakout work of fiction by anybody in 2025.

Jeff O'Neill (37:46)

Heated rivalry.

Rebecca Schinsky (37:47)

I guess it was quiet there. Like Kamala Harris's memoir didn't sell as much as Percival Everett. The other five best selling black authors of the year were Kimberly D. Moore, Octavia Butler and Rachel Renee Russell. And the enduring popularity of Octavia Butler. Maybe it is this political timeline that we're on, but the episode about Parable of the Sower is one of our top five or six episodes. Zero to well read. I believe you were in an independent bookstore not too long ago where you sent me a photo of their board of like used copies we're looking for. And Octavia Butler was in demand there. And I think going into our Parable of the Sower recording, my mental model was that fantasy readers and sci fi readers know about Octavia Butler, book people know about Octavia Butler, but maybe not that much mainstream or casual reader exposure. And I think I was wrong.

Jeff O'Neill (38:44)

Well, I don't. You may be wrong. I think a couple things happen, especially in that used book is that a lot of the stuff was out of print and then Macmillan put out these new editions and then she got a surge of popularity. It's kind of the same wave of 1984 and the dystopian world in which we are in and wanting to reading about. And her esteem has grown over time and has genre has become more prestigious in the literary realm. There are a lot of people that grew up literary and genre fiction reading it no matter what. So I think one reason they're always looking for used copies of Butler. There's just not that many people have bought these new editions. They're not giving them up right now. And there's just. There just weren't that many from like the the 70s and 80s and 90s to be spinning around right now. So. And they. She continues to sell well. So I think it's A bit of a supply and demand thing where the supply is constrained for paperbacks on that side, but a really good episode, a wonderful book and we were talking about Butler in a different room and her journals of motivation to herself are one of my favorite single archival documents I've ever seen. You can go Google that if you want to with that. Rebecca, it's time for Front List Foyer sponsored by Thriftbooks. You could set an alert if you wanted to for a used copy of Octavia Butler book. There's not a lot of them out there, as I say, and I looked recently and I don't think I could find any used ones, but you can set an alert and find out when one comes into view. Also, you can get nude copies of Octavia butler there too. Thriftbooks.com has more than 19 million titles to brow new and those used and DVDs and Blu Rays and you can find all the new release latest new releases there. Let's make a note of a Patreon or regular episode for the highest profile authors without a signal adaptation. We can take that that because I think that's another Butler phenomenon that she doesn't have a signal adaptation that would get sort of broader non reader y sort of culture mavens but non book people and genre fans in. But that might be an interesting episode there. She might lead the list. Off the top of my head, I can't think of anyone that leads it. Thanks to Thriftbooks.com for sponsoring frontless Foyer. Rebecca, what have you been reading?

Rebecca Schinsky (40:45)

I'm not finished with it yet, but I'm excited to talk about why We Click by Kate Murphy. She wrote a book a couple of years ago that we both really enjoyed called you'd're Not Listening. That one was about listening techniques and like tricks and stuff that you don't really understand about not just how to like engage more effectively, but how to actually more effectively hear the people that you're talking to. Why We Click is about the science of interpersonal synchrony. So in a more casual description, like when you're with a person or a group and you catch their vibe and it feels good, or when you're with a person in a group and some person, like one bad apple, brings the whole bunch down, as she writes, she's exploring the science of that from a bunch of different angles. It's really, really interesting because there's so many vectors that you can use to engage on this, like managing how you show up in relationships and groups and workplaces with awareness that the Vibe that you're giving out is contagious or may impact everybody else in the room. And the flip side of that is recognizing that when you're in a group or a workplace or a relationship, you are susceptible to the vibe that someone else is putting out. Like on a neurological level, we respond to these, these things with people, we sync up with them. So like being around somebody who is a big Debbie Downer can make you feel like you are also depressed. And she talks about sort of the, the exercise of recognizing like, oh, I feel down. Am I actually down? Or is it because this person is a big downer? So awareness too, of kind of, if you are facilitating groups, how to watch for that. Different techniques. But just the science of how these things is super interesting. And as a person who is interested in relationships and connection. But also we think about it on a work level. I think about it in other group situations that I'm involved in. Kind of really cool. I just like that we have science about this now. You're not imagining it that when that one person was out of work for the week and everybody in the buzzkills are real. Yeah, yeah.

Jeff O'Neill (42:49)

Personality hires are real.

Iva Moss Redman (42:50)

Yeah, yeah.

Rebecca Schinsky (42:52)

And that it goes both ways that like when that one person was out of the office for a week and it seemed like everybody was in a better mood, that that happens. And when one person moves out of town from a friend group and the whole friend group falls apart because that person was the like emotional core of it. It's not just emotions. It's like how we physiologically respond to each other and just really interesting. I will be finished with it in the next couple of days, but I'm ready to recommend it already.

Jeff O'Neill (43:19)

That's going to be my next listen after my current one because I really like her and what she's doing. I. I think she is doing what other people want Brene Brown to do for them. And I've sort of moved on to something more like this in my own. In my own world. No shots. Yeah.

Rebecca Schinsky (43:33)

I think if you've like, if you've gotten videos on your FYP about like co regulating, you know, like regulating your nervous system with your partner or with your friends.

Jeff O'Neill (43:43)

Regulating.

Rebecca Schinsky (43:44)

Have you not heard this term? It's like if you're um, if you're really worked up and you go to your partner because you know that they're going to help you calm down and it's not just a cognitive exercise of calming down, but like if we sit together and I'm really calm while you're really worked up eventually like our nervous systems will physiologically respond to each other. And if I can hold myself in the place of calm instead of getting worked up with you, your nervous system will come down too.

Jeff O'Neill (44:10)

I would be great at this because I basically an emotional gravity well. So you know, you can just put it in there, Just keep going in.

Rebecca Schinsky (44:18)

This is true, like this is very good self knowledge on your part. You are like an all time great co regulator having been stressful.

Jeff O'Neill (44:27)

As long as there's one direction you need to go if you need to go up. I think Rebecca, maybe have we just.

Rebecca Schinsky (44:33)

Cracked the code of our working relationship?

Jeff O'Neill (44:36)

I guess so. It's like alternating currents.

Rebecca Schinsky (44:38)

I mean if you need somebody to like hype you up or yes, hell, it's me. And if you just need somebody to help you chill, like let's be reasonable here.

Jeff O'Neill (44:48)

If you need an emotional lobotomy, come sit next to me at that particular moment on my reading. I am right now Rebecca, and I'm always in this room. But I am hunting exclusively for good writing right now. I'm not looking to be entertained. I'm not even really looking to be educated or informed. I don't know why, I don't know if it's zero to well read. I don't know if it's because I. I'm freaked out about how dumb everyone is, how no one is playing Hamlet when they're eight years old anymore. And I'm just like, I'm just looking for good sentences and cool ideas. So that led me to two things that I'm thrilled to talk about. The first is the Season by Helen Garner, which I think I threatened everyone with being interested in at the end of last year. Helen Garner, the great Australian writer who's had a bunch of her books issued by Pantheon in the us. I believe this was under the aegis of Lisa Lucas when she was there and I think it continues to be.

Rebecca Schinsky (45:41)

Great taste on Lisa Lucas.

Jeff O'Neill (45:43)

And this is my first experience with Garner. I've been wanting to read this and I think I said at the time when I talked about it as like books I'm just interested in. In 2025, Helen Garner is now a grandmother and she's in her, I believe in her early 80s at this point. And this book is a year long memoir of becoming a fan of her son's My Camera is just doing weird AI things by itself. Her son's Australian Rules football team, they live in Melbourne. Like I said, she's Australian and footy as they call it, is huge. There Australians love sports and they're sort of more. They're more various in their taste of sports. Like, sometimes it's soccer, sometimes it's swimming, sometimes it's Australian Rules Football. In this particular town, Melbourne loves their Western Bulldogs and being part of the youth sports experience is a huge deal for the people in her family. And he is in the under 16 group. He's 15. And she wants to be around him. As she realized her life, she doesn't have that much time left. Like just. She's doing the math. It's not. She's not cancer or anything like that. And the other thing she sees is they're coming to each other and then going to pass each other.

Iva Moss Redman (46:57)

Other.

Jeff O'Neill (46:58)

He's going to grow up and out and she is going to go, I guess down or wherever she decides to go. And she's really feeling the passage of time and also appreciating sports and how it brings people together and looking for, I think it's fair to say, a positivist image of masculinity that she sees in these teams and these boys at this particular stage and in some of the professional Australian Rules football players about these sort of tender warriors, right, who. He'll help each other off the pitcher field. I don't know what they call in Australian Rules Football. And also trying to figure out how to be teammates and be tough, but also be humans and care about each other. And she finds it both beautiful and tender and terrifying. And I liked being with her and I think actually not knowing the rules helped me because I wasn't getting caught up in strategy or. It's not like this over here. I still have no ideas how Australian football works. I think for half the book I thought she was talking about rugby, to be quite honest with you. I'll be very open about.

Rebecca Schinsky (47:57)

Doesn't matter.

Jeff O'Neill (47:58)

Doesn't matter. I just found it very, very.

Rebecca Schinsky (48:01)

It sounds lovely.

Jeff O'Neill (48:02)

Stimulating and soothing and lovely and provocative at the same time. And I choked up several times in these moments. You know, I really came at it from an experience of having a emergent, maybe elitish athlete in my own house, playing a sport and participating a sport I know nothing really about in finding experience pretty stimulating and interesting.

Rebecca Schinsky (48:25)

Did you read it or listen to it?

Jeff O'Neill (48:27)

I read it. I read this. I don't know why. I think when I'm. I'm writing, hunting, I want my eyes.

Rebecca Schinsky (48:34)

Yeah.

Jeff O'Neill (48:35)

And I want to reap, I want to dwell. Which is not what I did with my next pick, which is also. I got hooked up on the writing. I did this on audio because I know that the author's voice this is all consuming by Rumi Tando, who is a food writer. Many people, including me may know her from her appearance on the Great British Baking Show a while back. A young she was a student at the time, an English student. And it shows. And I had read a piece by her in the New Yorker that I thought was very, very good. And this book I think I said I think we had talked about this book being on our mutual radars and sort of wondering about it.

Rebecca Schinsky (49:13)

It this is my next audio and.

Jeff O'Neill (49:16)

We have said that for to read about food we need something special. Another chef memoir, another food was important to me growing up because of my mom and grandma. I get that. I acknowledge that. I affirm and see you all and that's wonderful for you. But I now know that I feel like I know that story. What she does is these are basically reported essays about pieces of modern food culture and then how they, you know, where they come from historically too. Into the into the future, into the present now. So she's especially good on Internet food culture. She is both of and skeptical of these moments. She can scroll with the best of them, but she also is wondering about what's going on. She will in looking at modern representations of domesticity, go back and read Jet magazines from 1947 to see how black domesticity was was was represented there. Just really good. Each, each section is really, really interesting. I think your cultural history of Bubble Team Bubble Tea was fantastic, astute and very interesting. And the lady can write. So I learned a lot. I thought it was well managed and she could write a sentence And I'm on the Ruby Tando train. I'm looking forward to whatever else she's going to do. Really recommended for people who like essays, literary writing and interested in the way way we eat now and why we eat it. Very, very good stuff. So that's all consumed by Ruby Tando. Really like both. I'm on a good reading. I'm on a really good reading run right now. I'll talk about some more stuff for you later on. Rebecca. Okay. I think that's anything else for the people.

Rebecca Schinsky (50:47)

I think that is it.

Jeff O'Neill (50:48)

Book riot.com listen for show notes. You can shoot us an email book, right? Excuse me podcastookriot.com Go listen to Zero to well Read. Come find that wherever you get your podcast you can Is there anything else? Join the Patreon link in the Show Notes over there.

Rebecca Schinsky (51:03)

Everything you need is in the Show Notes.

Jeff O'Neill (51:05)

We'll have some more. I think. I think our next is a Deals. Deals, Deals is possibly our next episode. I have. I'm itching to talk about that. I, I kind of feel when we're getting, when the, the, the, the feeder is getting full, I gotta go empty the rubbish bin of the deals I've been collecting. They're just, they're stacking up a little bit there too. Rebecca, thank you so much.

Who Arted Host (51:32)

I believe art is the most significant development in human history. It is our means of communication. It is both how and why we got out of the trees. And who Arted is a podcast dedicated to celebrating art in all of its forms. Each week we focus on a different artist and artwork to help you learn a little something and find some good in the world. So follow who Arted on your favorite podcast after app. That's who Arted. Weekly art history for all ages.