MCD Shutters, Audible's Story House, and More of the Week's Book News.

Summary

Book Riot – The Podcast

Episode: “MCD Shutters, Audible's Story House, and More of the Week's Book News”

Hosts: Jeff O’Neal & Rebecca Schinsky
Air Date: April 13, 2026

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Overview

This episode of Book Riot – The Podcast offers a comprehensive rundown of the week's most significant literary industry news, including the closing of FSG's cult favorite MCD imprint, new indie bookstore awards, spring releases, Audible's experimental “Story House” listening lounge, and the evolving landscape of book merchandising and retail. In the second half, a deep-dive interview with Kathy Galliano, Executive VP of Merchandising for Books A Million, discusses how trends develop in book retail and what’s capturing the imagination of readers in 2026.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

[08:34] The Millions’ Spring Book Preview & Ben Lerner’s “Transcription”

• The Millions, curated by Sophia Stewart, releases a comprehensive spring preview featuring “Transcription” by Ben Lerner as a buzzy new lit-fic title.
• Hosts discuss the tactile design of the “Transcription” cover (“the phone feels textured”—Rebecca, 09:32), the rise of indie and small press picks, and shout out Stewart’s blend of mainstream, translation, and niche releases.
• 140 notable April–June titles are previewed.

[11:14] FSG Shuts Down the MCD Imprint

• Big News: Farrar, Straus & Giroux (FSG) is closing its innovative imprint MCD, known for “weird, but not too weird” boundary-pushing fiction.
• Publisher Sean McDonald departs as senior staff is cut; FSG is expected to absorb some titles.
• Both hosts express disappointment:
  • “MCD was a real one.” —Rebecca (15:20)
  • “If I had to pick one imprint to read for the rest of my life, it might be MCD.” —Jeff (12:45)
• Discussion of MCD’s hits: Near Flesh Stories, Mountain in the Sea, Model Home, Grief Is For People, and more.
• Speculation that business/costs and shifting genre boundaries led to the closure rather than a large strategic pivot:
  • “Publishers want to place their bets and buy their tickets… It’s expensive to take all those chances.” —Rebecca (14:51)
  • Timeline: MCD launched in 2017, never quite “minted a franchise.”

Memorable Moment

“Maybe the puck of weirdness has come to the skater and they don’t need to skate to the puck.”
—Jeff, (16:09)

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[17:34] Indie Book Awards: James Patterson’s Bookshop Prize & Indies Choice

• Correspondent by Virginia Evans sweeps newly launched James Patterson/Bookshop.org prize ($15K) and the Adult Fiction Indies Choice Award.
• Hosts note both are bookseller-voted and worry about “future cross talk” if the same book dominates both, but see value in indies spotlighting literary fiction over blockbuster genre fare.
• Notable winners:
  • Runner-up: The Lilac People by Milo Todd ($10K)
  • Adult Nonfiction: One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad
  • Debut Awards: Black Owned by Char Adams (Adult), Whale Eyes (Children’s)

Quotes

“Virginia Evans is having a really good run right now—not only did she win… she also won the Adult Fiction Indies Choice Book Award.”
—Rebecca (17:34)

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[21:15] Sales Trends: “The Correspondent” vs. “Theo of Golden”

• Per Publishers Weekly, The Correspondent is a major literary breakout, but still being outsold 2:1 by Theo of Golden (likely due to paperback/hardcover split).
• Debate if paperback debuts have an advantage in the “BookTok era.”
• Reflection on recent debuts, e.g., The Berry Pickers, Big Swiss, and the current trend of “messy female protagonists” giving way to “tradwives and the dark side of tradwives.”
• “2023 was the year of heaven and Earth Grocery Store… messy female protagonist… but I think we’ve moved on.” —Rebecca (22:41)

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[23:29] Audible’s Story House: Experiential Audio Lounge in NYC

• Audible launches a physical “listening lounge” at 260 Bowery: audiobooks, headphones, scheduled hours, and a knitting area.
• Hosts are skeptical:
  • “Browsing audiobooks sucks. This is no better than that because you’re still going to be on a phone.” —Jeff (27:15)
  • Discuss whether such stunts deliver ROI, branding, or just press clippings:
    • “This kind of stunt marketing… I really guess doesn’t move the needle. It can’t possibly be ROI positive.” —Rebecca (24:54)
• Brainstorm “better” experience models: curated audio “trailers” (like in-flight music/video), bookseller recs (Libro.fm Café), or more innovative listening setups.

Memorable Moment

“Congratulations to whatever boutique agency pitched them and took the money to do this… that’s some excellent marketing work on yourself.”
—Jeff (27:39)

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[31:12] Industry Moves: Paramount Launching New Publishing Program

• Paramount (now owner of CBS, former owner of Simon & Schuster) moves back into books, aiming for synergy with their film/TV IP.
• Discussion:
  • Possibilities: Taylor Sheridan tie-ins, kids books, star memoirs, direct adaption of their productions.
  • “Vertical integration and synergy… that’s just what they’re doing here.” —Rebecca (32:08)
• Speculation on control over adaptation rights: could a Project Hail Mary-level hit drive the economics of these decisions?

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[34:40] Adaptations: Wizard TV Series, Parable of the Sower, & More

• Wizarding World (HP) HBO series: Both hosts predict it’ll underwhelm, comparing to Rings of Power:
  • “The excitement I see is coming from the studio.” —Rebecca (34:51)
• Parable of the Sower (Octavia Butler): Melina Matsoukas will direct a film adaptation, setting moved to early 2000s California:
  • “A real intersection of higher art and pop culture. I think this will be really interesting.” —Rebecca (38:01)
• House in the Cerulean Sea (TJ Klune): Warner Bros picks up for animated series. Hosts revisit ongoing confusion over whether Klune’s books are technically “YA”:
  • “This looks like a duck, walks like a duck…about kids that are different. What else do you want?” —Jeff (41:59)

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[56:23] Spotlight Interview — Kathy Galliano (Books A Million: EVP Merchandising)

Books A Million’s Ethos and Retail Strategy

• Bookseller-driven: Store feedback, customer interaction, and local demographic trends shape curation.
• Galliano says, “No two days are the same… staying close to our customers is really important.”
• Books A Million has always tried to serve specific community needs (roots dating to 1917 Florence, AL, TVA dam workers).

Spotting & Capitalizing on Trends

• Early to the manga boom (“over-indexed for years”), rapidly adapting to BookTok, streaming, and changing demographics—customer base is now younger and more female.
• Examples:
  • Shining a spotlight on indie/early-stage releases (like HM Wolf’s Daggermouth).
  • Observing a growing dystopian and horror market alongside “romantasy” and the “Heated Rivalry” sports romance boom.
  • “LitRPG” (e.g., Matt Deniman’s Dungeon Crawler Carl) as a new cross-genre gateway.

Regional and Store Variability

• Some stores act as “canaries in the coal mine” for nationwide trends.
• Even long-running, literary-heavy locations are seeing “contagious” manga and genre shifts post-COVID.

Book Discovery in the Social Media Era

• Push/pull dynamics: Now, more often, readers come to stores seeking books gone viral online.
• Yet, in-store experience and bookseller recs still shape reading discovery beyond the algorithm.
• Noted emergent crossover hits: Heated Rivalry, Theo of Golden, The Correspondent, Project Hail Mary.

Community & Third Spaces

• Record event attendance in stores and off-site venues; book clubs and “mini book club” moments spring up in-store organically.
• Return to in-person literary community is driven by an urge for authentic human connection, a throughline in many sales trends (“romantasy is about connection” —Jeff, 73:57).

Sprayed Edges & Plussed-up Editions

• Sprayed/stenciled edges and deluxe editions are booming, especially with younger readers building “bookshelf wealth.”
• Collectibility is now a meaningful piece of physical book value (“one-upmanship” among publishers).
• Unsure if trend will persist 10 years out, but now it’s “table stakes” for high-impact releases.

Recent & Upcoming Author Favorites

• Kathy is currently reading Maggie O’Farrell’s Land (out June), and highlights “rich lineup” for Fall, plus page-to-screen tie-ins as cultural events (e.g., “expect more beautiful Narnia editions”).
• Coloring books and analog hobbies are on the rise again, echoing past surges.

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Frontlist Foyer: Noteworthy Older Reads

• Rebecca: The Witch by Marian Jaë, new in English (orig. 1996), “mediocre witch in a mediocre marriage”—little overt magic, lots of atmospheric, pre-Internet literary fiction.
• Jeff: The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) by Rabi Alameddine—National Book Award-winning Beirut-set character study in a throwback stylistic vein: “A writer who feels like they have real control over what they’re doing.”
• Audio Rec: Making Art, Making a Living by Mason Currey—how great artists scrapped together material stability.
  • “It’s always hard to make art. The people who make a living off it are the exception, not the rule.” —Rebecca (53:42)
  • Both prefer nonfiction audiobooks, especially read by the author.

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Notable Quotes

“If I had to pick one imprint to read for the rest of my life, it might be MCD.”
—Jeff O’Neil (12:45)

“MCD was a real one.”
—Rebecca Schinsky (15:20)

“This looks like a duck, walks like a duck… These are coming-of-age stories about kids that are different. What else do you want?”
—Jeff (41:59; on TJ Klune’s books and genre definitions)

“Browsing audiobooks sucks. This is no better than that because you’re still going to be on a phone.”
—Jeff (27:15)

“Congratulations to whatever boutique agency pitched them and took the money to do this… that’s some excellent marketing work on yourself.”
—Jeff (27:39; on Audible Story House)

“People are turning out in record numbers for all different types of [book] events… you can definitely see people want to be with their community.”
—Kathy Galliano (71:53)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [08:34] The Millions’ spring preview & Ben Lerner’s Transcription
• [11:14] FSG announces the end of MCD imprint
• [17:34] Indie bookseller awards, dominated by The Correspondent
• [21:15] Bestseller list insights; literary debut trends
• [23:29] Audible Story House critique & discussion of audiobook browsing
• [31:12] Paramount’s “vertical integration” with new publishing initiative
• [34:40] Adaptation talk: Wizard TV series, Parable of the Sower, Cerulean Sea
• [56:23] Interview with Kathy Galliano (Books A Million EVP Merchandising)
• [71:53] Discussion of community events and literary engagement in stores
• [73:57] Sprayed edges/deluxe editions for collectors
• [78:27] Kathy’s recent reads & thoughts on enduring trends

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Tone, Language, and Listener Value

The hosts’ conversational, lightly irreverent style blends industry-insider savvy with accessible “book person” enthusiasm. Particularly useful for:

• Readers closely following publishing news or industry shifts
• Bookstore professionals/retail nerds seeking trend insight
• Literary fiction and indie press fans
• Those tracking adaptations, sales phenomena, and book discovery changes
• Listeners curious about how the “vibe” of retail and literary culture is resurfacing post-COVID

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Summary prepared for those who want to stay abreast of the fast-evolving book landscape, without wading through publisher PR or five-figure listener forums!

Transcript

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[Rebecca Schinsky]

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[Jeff O'Neill]

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[Rebecca Schinsky]

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[Jeff O'Neill]

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

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And I'm Rebecca Schinsky.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Got a two for free today. Sort of. We're gonna do a regular news segment A then in the B side of the show, Rebecca, we have a guest. We were just talking about this interview we just did.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yes, Kathy Galliano. She is the executive vice president of merchandising from Books a Million. She's been there for almost 20 and we had a really interesting conversation with her about how the industry has changed the current trends that they're developing or watching. Develop how Books A Million spots trends. They were on the manga tip like a year before other mainstream booksellers were and other stuff that's going on. We had some conversation about spreadges and just really interesting to get a chance to talk with someone who's been working in book retail for as long as she has and has seen the industry develop like 2007 is before ebooks were widespread and borders still existed.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Do you think she has like a notch on her belt? Like there went Borders. She's like, you know, there went Hastings especially in the south and Midwest. There's not as many on the west coast and in the northeast I think but like I've spent some time in like a Tulsa Books a million when I was a kid.

[Advertiser]

Yeah, for sure.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. They're I mean second largest US retail for books after Barnes and Noble.

[Jeff O'Neill]

So there's that right after this show. Coming up later in the month we're gonna have the April hot list that's gonna be next Wednesday. And and right now over on zero to well read. You can check out us talking about Old man the Old man and the Sea by one Ernest Hemingway. And Rebecca, I think the TLDR for that episode is both what you think it is and totally not right with the old agency. It's kind of weird to say it that way.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It was really surprising. It was my first time with Hemingway, I think since high school at college at least. And it was really so much more fun than I expected it to be and much more complex. The man does manage to say a lot with very few. It was a great discovery, I realized last week we teased for this show's listeners like the next Zero to well Read is something that you've heard us talk about a ton. We were wrong about the calendar. That one's coming out.

[Jeff O'Neill]

We were. We were wrong about the calendar.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

So as you're listening, if you're in the main feed on Monday here, tomorrow's show Tuesday on Zero to well Read will indeed be Gilead by Marilyn Robinson.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yes, yes, yes, yes, ma'. Am. And tomorrow we're recording an episode with a friend of the pod who've heard before about another shared favorite. So lots coming out over on Zero to well Read. Go check. Check it out there. Currently in the Patreon feed. Got a lot of nice feedback about our best debut novels of the last 10 years episode that we did for it was really fun episode to do. So people coming there. Also, Are we still taking Mom Dad's requests, Rebecca, or we're not?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

We are. Yeah. We're still taking Mom's dads and grads requests. Maybe another week. We've got to record that one near the end of April, so we're doing it in two parts, though the first episode will come out right before Mother's Day, so we will prioritize Mom's questions in that first episode and then Dads and Grads ads will fill in on the next one.

[Jeff O'Neill]

A lot of feedback about books with two authors. And I will I'm not going to shout out any specific one. I'll say this. Every example that I saw and tell me if you understood something differently, is in the data camp of neutral at best for two authors and what it does for a book's profile and sales and reputation.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yes. Yeah. Neutral at best. I think we haven't seen any situation where like two authors have combined their powers and it has eclipsed what either of them had done individually. Especially like when one of you is Ve Schwab. I mean, come on.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. I mean, I don't want to say less than the sum of its parts, but I think it might just be there's it's a small data set and most books don't break out. So like.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Right.

[Jeff O'Neill]

You know, maybe we could come up with a list of a couple of dozen, even with listener contributions of things that we know about, that's fewer than 4% of books really, really pop. So I think it could be just that we don't have enough examples at the same time. But thank you all for emailing in. Those are all data points that prove the rule rather than what I think most people thought was like look at this book by two people that most people have forgotten by now or you know, was kind of a mid middling sort of success anyway. So that's that. I think that's all of our housekeeping for the day there

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[Rebecca Schinsky]

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[Jeff O'Neill]

Shout out to the Millions who does a seasonal spring preview. This is largely, I think maybe exclusively Sophia Stewart over at the Millions that does this. She I've interviewed her about the creation of this warmed my literary man's heart to see transcription by Ben Lerner be the top. Only because I think it was sort of first out of the gate. I have not yet been down to pick it up. I haven't had. I haven't had a chance to, you know, put on my horn ring glasses and roll up my jeans a little and put up a flannel and vape on my way down to pals.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Oh, we're gonna add vaping to your repertoire.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I don't know. I'm trying.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay?

[Jeff O'Neill]

I need to up my priors of what a middle aged man does now because a middle aged man is not smoking pipes and mahogany chairs. I am middlemade. What are my peers doing? I'm not vaping or really doing any of those things.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

You're gonna pour yourself a cocktail that you make with juice. You squeezed yourself.

[Jeff O'Neill]

That's what I'm saying this in my nugget ice machine.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. This is how you live this. This is a good way to live. I got my copy of Transcription. I haven't read it yet. There's texture in one of the elements on the hardcover, which is kind of cool. Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Is it on the phone backing part like the gold?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. Uh huh. Yeah. So both the front and the back covers of the book have sort of the outline of a smartphone because the bit is, you know, the main character goes to interview someone and his phone is dead and he has no way to record the interview that the book is about. And the phone feels textured. And I was so surprised. Like we don't ever get like scratch and sniff stuff on literary fiction.

[Jeff O'Neill]

No, we don't. You texted me a big profile on Ben Lerner that appeared in New York Magazine. I've not gotten it to it yet. Will transcription by Ben Learner make the Hot List episode? Tune in to find out. But go check out that. Also number two on that list is One Leg on Earth by Pemi Oguda, which we were talking about in a previous episode. So really cool to see. I think there's. There's a lot of seasonal summer previews, monthly previews. I think that millions does. And what Sophia Stewart does is really the only lit, thick forward one out there. I can't think of an equivalent one that really dives. There's translation, there's smaller press. She does a wonderful job. So go check it out.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. If you are especially like a mainstream literary fiction reader and you're looking to read more from small presses and independent presses, this is a great resource. 140 titles from April, May and June.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Right. Plenty of books out there for us all to consider, I guess. I was thinking about Transcription again this morning. That's what it's My Roman Empire for the next couple weeks. Transcription by Ben.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Right now we're just thinking about Ben. I kind of assume just like once a week you pause and just think about Ben Lerner for a little bit.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I do. Do I love you? Do I hate you? Like what? How are we going to figure this out? But it's an FSG title and it's. That's in the news. Interestingly today, because FSG announced that they are shuttering their MCD imprint. FSG itself is one of the flagship commercial literary titles going back years and years and years. I always pay attention to their list. It's like them and Knopf, I think, kind of exist in a similar space. And then FSG has a sort of skunk works weirder fiction imprint called mcd. Or they did Rebecca because the word came down today that they are shuttering McD.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Such a bummer. We've shouted out MCD several times in the past for being one of our favorite imprints that does experiments, but not too experimental, weird, but not too weird. Like, those books were a reliable way to expand your literary horizons. They were always doing something interesting. And very sadly, the MCD imprint will be shuttered. Its SVP and publisher, Sean McDonald will be leaving the company April 15th. You know, lots of changes are going on in publishing, but a lot of changes happening at Macmillan, especially right now. FSG is part of Macmillan. So we're really sad personally to see this happen. I don't know that it means anything bigger than businesses make decisions about business things. But I'm really bummed for the literary landscape to see this happen, and I hope that those books and authors find a good new home.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I had said that if I had to pick one imprint to read for the rest of my life, it might be McD. Now, do I get McD as part of picking FSG? We'll have to appeal to myself for the judge's ruling on that offhanded comment, because that's something that I care about. But this is what I really do. I like to read a meaningful part of my kind of read, just to give some examples. So I talked to Katherine Dunn. I'm sorry, I talked to the editor of Near Flesh Stories by Katherine Dunn for First Edition. The Wayfinder, Adam Johnson's new book and Certification you read by Cory Doctorow is a book that we talked about. They broke out Ray Naylor, the Mountain in the Sea, Model Home by River Solomon, Hector Tabar, the Barbarian, Nurseries I've talked about on this show before. Grief is for People by Sloan Crosley. Dead in Long Beach, California, by Vanita Blackburn. I've read from, like, I, of course, have not read all of them, but I don't have to scroll very far down the MCD catalog. She's like, oh, there's one I liked. Oh, there's one I liked. Oh, there's one I like. So I. If I survive you by Jonathan Ascoffrey really broke that. Yeah, I really liked that cult classic by Sloan Carl. And now I'm just naming books, which is like fun and representative and also not helpful. I am hopeful that these kinds of books, most of them, many of them, will find home at fsg. But they let go their number. The sort of. The person who is in charge of this, they've kept some of the staff. I don't know, Rebecca. I Don't know what to say. I think. I think it's not great news. On the other hand, are you that surprised this happens from time to time? I don't know.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. It's tempting to get into like big trend pieces and draw some conclusions about what this must mean in the bigger literary landscape. And maybe it does mean some things. But no one is saying that.

[Jeff O'Neill]

No one's saying that.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

So I'm not ready to come out and make any big conclusions about it. But I will certainly be sad to not see McD in my catalogs anymore.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. I mean it could be as simple and ruthless isn't the right term. But cut and dry as you know, some of these books are doing well, but they're the ones we thought we could just publish under fsg. And there's a bunch of these that. That didn't earn out or were a lot of work and we just were not that big.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

As we talk about like publishing as a casino or as a lottery and that publishers want to place their bets and buy their tickets and see if they can cash in and take a chance at winning big. It's expensive to take all of those chances. And they may just be doing some math about how many chances they can afford to take. And as publishers make those decisions, sometimes fewer books get published. But I certainly share your hope here. For most of these books and authors, McD was a real one.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. And it's not like it's been around since 1941 or something like this. This started in 2017. Like the first book was born, which is Jeff Vandermeer's one of the after the Southern Reach trilogy books came out. I'm trying to see in those early days, Robert and Sloan had a couple books. Not Mr. Penumbra, but a couple of follow ons there. Yeah. So I don't know. I'm not seeing a huge number of giant hits and they didn't seem to mint franchise and other things that are really paying the bills or giant successes there. Outside of the Mountain and the Sea and again, even that. I wonder about Rebecca in macmillan. Is that not a tour title? Better fit.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Why is it Feels like a tour title to me. Yeah. Probably just had to do with who the editor was at the time and you know, all the sort of behind the scenes things that go into how books landed in prints. But I could totally see that one

[Jeff O'Neill]

being a tour and also that they were doing genre literary stuff 10 years ago and maybe they're like, you know what? This is just regular imprint stuff now. Like we either put it with genre, we put it with the, with the flat irons or the, the other kind of commercial and literary titles that go into it now. So maybe the, maybe the puck of weirdness has come to the skater and they don't need to skate to the puck.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Show title.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

We'll pour one out.

[Jeff O'Neill]

How long has it been since we did show titles? Like, like what percentage people listen now even get? No, it's been long, Rebecca.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Has it been longer than a couple years? I don't know. We've been doing this podcast for so long.

[Jeff O'Neill]

That's something where again, I find AI less and less useful in my own workflows and thinking. But there are some things like could you just ask it go look at the archives and scroll far enough to see where the last Free Range show title.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, where we used to just take a funny phrase that came out of our mouths in the show and that was the show title back before it really mattered. That episode titles told you about what you were going to hear in the episode.

[Jeff O'Neill]

So there's that too. You know what imprint came back but is not going to go away is Crown. Because Crown has on its hand a bonafide sensation. And luckily James Patterson and Bookshop have deigned to give the Correspondent its inaugural debut award. Because Lord knows the correspondent in Virginia Evans.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Virginia Evans is having a really good run right now. Not only did she win this inaugural James Patterson and bookshop.org prize that you just mentioned, she gets 15 grand for that. The prize is awarded by independent booksellers. She also won the Adult Fiction Indies Choice Book Award which was announced earlier this week. They announced all seven of theirs earlier this week. Those are also voted on by independent booksellers. And I had a little like, are we going to have some in future years like like Coordination or Cross Talk? So it's not just the same books winning the Indies Choice Award and the James Patterson Award, but it's the same voting bodies. Basically it's American Booksellers association members can vote on the Indies Choice Book Awards. To be eligible, those books have to have been featured in the Indie Next list or the Kids Indie Next list. I don't think the parameters are quite as tight on the James Patterson Bookshop. Those could just be nominated by folks, but the the correspondence took the prize in both of them. The Lilac People by Milo Todd was the runner up for the James Patterson Bookshop Prize. He also will get $10,000 and then other winners of the Indies Choice Awards, which are back for the first time this year since 2019 they went on hiatus during COVID one day everyone will have always been against this by Omar El Akkad was the adult nonfiction Don't Trust Fish is Kids. The kids picture book middle grade was Kate Messner's the Trouble with Heroes. The young adult winner is they Bloom at Night by Trang Thanh Tran. The debut adult book which again we love it when people give out debut awards. This one went to Black Owned the Revolutionary Life of Black Bookstores by Char Adams, who we've had on the site before. Really interesting history about how central bookstores have been to the black community and to political movements. And then the debut children's book is called Whale Eyes. So all of those winners also get $2,000. Nice little week. But Virginia Evans, I mean on an

[Jeff O'Neill]

all timer, you know, I'm sort of tongue in cheek about that. I don't necessarily mind because I think more people finding about a single book, especially when it's like literary fiction, it's selling well but it's not romantasy. Right. So it's not oversaturated like that. The Lilac People by Milo Todd, which is about book. If I had seen I had forgotten about. So this is about a trans man in World War II relinquishing freedoms, making like it's historical fiction. World War II with a trans. Like. Yeah. Now, now we were just actually you'll hear us talk with Mary a little bit about. Or no, that was after we were recording I think Rebecca or Kathy. Sorry, did we. Did we get that part about her own. Yeah, I think she was talking about getting people out of like pretty straight ahead. World War II historical fiction and bridging out from that. That. And this is the kind of book I'd like to see here. Most of the time we're not going to have a correspondent breakout debut where it feels a little bit like a checker on a checker to give it all the debut fiction awards. So again, it's okay. But it would. I'm glad to see the lilac people get also in the creative like included a little bit at the same time. I think that was clever as well.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. Nice to see it. My only complaint about any of this has nothing to do with the awards themselves. But it is April 9th of 2026 and we're still giving out 2025 book awards.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. What are we doing on the other hand? It's still selling. I don't know. I'd had another data point for you. It's been a while since I looked at the Publishers Weekly bestseller list. I just dipped into it yesterday to see. And the Correspondent is being outsold by Theo of Golden two to one right now. Right. I'm thinking of them as a package. Even the coloring on the book is sort of the same, but like, they're

[Rebecca Schinsky]

both paperback versus hardcover.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I think that's part of it too. And I don't. I'd love to know if we could a b test the universe if the Correspondent was out in paperback right now or vice versa. The Theo golden was out in hardcover, but two to one for Theo of Golden versus the Correspondent right now. How about this for you? In our age of social media and Booktok and TikTok, where sometimes you can pluck something out, could we give the three years ago best book award? Like right now? We can give out the best book award for 2003. This is like whatever. Just whatever it is right now.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Sure.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Pick it out.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, let's do that. That would be fun. I'd have to go back into my notes for 2023 trying to.

[Jeff O'Neill]

What was the last debut? The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters did quite well and not quite as well as this book, but that was a debut that did relatively well in the literary fiction space recently. Nothing else comes immediately to mind.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

So, yeah, I'm scrolling through books I read. 2023 was the year of the heaven and Earth grocery store. But you're talking specifically about debuts.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, I'm just thinking about debuts. Right. Like, what if we could go back and do it a little bit later to see. I should also say this and the moms and dads and grads requests the Correspondent catch all Swiss army, mother in laws, father in laws, parents who like to read books.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It's going to be a good Swiss Army.

[Jeff O'Neill]

It's going to be so easy. I'm gonna have to ration myself only 14 mentions of the Correspondent. I'll limit myself to that during the.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

You know, I'm looking as I look back at 2023 now that. That's a question that you've posed. One of the debuts that I still hear people talk about and that shows up in comp titles a lot is Big Swiss by Jen began as a like, messy female protest. I did. Yeah. I thought it was fine. Yeah, I was okay with it. I was whelmed. But a lot of people really liked it and I do. It shows up in comp titles a lot where we're talking about like kind of the. The same Otto Ottoman zone of like messy female protagonist. So that might Be that might have been a contender for where are we at?

[Jeff O'Neill]

At messy female protagonist. Because it did have. It certainly had a moment maybe best articulated in that book cover and that it feels like we're somewhere else. It's not over.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I think we have moved on to Tradwives and the Dark side of Tradwives now, right? Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. Different kind of mess on that side for sure. Let's see. I have the. So the next story is Audible launches this thing called Story House. So you go to this place in New York and you sit down and I guess you listen to audiobooks and you knit stuff. Rebecca. Which if that's your kind of experience, great. I'm excited for you. I have more of a question about this whole genre of marketing. Right. Like, I always think of this Sobe LifeWater VIP room from Parks and Rec, like that no one is allowed into. That's like a send up of this. Like, do these things work? Do we have marketers in our audience? Like, does this move the needle or is this something you do to show your boss that you're doing marketing? Like, is it that we're talking? Like, what is. Talk to. Why, why. Why are we doing this?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, I mean, I think this is a. It's a clever idea. Like, let's have a listening lounge. Maybe let's have a listening lounge is a nice idea. Like, part of it harkens for me back to like when you could go into a Barnes and Noble and listen to samples of any CD you know, or like our shared favorite scene from one of our shared favorite movies when they're in a listening booth in Before Sunrise in a record store. Like, that's, that's a, an old fashioned kind of media experience. Like put on headphones, listen to a sample of something before you buy it. This is completely unnecessary now that you can listen to samples of audiobooks from audible on audible.

[Jeff O'Neill]

That's what the whole Internet is for.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

So, like this kind of stunt marketing, to me, I would really guess, like, doesn't move the needle. It can't possibly be ROI positive. There's no way.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I know it's not even supposed to be on itself, but like in two years.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

But they don't even. I think it's a situation where like, ROI is not even the consideration. Like, it's just brand visibility. Some of that matters. How much is impossible to know. Like, you really cannot measure the impact or the lack of impact of something like this.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Can't prove a negative.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

But you can't. But you can tell your boss we Got this many news stories about it, this many people came through the door. Maybe you get to give them promotional material while they're in there. Something like that. Like, it feels similar to me of like, when an app launches a new feature that, you know isn't really going to do anything, but, like, they've just got to launch new features often enough to keep themselves in the news and audible. Like everyone else, perpetually looking for ways to stay relevant.

[Jeff O'Neill]

So this is at 260 Bowery in New York. And if you're not a New Yorker Manhattanite, you don't know, but, like, this is a. Used to be really hip and now it's like expensive. Like, again, New York has changed and I've been a while since I lived there, so it could be that my priors need to be updated. So they had to rent this building out, renovate it, brand it, market it, populate it. I guess it's going to be open forever. It's Wednesday to Sunday, 11:00am to 7:00pm like, what are we doing?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I believe it's time limited. Oh, it's not. It wasn't in the release.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, I didn't see. I'm on the webpage now. I don't see anything about, like, this is through April or something now. Summertime in New York, I'd imagine there's people gonna be out, maybe just people walking by it, taking pictures. I don't know. But like, here's the other thing about this. So you go in and you put on headphones and you sit there like that's. That's what people are doing. You go in with your date or your mom or your friends or whatever. You go in. You're gonna sit there for a while, I guess. I don't know. It doesn't open till 11,

[Rebecca Schinsky]

so you can't even take your morning coffee in.

[Jeff O'Neill]

They should have coffee there. Just do this. Make it a coffee place. You can sit there and drink your latte and listen to the thing. This is another. It's not really a rant, but I've got two minutes on another idea for you, Rebecca. Or not an idea, just a observation.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Let's do it.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Browsing. Audiobook sucks.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It does.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And this is no better than that because you're still going to be on a phone. Like you're. You have headphones and it's connected to what? An iPad that's connected to an audible ad.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Like, I don't even know if you're. I don't even know if you're using this.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Rebecca, why did you pitch this to audible and why did you make them do this?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, this is the number one way that I would spend audibles money.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, well. Well, I mean, congratulations to whatever boutique agency pitched them and took the money to do this. Because I've got to say that's some excellent marketing work on yourself. But like you're gonna get an iPad with headphones and sit there. I can do that at home. And it doesn't help you because they're not gonna have some special concierge to recommend you audiobooks. It's just not gonna work.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I still, that's.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I still think that's a real problem.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I do too. I think that a different version of this, that would work better, but I think it's always gonna be a problem. Like sampling audiobooks would be something like a Libro FM cafe staffed with independent booksellers who can be like, what's your vibe? Here is the thing that you should try listening to, which is better always than an algorithm. Like those recommendations are always better because they understand the vibe of what you're reading. They're not just pulling from like the key words of, you know, the synopsis of something.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I have another idea for you. Sorry, I was almost done with my idea, but I was like, I was looking at this, I was like, there's got to be something else here. And I don't think this is any better, but maybe it would be more interesting. Like, you know how I had this, I think a half baked idea years ago where I think there should be movie theaters in not, not that show real movie, like full movies in airports, but like a little movie theater. But all they're doing is just their trailers on trailers. I would sit there for 45 minutes and be advertised to. I love movie trailers. I think a lot of people do. There's actually a small movie theater in the Portland airport, but it shows like indie art house clips, which is fine. I've never been in there because I'm like, no, but if it like the Avengers, Doomsday and the Spider man and the Odyssey, my shit would be glued there. I'd be eating my overpriced sandwich and watching this. So I was like, could you do something where you're just playing like the best clips with like a big multimedia board with like the author reading it? Like actually that would be curate some. Give me 60 seconds of these things. Just give me 3060 second clips.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

That would be great. There's. There could be like a version of this on flights. Like I know different publishers and retail Companies have experimented with airlines and I've seen stuff on Delta where it's like, sample some Spotify playlists. Like, it would be cool if you could sample a bunch of like the best clips from Audible's bestsellers while you're there. If, if they were playing movie trailers or the best audiobook trailers on the TVs and the Delta lounges, like, that would be a 500% improvement in the

[Jeff O'Neill]

PC or ESPN deportees or ESPN 2

[Rebecca Schinsky]

or 3 Fox News, which is for some reason on a lot of the team.

[Jeff O'Neill]

For some reason. No idea why they're in the Delta Lounge. Coming out of Richmond, Rebecca, there's a shock. I have some news to you about the demo you're dealing with there.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Listen, my demo here, first of all, there's not a Delta Lounge in Richmond. We're not that fancy.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Oh, okay. Tershot. Must be nice. Yeah, right.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Like, I think that would be super fun. Some sort of trailer situation. They now Audible is doing audiobook trailers at the. The movies. When I went to see that. Yeah, when I went to. The first time I saw it was when I went to go see Project Hail Mary. They showed some clips from Ray Porter reading the Project Hail Mary audiobook and like, some of the social content that's been built around that. And because Audible has exclusive audio editions of the she who, not the wizard series that we don't talk about anymore, they're starting to show trailers for HBO's new series with Audible's audiobook stuff behind them. And like you can listen to these on audio. So there is some like, cross media platform integration happening there. But we could do better for consumers just bumping into audiobooks than come into a listening lounge.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, mystifying. Mystifying to me. Shoot us. Email podcastookride.com if you know anything about this kind of a world. I'd love to know. Let's see. Adaptation. Well, sort of Paramount getting back into the books business. So the chain of events, is this

[Rebecca Schinsky]

just to publish books by Taylor Sheridan? We'll see.

[Jeff O'Neill]

It could be. But remember, Paramount is now Paramount owns cbs and CBS used to own Simon and Schuster. So books publishing used to be part of Paramount's business, but there's a new publishing imprint. There's IP in play. This is a piece in Hollywood Reporter by Alex Weprin. Did Taylor Sheridan get shouted out directly in this or were you inferring that? Because that's a good call out. If that's just you.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I mean, there is a Taylor Sheridan book out this year from.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Oh, that's like how not to Die or something. Or not to Die, Anything like that?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yes. Yeah. I try to know as little about Taylor Sheridan as possible, but there will be tons of crossover opportunities either. You know, books that are directly related to movies and shows that Paramount produces kids books is a real possibility for a lot of these. Maybe memoirs by some of their stars like Vertical Integration and Synergy. Let's just. That's just what they're doing here.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Well, I do think having control or getting in on. Let's put it this way, the books that you're gonna adapt into film and TV makes a ton of sense. Like, I do wonder, was it talked about at all in Amazon's funding of Project Hail Mary that we have the exclusive audiobook, which is a one of one. Was that a line on the balance sheet to say, okay, and if this works, we could pick up 4 million 6. I don't know how many dollars. I'm sure it's doing even better now.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Also, like in this case, when as they start acquiring books, things that seem especially ripe for adaptation, we can acquire this, we get and move it over for film adaptation at the same time.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Which that's a process that needs some

[Jeff O'Neill]

smoothing because it has to be galling to no end that they will not get to wet their beak at all at the attendant book sale surge that will happen when the wizard who shall not be named IP right is going to be in our lives for 10 years. Sidebar about this Rebecca we're not going to be covering the story, I think we said an earlier podcast. I was so glad to see how mediocre the trailer looks. That's. I don't have to care.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I haven't even watched it.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, it's. You are like, wait, this is. Is this the new one? Wait, that's not Dan Radcliffe. But that's kind of it at this point where we are with this coming out Christmas Overperform performer underperform. How this is going to hit? Like, are people. Is this going to be a thing? Like, where do you. What is your vibe check on this right now? And let's just take for the moment all the nastiness about rolling to the side. John Lithgow has been on podcast tours to try to cover. Yeah, I don't know what he's trying to do is like, I don't agree with it. I think she's too much. But also she, like, I don't know what that mealy mouth crap that he's doing. I'm not a fan of that. But outside of our own opinions of it and how much we want to participate in it. I am really feeling today like there's a real chance that this is Rings of Power on Amazon, which is there, right. Or tell. Or does that sound right to you? And why, why are we agreeing about

[Rebecca Schinsky]

that rather than what we're thinking? I think that's right. It just, just it. All of the excitement that I see about it is coming from the studio.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Or from, like, the marketing sort of marketing pieces or publicity pieces from outlets like Variety and Entertainment Weekly and places that, like, it's their job to cover this stuff. And most of the way that they get information is press releases from the studios. And, like, there's been a ton of press information about these shows because they really want it to be big. So they're trying to make it look like the most anticipated thing. Like, I mean, the thing that trended over the holidays this year was heated rivalry. And, like, we're not gonna get another heated rivalry this Christmas season. But there will be something else while we're all at home. I think this is competing with the original Harry Potter movies. Like, there are families that just rewatch those at the holidays every year. There are families that rewatch Lord of the Rings at the holidays every year. And so, like, here's a new one to compete with the old one that you already love, and it's a TV series, and it's gonna go on Gone for goddamn ever. Like, I just, I, I, I think there's a real chance that it comes out and, like, we won't really get viewership numbers because it's hbo, but that it will not be met with the fanfare that HBO and Warner Brothers want it to look like it's being met with.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I would love to know in their heart of hearts now what the powers that be at HBO or think. Like, are we, are we excited? Are we white knuckling the spreadsheets a little bit? Like, what's our tracking date? Like, I, I have no I'd to love because I think there's a chance it gets blown out of the water in Legacy fantasy IP by the Gerwig Narnia stuff in the fall. There's a real chance it's a bigger story.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. Narnia is out, I think, right Thanksgiving weekend, and that'll be cruising. And, like, families like to go to the movies at Christmas, too. So you're gonna be competing against Gerwig in theaters. But also, I'm sure there will be other family holiday movies that we don't know about yet. And Harry Potter, the new version. You have to stay at home. You have to have hbo.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Um, yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Anyway, I'm just. I'm just curious right now if you want to shoot us an email. Like, if you are yourself and we're not doing. Do any judgment in this corner for you. It's like if you yourself, your family members, like you're a librarian. Like if you have tendrils out to the. The hive mind of culture. Like, if you're picking up on vibes about the hp. I really am curious about this right now to see where we are. I also could be biased against it. And I'm totally misreading the market and. And that's more than possible at this point.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I think that that could totally be

[Jeff O'Neill]

what's happening in adaptation news. I am excited about to see. We did Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler's signal work. At this point. I think we can see Parable of the sower, her dystopian 1993 modern classic. Melina Matsukis, who was the director and writer, I believe, of Queen and Slim and Insecure. I'm not sure exactly what all of these. The credit she gets for all of these. At the same time. She's also collaborative. Beyonce will be directing a filmed version of this.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Let's go.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Which is. They're going to move it to early 2000s California. I think, as we said in zero the well read. You could set this in California today because a lot of the same things are still going. It doesn't need to be the 90s.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It opens in 2024. The book opens.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, I'm sorry, you're correct. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

So they won't have to. Because, yeah, Butler was writing into like 30 years into the future. So they don't have to. To move the timeline at all. And I'm stoked. Like, let's do it. Melina Matsoukas, like, in addition to, as you said, Queen and Slim, and I think she directed eight episodes of Insecure, has also collaborated with Beyonce on several videos, most notably the Formation video. So, like a real intersection of higher art and pop culture. And pop culture that leans into higher art, as Beyonce likes to do. I think this will be really interesting. We don't know anything about the writers. This is like the first announcement about this is that she's gonna direct it. So writing and casting still to come. I immediately was like, chase infinity. Let's do it.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Because you have to be teenager, right? You're a teenager. That would be interesting. That would be very interesting. So.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

So we'll be watching for that.

[Kathy Galliano]

Yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And then the last adaptation news of the week, which is definitely not going to help us correct our perpetual misunderstanding. And thanks to listeners for corre about TJ Klune's books not actually being ya.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I have a point of order about this, but finish this story and we can come back into this.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Warner Brothers has picked up House in the Cerulean Sea to be an animated series. K Pop Demon Hunters, Haja Boy's Breakfast Meal and Hunt Trick's Meal have just dropped at McDonald's. They're calling this a battle for the fans. What do you say to that, Rumi? It's not a battle. So glad the Saja boys could take breakfast and give our meal the rest of the day. It is an honor to share. No, it's our honor.

[Advertiser]

It is our larger honor.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

No, really, stop. You can really feel the respect in this battle. Pick a meal to pick a side

[Jeff O'Neill]

and participate in McDonald's while supplies last

[Rebecca Schinsky]

right now at the Home Depot. Shop Spring Black Friday savings and get up to 40% off plus up to $500 off select appliances from top brands like Samsung. Get a fridge with zero clearance hinges hinges so the doors open fully even in tighter spaces in your kitchen and laundry that saves you time. Like an all in one washer dryer that can run a full load in just 68 minutes. Shop Spring Black Friday Savings plus get free delivery on appliance purchases of $998 or more at the Home Depot offer valid April 9 through April 29. US only. C store online for details.

[Jeff O'Neill]

There's no one like you and there never will be. From the producer Bohemian Rhapsody. There are many legends, but there is only one Michael. Rated PG13. In theaters April 24, which I think is a very cool idea actually. Okay, I was telling.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I've not read about this. I know you.

[Jeff O'Neill]

They were excited about this.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

What's your point of order?

[Jeff O'Neill]

Well, this isn't ya and that's because we're told it's not right. Like the genre. But my understanding of YA is it's about teens, teen issues. Like forget the marketing category for a second because we can have category fraud. This had the Oscar. This happens everywhere. This is set at a boarding school for adolescent sort of magical beings. They are not of age yet because they can't be in the world. Right? Or else they could be in the world. Right? Like it's even part of the plot. I think of the maybe the first one, but the follow up for sure. Where someone's going to age out of the program. Essentially. They're going to get too old. They won't be able to stay anymore. More. This. This looks like a duck. This walks like a duck to me. So I don't know that its market is. Yeah, I'm very willing to concede them saying that it's not. But in terms of the vibe, check from me, a civilian reader of books, this is appropriate, aimed at resonating with middle grade to teen readers especially. And it may just be my car full of them, but that's where I'm at right now. So I hear you. I see you people listening. But I also respectfully abstain from yielding that this is lowercase YA or whatever. Like this is a. This is a coming. These are coming of age stories about kids that are different. Like what else do you want from.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Right. I'm like having not read them, but general category.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

The way that category generally works is like you can have an adult literary fiction book that is about young people, but it's the writing and the issues and maybe like the depth or darkness of it leans more adult. And so then you're in adult fiction land. But when both the subject matter and the writing lean young adult and it seems that the audience is intended to be young adults. Like, I think this is a real candidate for category fraud. But I'm excited for everybody who loves these books that there will be an animated series that's probably going to be really fun.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yes. That's the bigger point here, that my category anxiety is not the. The main point. But I think this is a cool idea and I hope it is great.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

All right, let's wander. Take her shoes off, hang up her coat in front. List foyer, which is brought to you by thriftbooks.com you know, one thing that's hard to find used is Parable of the Sower. I think we talked about that.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It really is. Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I was doing the Thriftbooks read for it and because it didn't sell hugely when it first came out like it did. Okay. But it's subsequently become a much bigger deal than it was initially, which is wonderful.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

2020, it really popped.

[Jeff O'Neill]

McMillan did a series of reissues of Octavia Butler, including the one that you're going to find now. But you can find that copy and then you can set some alerts if you're wanting some vintage Octavia Butler titles over on ThriftBooks. 19 million used and new titles, free shipping on orders over $15 in each purchase gets you Closer to a free reading reward. Redemption. I've got one of them burning a hole in my digital pocket. I'm not sure what can I do with it. The other day. You can also sell your books back. Our family did a recent cleansing of our individual and collective bookshelves. Like, what if we're not going to keep. We need to make room for new things and very simple to scan. You can print out a label, ship them up, send them over QuickBooks, get a few ducats back if that's something you're interested in doing. That's not in the talking points, Rebecca. That. That's. I actually did that. They didn't tell me to do that. Just one of the things you can do.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Not just a president, you're also the member.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yes, that's right. Exactly. Not the hero club that they wouldn't ask me to be because it didn't. It didn't work. I. When I opened up the agenda today, I was so thrilled to see your frontless foyer. So I'm going to yield the floor to you to talk first.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, I read the Witch by Marian Jai, which. My first time reading her. This is a book from 1996 that was just published in English for the first time and it's on the international Booker shortlist.

[Jeff O'Neill]

She's been doing some pub. Have you seen. She's been out there.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, yeah, she has been out there. And I got hooked by the description of that. That it's about a mediocre witch in a mediocre marriage. Just like living her life, though, like, really, it's just a vibe. This book is just a short, lovely vibe. The main character, Lucy, like, she is indeed a mediocre witch. She's like early 30s, I think, has two teenage daughters. But their flavor of witchery, at least as far as it goes for her, is that she can kind of. She can sort of see what's going to happen in the future and she can sort of see what people are doing right now. Yeah, her daughters. She has just initiated her daughters into the practice and they are much better at it than she is. It's like it's a matrilineal situation. Her mother is a very good witch, but like also her husband has just run off and taken a bunch of money that she inherited from her dad. She's trying to get her parents who have been split up back together.

[Jeff O'Neill]

The equivalent of HOH generation witch stuff going on here.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. The woman in their neighborhood who's like the equivalent of the HOA president is a complete nightmare. And she's around all the time in athleisure. That doesn't fit her very well. And just, like, the peopling the population of this world was really fun to spend time in. I just really liked Injae's writing and found it to be like, it's not about the witches. It's mostly just about, like, little snapshots of daily life. She happens to be a witch. And it felt to me like, what books used to feel like, like, this is a book from the before Times. It's from 1976.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Oh, it is from the. Yeah, you're right.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It is a book from before the Internet impacted the way that people think and speak and write and really before

[Jeff O'Neill]

witches, I guess, practical magic. But, like, before, witches were having witches. The witch world we live in now is completely different than 1996.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, 1996 witches were like, I guess this and the craft, which is a totally different. Also a totally different experience.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

So, like, if you want to. If you want to read a book that has a lot of witchcraft and magic in it, it's not this one. If you're a literary fiction reader who's like, yeah, but what if when she's mad at her husband, she can close her eyes and figure out where he ran off to?

[Jeff O'Neill]

So what's the point of the witch stuff? Like, because this sounds like the ledger domain of, like, regular lit fix stuff.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

But, like, the point of the. It's just kind of there. It colors their world a little bit. The witches who have more skill than Lucy can transform themselves into birds, crows and birds. And so, like, we get to see her daughters become birds and fly away and do some other stuff. But it's really not a book about being a witch. It's a book about, you know, navigating early middle age as a wife and a mother. And nothing is kind of going your way. And even with these powers, it's still kind of tough.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Rebecca, what do you think the most mediocre age is?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

The most mediocre age?

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. Like, where you're kind of nowhere. Right. Because I am finding that I am. I'm now 48 years old, and there's a narrative here. Like, I'm. I'm an early, late middle. Like, I don't feel mediocre in that way. Like, things are happening. Like, I'm getting used to this. Like, my body is changing. Like, there's transition here. I was gonna float to you. 36 years old is the most mediocre age because you're not Old and you're not young. You're just kind of stuck. Not stuck. You're just there. Like there's this long period of like 15 birthdays worth. You know, you're just doing stuff.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. You're just kind of hanging out.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I could co sign that, like 36, 37. It was just sort of living life. I did feel like around. I'm 43 now and like around 40, I really did feel the arrival of like, I've seen most of the kinds of things you can see. I kind of know what to do in life. There's a little wisdom. Yeah. 30. Yeah. I think those late 30s, because you're

[Jeff O'Neill]

not really transitioning in. You're like 10 years from transitioning into like AARP eligibility. Getting like.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I did find. Yeah. Late 30s to kind of be a little bit of a. Like an existential slog. And I like the 40s. So this character is in that zone. She's in an existential sloth.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Well, that's when you said that I was like that kind of. It's interesting that she picked that age because I feel like that window is. You've turned 30, so your real youth is behind you, though you're still young at 35, 36. Let's be honest here. But you may feel in your heart that the young part of your life is coming in and you're not yet age. You haven't aged yet. Into your sagacity. That's gonna come.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I think. Yeah, it's a good question. I think that's the right zone. And it really just reminded me how nice it is to go back and read books that were written before the Internet.

[Jeff O'Neill]

That's really interest. Interesting. Interesting transition to one of my picks. The True True Story. Not my picks. I just. This is what I read. The True True Story of Raja. The Goal by Rabi Al Maddine, which won the National Book Award last year.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. I am so curious about your take

[Jeff O'Neill]

on this and the subtitles is important here. It actually didn't get into a lot of the news stories. The subtitle in parentheses or. I'm not sure. It's just subtle. It's just in parentheses. And his mother is what's in parentheses for the title. Medina, which has. Has a really solid, I would say litfic track record. Like, this is not his first book that's popped a little bit. I think in terms of award. This is the largest award he has won. I've liked his book before. And as I like to sort of color in my. What was the Year about. I want to. I'm going to win the national book. I'm going to read the National Book Award winner at some point. And it was one of those things I was browsing and I picked it up and I read the first page and I was like, I'm into this vibe tribe, okay. It is the story of. Of Raja, who's the main character really, from the early 70s till today, when he's a kid, into his, you know, early my age and a little bit older here, living in Beirut, living in this one apartment almost the whole time. And all of the political stuff that's going on, that's not really point, but also his personal journey of being a gay person and a gay man in this culture, in this world world, and his relationship with his mother. It is not at all like a gentleman in Moscow by Immortals. But I kept thinking about it in terms of sensibility because it's really a portrait of almost a small world, right? It's his apartment, a little bit outside of it, and a character study of this person, but also written in a way that feels like a throwback. And the main character is a teacher of philosophy and literature. I think maybe just philosophy, but it's. I'm a reader. And he even talks about reading things that are throwbacks of like a lot of hypotaxis, hypotex. We don't know. Longer sentences with a lot of subordinate clauses. It's written that way. It feels like it's not a Henry James like book, but there's a sensibility that hearkens back to like an earlier time of sensibility and portrayal, but also with more modern political, personal sexual politics wrapped into it. There's a lot of trigger warnings, I should say violence, sexual violence. A very odd and disturbing scene that's the crux of the book where he's taken captive by someone and held in captivity. It's more complicated than that. That has a longer term ramification. But it's also about dealing with your aunt moving in when their house blows up in the ammonium nitrate explosion of 2020 in Beirut. And ends with a really meaningful, touching, bittersweet grace note. I'll say no more about it. That reminds me a little bit at the day end the of. Of Grapes of Wrath or east of Eden or Steinbeckian sort of grace note in a family. I really liked it. I raced through. I found myself really wanting to spend time in these sentences and paragraphs and worldview. One thing I know both of you and I like is a writer who feels like they have real control of what they're doing and they're going for a vibe, they're going for a world, they're going for a sensibility. And while I much would have preferred, I think audition by Katie Kimura to win for a lot of reasons, I don't need to go into here. I'm not mad that this book won by any strength imagination. I'm glad I read it. That's true. True Story of Roger the Gullible by and His Mother by Rabi Alameddine.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I'm glad to hear that.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. So if you've been circling that, I would recommend that. And then on my audio listing, Making Art and Making Living by Mason Curry. This is a collection of stories about artists and how they made their nut while they were trying to make art.

[Kathy Galliano]

Art.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

This is made for Jeff o', Neill,

[Jeff O'Neill]

very much made for me. And knowing exactly what Paul Ceson's monthly Allowance was in 1901 so that he could, you know, he could go paint pictures. I'm not sure there's a moral here, but if you are an artist or have an artist in your life and it feels like things are impossible and you never can make your art, I don't know, Rebecca, how helpful it is to hear it's always been that way and people did it. And there's a lot of survivorship bias in these stories because every Paul Ceson you've heard of, there's a bunch of artists you'd never have. And yet you have the Paulsen, the Virginia Woolf and like it has it's organized into chapters versus like you inherited money, you had an allowance, you had a day job. Like how you really put these things together up until. Or maybe you never really made it to the point where you could support yourself with your art. You know, George Bernard and there's all things who like George Bernard Shaw wrote five novels in the beginning of his career that were rejected by publishers. 5 Rebecca 5.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, the headline is really, it's always hard to make art. And the people who make a career and a full time living off of making art are the exceptions, not the rule.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And if it does happen, it happens after decades of not doing it that way. In a lot of cases, what looks

[Rebecca Schinsky]

like an overnight sensation is almost never

[Jeff O'Neill]

actually Paul Saison didn't have an individual show until he was 56 years years old.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

So I find the stories refreshing is not the right word. I find them interesting that, that I think that's one thing I've been more interested since doing this job and having this company than I ever would have before. Is that art commerce? You still got to make a living somehow. You got to have food and shelter and some other stuff. And how does that stuff work and how does it, how does it affect, shape, enable or foreclose the possibility of art making making depending on where money can and doesn't come from. And also I'll say this, the stories of people getting a huge inheritance doesn't go great all the time. It's like the story about lottery winners, right? Like there's these things like in six months you kind of go back to what you were. Kind of turns out the same for artists, but more so because they're even worse with money than just someone randomly out of the phone book. I thought it was cool. There's not a big Mason Curry.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, he is a good newsletter too.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Oh I wondered. I didn't do any reading like how did this book deal happen happen? And I was like I don't know about that.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I get his newsletter.

[Jeff O'Neill]

So that's making art Making a Living by Mason Curry. Sidebar I'll get out on this on my frontless foyer. This is no shade to the narrator of making art making money. Who's a professional audiobook narrator? I think I prefer non professional audiobook narrators, especially for nonfiction.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

For nonfiction, I mean if it's a memoir, I always want the author or

[Jeff O'Neill]

even just the author. I want the author. I don't use Even if you get into a modern studio or even have a modern mic that like ours, it's a hundred bucks that surely your publisher if you're going to make an audiobook anyway, I kind of just want the author. I'm not the profession. It feels like a put on. They feel like they're performing where an author reading on their work doesn't feel like they're performing in quite the same way. I don't know.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I like this point. I agree with this.

[Jeff O'Neill]

So that's me. All right. Bookriot.com Listen for show notes. Check us out. Zero to well read. You can find the patreon book riot patreon.com bookriot podcast I forgot Rebecca. What else are people supposed to know about today?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

You can always email us@book podcastookriot.com Especially with moms, dads and grads requests. Patreon members get priority there but we will try to get through everybody. So send your emails in. We're checking them and I mean I think that's it. Also we are a proud member of the airwave Podcast Network.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Great. Thanks for listening. Thank you, Rebecca. We'll talk to you all real soon.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Right, as promised, we are so delighted to be joined by Kathy Galliano. She is the executive vice president of merchandising for Books A Million. Kathy, thanks so much for being with us today.

[Kathy Galliano]

Thank you. I'm delighted to be speaking with you today.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

You've been with Books a million since 2007, almost 20 years. That's such a long career in books and publishing. And the industry has changed so much. Would you tell us us, what does it mean to be the executive vice president of merchandising for the second biggest bookstore chain in the country? And what have you Learned in those 20 years? How have you seen the industry change?

[Kathy Galliano]

Absolutely. First of all, I'll say one of the things I absolutely love about my job is that no day is the same. So that is. You know, I've been in retail my entire career, to your point, almost at Books a million for 20 years. I love being out in the stores. I actually was in a store for 30 minutes ago before, before we jumped on for the podcast. Talking with the booksellers, talking with customers, Staying close to our customers is really important. I spend a lot of time not only with the booksellers, but also with our buying team. We're based here in Birmingham, Alabama.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It's where I was born.

[Kathy Galliano]

Oh, I had no idea.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

How fun.

[Kathy Galliano]

Yeah. Fun fact. And also, you know, a lot of time with. With the publishers. The publishers were just in Birmingham about five days ago, really talking to us about all the books that they're excited about for the upcoming fall and holiday season. So we refer to that as publisher preview week when they're down in Alabama for, you know, some good food and to talk books. So, yeah, no two days are really ever the same.

[Jeff O'Neill]

So if I'm going to infer a little bit into that. You're deciding what you want to carry in the store. Someone's like, what books you're going to carry in the stores and then how they're presented in merchandising. So for someone who goes into a Books A Million or a bookstore of any kind, really, and they think the books are just there, there's a lot more thought that goes into what books are on the shelf, how they're presented, you know, what the programs look like. What are some things that a reader that just likes books and cares about books may not know about how to Bookstores organizer, especially how Books a Million puts their stores together and how imagine the experience when someone comes into one of your stores.

[Kathy Galliano]

So one of the things that's really at the core or the ethos of Books A Million is, you know, we've been in business for over 100 years, and that started because we were trying to serve a specific need in a community, which was when the initial TVA dam was being built in Florence, Alabama. And our founder saw a need to have local newspapers available to workers that were coming in from all over the country. So obviously, 100 years later, there has been a lot that has evolved. But I think that one thing that's really still true to our core is that we are about speaking to and serving the customers that are in the communities where we have bookstores. And so we take the input and all the information that comes from the publishers. But we are really much like the comment I mentioned earlier about spending time in stores, understanding our interactions that the booksellers are having with customers. What are the books that they're looking for in their stores? And I think that is at a real community level and then at a broader level, you know, the bookstore is such a commentary at any given moment on what is going on in the world and what people are thinking about, what it is that they need, whether they're looking for education, entertainment, or escapism. And that has never been truer than the moment that we're living in right now.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

You and your team have a really impressive track record of spotting those trends. The information that I received before the show especially highlighted that you were on the manga explosion more than a year before it really hit its mainstream peak. How do you do that?

[Kathy Galliano]

I think that part of it goes back to that being really close to the consumer. I also think it's a combination of looking at trend further ahead and really being in some places challenging yourself to be in places where you might not normally be, shaking up what it is, where you're consuming podcasts or other types of information. What's going on in the media? What's going on, you know, in streaming media, the movie landscape, you know, there's been a dramatic change. And you know, Jeff, going back to a question that you asked earlier, I also think that there's been such a change in who our customer was in the bookstore pre Covid to where we are today. We've had a dynamic change in the age of the consumer. Our customer at Books a Million is heavily female driven, but definitely has aged down. A lot of that having to do with streaming media and also the rise of BookTok and TikTok. As both of you, I'm sure are very well aware of.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And what are you seeing in terms of those new trends that are coming up around these, the younger readers and the booktok driven thing? You know, we've been tracking Romantasy and now I'm wondering if you have an inside scoop on the next one.

[Kathy Galliano]

Well, I do think that, you know, romance still obviously has a big role to play. It's definitely getting. Has gotten darker. We're also seeing more and more interest in Dystopian. You know, one of the things that has been important to what we're doing in our store is we have identified and brought in several authors while they're really still very indie and they have not been picked up by a major publisher. A really good example of that right now in our stores is HM Wolf's Daggermouth.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, I've heard about this before.

[Kathy Galliano]

That book in print in our stores. We've had it in for several weeks now. That book will be published in July by. It's an imprint of Simon and Schuster. So we are continuing to see that. But I also think that we're seeing a lot of branching out from the, the core, you know, Romanesty, if you will. I don't have to tell you guys. Obviously heated rivalry has really heated up, so to speak, the whole sports romance. So that's definitely back on. I think that we're going to see more small town romance as we head into the holiday season that will continue to trend. We're seeing a branching out from Romancy not only into Dystopian but also continued growth in horror. And that is branching out, you know, relative to that. So you know, there's never a dull moment in terms of what the consumer is branching out and looking at next. You know, a really fabulous story really over the fall and holiday season. It even today is Matt Denman and dungeon crawler Carl Lit RPG World, which for us in many ways I think there's been a customer that, you know that that series is addictive and has really a lot of people that we read that got behind that here, you know, at our home office. A lot of people reading that book that thought maybe they would never read that. Now they've read every single one of the books in the series and and we're constantly talking about that series. People love it and but we've seen people branch out that maybe were reading graphic novels or maybe they were reading Romancy or they were reading science fiction fantasy. And you know, that lit RPG is really a new arena.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I was going to ask you, I've Got so many questions. I'm going to try to keep them in some kind of a logical order and not just necessarily do the ones I want to ask and maybe what other people want to know first. And I'll save my personal personal peculiarities for the end. How much variance do you see from store to store? Does that change over time? Do you have some canary in the coal mine stores or booksellers? Like, okay, if something's going on at this store, we should really pay attention to it because with a chain, you know, you've got a bunch of stores in a bunch of different locations. I could imagine might be difficult to separate signal from the noise when you have that much information coming from that many different kinds of places.

[Kathy Galliano]

There are stores that across the country and there's no one particular region, but there are stories that tend to lead on identifying trends or maybe things that are then going to catch fire and spread in a broader way. I do think that and I'll use manga as an example. We've over indexed in manga sales for many, many years and this was really pre Covid, obviously as the streamers, Netflix being a prime example, really, really brought anime to the masses. That hit a new stride during COVID as more people were being exposed to manga via anime. And it was for some of them really the first time. So we hit a huge peak really in 2022, had a little leveling off, but now really in 25 we've surpassed where we were in terms of that earlier peak that we saw in what was already a very robust business. I that as that is related to stores, we had stores that were there from the beginning. But in some of our markets that we've served for, you know, where we've had bookstores for 25, 30 years and communities there may be older and they were maybe more literary fiction, more nonfiction. Those stores have now caught that, that tale, if you will, of manga, and really saw that occurring more in the back half of last year. Whereas there were other stores that were more urban or even in places that we won't call urban at all that were on it at a much earlier pace.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

So interesting.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I wonder too, this is something Rebecca and I wonder about a lot because we've been readers for our whole lives, been working as book professionals for 10, 15 years now. Like what's changed and what hasn't changed? And from your point of view, because of social media, because of streaming services, is there more, more sort of pull from readers like a Freedom McFadden or a Colleen Hoover? Is it less Pushed than it used to be. You know, one thing that I have learned is that things will change no matter how they are right now. But I do wonder, you know, you were around for coloring books like we were like, remember that? Like I tell people that when they were around for. They don't believe it. It's like you're not gonna. People won't believe this moment we're in right now, 15 or 20 years from now. But I wonder if one thing that maybe has changed more fundamentally is push people into stores to look for things that they hear about online in a way that didn't happen in 2008, 2009. Do you see that still happening? Is that going away? And then the flip side of that question, like, how much power do publishers and retailers have to put things in front of people that they haven't discovered on their phones essentially?

[Kathy Galliano]

I definitely think that we are in the entertainment space and as a result of what we've seen with the streaming media. And I think this is what you are meaning by the push pull dynamic. Because we are at a place in time where we've seen a renaissance, so to speak, with reading and the really growth of reading coming out of COVID that has sustained which for all of us that hold books dear has been so wonderful to see. Maybe the reader came in because initially they were influenced by something they saw on book Talk or a community that they're a part of. Because that is one of the parts of being a bookstore, the community of readers and finding your community within that that's so important. But I think that that reader has gone on to discover books that they didn't really know that they would ever be interested in. And it's been, you know, two really great examples recently which I know that that had you've talked about on your podcast. We've got romancy readers in our stores who have just read Theo of Golden, the Correspondent or Project Hail Mary. So it might be hard to discern if that's a push or a pull. And who pushed? Who pushed you?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

You know, that's so interesting because.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Bye bye. A thousand pushes.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, because those are definitely not titles that would be offered to readers as read alikes of like you're coming off of fourth wing or Acotar here, pick up the Correspondent. But there's something about maybe that they've crossed some kind of threshold into mainstream readers awareness and that's maybe the thing that people are interested in. Yes, that's fascinating.

[Kathy Galliano]

And you know, I think that one of the things the common thread for me, between Theo and the Correspondent is human connection. And I think going back to what we were talking about earlier in a time bigger picture with, you know, whether you're worried about, you know, the war or the economy or how you're going to pay for your next tank full of gas, I think it's good to be reminded there's good in humanity and there's human connection. And, you know, one of the things I'm really interested, interested to see. As a fan of Remarkably Bright Creatures,

[Jeff O'Neill]

I was just going to ask you about this. Yes, yes.

[Kathy Galliano]

So we know this is about to come to the box office. And, you know, if you think about the core of what that book is, very different book from, you know, Theo of Golden and the Correspondent, but at the core of that book, in my opinion, it's also about human connection. And it really resonated at the time. And, you know, we are very fortunate. That was another book here at the office. So many people love that book. And we were able to get Shelby Van Pelt, the author, to do a zoom with a lot of us readers here and really talked to her about, you know, and just sharing her passion for the book. But I think it's, you know, first of all, here we have Sally Field at the box office along with an amazing cast. I think it'll be really interesting to see that book be poised to have, you know, a really nice second run.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, well, we've seen this, right, Rebecca? We've seen this with where the Crawdads. We've seen this with the Colleen Hoover movies. We just saw the Project Hail Mary like.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Right. That's what I was thinking.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Those adaptations work. They work.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

That Project Hail Mary is another one of those. It's like it's a Man and an Alien, but it is fundamentally a story about human connection, or at least emotional connection and relationships between folks. That brings me back to something that I did want to ask you about because you've mentioned this sort of community space, Third Spaces being a focus of Books a million. And I'm curious about, as we're coming, continuing to come out of COVID like Jeff and I hear this from listeners all the time that they're looking for book clubs. They're looking for ways to, like, be out in the world and participating in literary culture rather than just on their phones all the time. What is. What is Books a Million doing to. To bring them into the stores, to keep them in stores. And what does that, like, Third Space Community engagement look like for you all?

[Kathy Galliano]

The Third Space Community Engagement is off the charts. People are turning out in record numbers for all different types of events, both in stores and also at off site events, a lot of which we tend to host in historic theaters. And you know, so depending on how many seats you have, that can be anywhere from 200 people to 2,000 people. And, you know, it can be anybody from. We have an event here this month actually in Birmingham with Dave Pilkey. We also have an event coming up in Philadelphia with Matt Deniman and we have, you know, Catherine Stockett also coming up short. So there's a wide range of events. You can definitely see people want to be with their community. You know, I can be in the store and hear somebody come in the front door and ask for a book. And the next thing you know, there will be six customers gathered around a table that all want to talk about this book, that they're very passionate. And you know, you mentioned crawdads and I have a specific memory of being in our Paducah, Kentucky store years ago and that exact thing happening. And suddenly you have a mini book club. So we're definitely seeing that. I think that part of it is because of that community opportunity that books represents to sort of to find your tribe, if you will, whether you're reading, you know, literary fiction or whether you're reading literary rpg. And I think it's a safe space. And I also think that it's a commentary on another category of books that we have seen interest in, which is about the loneliness epidemic that we're seeing in the United States. And it's a real life opportunity to connect. And it's a safe space.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I think that's fascinating. I mean there's a one, there's one way of reading the Romantasy Boomers also on that thread of being about connection, like maybe really exaggerated, extreme examples of connection, but that's what it's about. Like finding someone in a dark time or a highly charged time and really connecting with them. And in finding that there. I need you to talk me down from this. The spreads. That's a joke for Rebecca Kathy, because one thing that we have seen and Rebecca and I I'd say are neutral to down on the deluxe edition, the spread, you know, the sprayed edges, that that's not what we grew up. We don't really care about that, which is fine. We don't have to care about that. It's great for other people. But that is one thing. The physical book can do that. An audiobook can't do that. An ebook can't really do talk to me about this new world of plussed up print editions. Do you see that going in different directions, lessening? Is this now going to be stable, just sort of a table stakes like a dust jacket is or is this. We're going to look back at this like a. Remember when we used to, to paint the edges of books and everyone was gaga for that.

[Kathy Galliano]

Well, one of the things I think that we have to remember going back to a comment I made earlier and this is not everybody, but a certain segment of the population as we attracted a younger aged consumer and got them back into reading and in the bookstore, they are also at an age in their life when they are, they're furnishing their homes. They don't have as many bookshelves on their, as many books on their bookshelf as maybe one of us might have. And I think that there's that whole. I know you're familiar with the term bookshelf wealth.

[Advertiser]

Yes.

[Kathy Galliano]

So I think that there is, you know, having beautiful books on your shelf, particularly things that you plan to keep that are, you know, your favorite author, your favorite series. You're building out a, you know, collectible, all the collectible editions. So I think that's certainly part of it. I do think based on the amount of those that we've seen, it's very interesting as they come in now and over the last six months to see, you know, one upmanship, if you will, in terms of what those straight edges look like.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Kathy Galliano]

And that's, you know. Yes, a sprayed, a solid sprayed edge is not as competitive with a lot of the other beautiful editions that we're seeing. I don't think all of it is about the young collector. I mean, there are some of those books that I, I bought for myself. Some of them are, you know, nostalgic. There was a beautiful edition of Charlotte's Web that was out for Hollywood Holiday this past year that Harper printed. And I knew the minute I saw it that, you know, I don't have a grandchild yet. Maybe one day I will and I have to, I had to have that book because it was a favorite, you know, growing up. So I think there's something for everybody. And you know, one of the things we're very fortunate in that we've got a rich page to screen lineup for this year. Obviously that really started, started with Project Hail Mary and there, there's so many things coming. But I think the Magician's Nephew from the Chronicles of Narnia that we're going to see in November as you can imagine, we're going to see some beautiful Narnia additions and I know there are going to be collectors of all ages that will want that book on their shelves.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, that that spreading to. I was going to ask about Remarkably Bright Creatures is a bridge there because there's a special edition of that out and that's the one historically. Like I. I have a collected Winnie the Pooh for my kids. That's like very nice and it's not quite like the special special spread edition but it's a keepsake. Like this is something we imagine being part of our family library for a long time. The mid list literary fiction hit getting sprayed edges in 10 years. Are we going to still be doing that? I have no idea. I'd be very curious to know that.

[Kathy Galliano]

I don't know that I have an answer for that either. You know it'll be, it will be interesting to see the, the trajectory of, of where we're headed. But there is definitely still an appetite today in the market for those books.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

As we're wrapping up. I'm just, I'm curious about what you're reading or what you've read recently that you're excited about to maybe just for yourself or that you are hoping folks will pick up as they come into books. A million.

[Kathy Galliano]

I'll. One of the things. I am a big Maggie o' Farrell fan.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, you are.

[Kathy Galliano]

Yes.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Land coming out in June.

[Kathy Galliano]

Land. Yes.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Have you read it?

[Kathy Galliano]

I'm finishing reading it right now. I'm near the end and so no spoilers. You know, she just has the ability. The language in her books is so rich, so descriptive. It pulls me in and makes me become interested in places and times that if you had told me, you know, I was going to be reading about about 1850s Ireland after the Great Hunger, I would have not necessarily gone there. And so I'm really, you know that that is a book that I'm really. I'm a fan of Maggie o' Farrell in general and that's one that I'm really looking forward to. I think that we have got a, a rich lineup of names we know, you know that are coming.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yes.

[Kathy Galliano]

And then also you know some debuts that I think will be. Will be interesting as well. So I think that the fall and holiday list is shaping up nicely and also in combination with the page to screen that I mentioned earlier, it's an exciting time to be a reader.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It is.

[Jeff O'Neill]

All right, this one's for me, Kathy. And one thing that I like to remind people of that history exists and even 20 years ago was not that long ago. Can you remember some of the phenomenons that maybe people don't remember from 10, 15 years ago that were popping off the shelves? You know, I brought up coloring books before. You know, people don't remember that at once upon a time. Fifty Shades of Gray was a huge surprise to everyone in books. Like what, what do you remember from 10 or 15 years ago that a new reader, someone who's 22, 23. Right. Who's getting into books and reading now, may not remember or not have never have known about was a big phenomenon. Bookstores around the country. Country.

[Kathy Galliano]

I think it depends on who the reader is.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Okay, fair enough.

[Kathy Galliano]

And you know that old saying, what goes around comes. Yes. So there are a lot of these that are making, they're reappearing in different ways. So, you know, I think Twilight has certainly been one of those, you know, we're seeing in that space. There's always, you know, we've been in a dragon phase. I think there's some discussion there that we'll be seeing some, some changes and some, some potential previous trends that are going to pop back up into that space as we move through the year. That'll be interesting to see. You know, you mentioned coloring, which certainly got during COVID which is hard to believe six years ago now. You know, there's a big rise in analog hobby and coloring has really made a very strong comeback. We've seen that over the last 18 months or so now. So I just continue to think of trends in terms of what I know is coming back around and you know, speaking of things that are coming back around in page to screen, we did pause in the middle of a meeting that a bunch of us were in just a couple of weeks ago to see the first Harry Potter trailer. So a lot of people are really excited about that, you know, with that coming out for holiday. So yeah, I think a lot of those are poised and you know, know, on the pop culture and general merchandise side of our business, Masters of the Universe, it has been getting a lot of so there.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I can't believe this one that when I was a kid, I, I, if you would have told me the properties that were going to be mass cultural phenomenons in 2026, I would add Heman like 10 out of nine. I, I can't believe it. I'll be super curious to see.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I saw the he man trailer when I went to see Project Hail Mary and I was like, what is happening? Yeah, I can't believe.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Amazing. Can't believe it.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Oh, thank you so much for your time. This is really interesting. You're welcome back anytime. And where can folks find you? Or should they just be looking for books?

[Kathy Galliano]

A million online books a million dot com. And also, you know I'm on LinkedIn so either of those. And great to meet both of you and thank you so much for having me today.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Great. Thanks so much. Kathy. Thanks so much for listening today. We hope you'll enjoy this audiobook Excerpt of In Namorada by Ava Reid, provided by our sponsors at Del Rey.

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You, Lady Agnes, last of all, he said, I would be happy to receive your judgment. Am I a true king? Her heart beat in that strangled rabbit way. With as much vigour as she could manage, she nodded. What was that, Lady? Speak. This silence was the most callous ruler yet, more bitter even than the king, as cruel as the stones of the castle itself. I speak for all the House of Teeth in this matter, rosia said hurriedly, before this horrible regime could grow more entrenched. You are a true king, your Majesty. My cousin would not ever think to question your virtue either. Enough from you, nicephorus said. He waved his knife vaguely in her direction, and Marosia closed her mouth at once. I am asking the Lady Agni. I would like to hear her speak it in her own voice. His gaze rested upon her. It was not a hateful gaze. It was not even angry. Particularly where the blazing emotion had been, there was now only icy assurance. He was certain that he could make her speak. He did not even need to shout or snarl. He already felt half victorious. Agnes stared back at him, her tongue lying limp in her mouth. Seconds passed as droplets from a tincture. The king blinked, and a bit of impatience leaked into his voice. Well, speak, Lady Agnes. Speak. She did not. What is wrong with you, girl? He spat at last. I am your king. His spittle sprayed onto her face. She did not even try to wipe it away. Father, leopron said tersely. Leave her be. She has proven her obeisance, as have we all. The king's gaze cut the air like a whip as he shifted to look at his son. She has proven nothing until I say so. Nothing will satisfy me but her voice. So speak, Lady Agnes, or if you cannot, I will have to wrest the words from you myself. And then he drove his knife down right through the center of her hand. There were screams, enough to butcher the silence for good, though none came from Agnes's mouth. She did not even whimper as she looked down. The blade had driven straight through the meat and muscle of her pinning her hand to the table. There was no blood at all, and the shock had in fact smothered most of the pain. She regarded the bloodless wound with a removed sort of curiosity. She felt almost buoyant. Though her hand was held fast to the wood, her mind floated freely, watching herself from above. The king regarded her with his mouth ajar, stupid, like a gutted fish. He had meant to surprise her voice out of her her, as if her silence was an animal that could be spooked. Yet the act was so brusque and quotidian that Agnes felt almost embarrassed on his behalf. He had no wiles, not even imagination, and true torture required a bit of both. And then, at last, came the anger gathering on his brow like black storm cloud clouds. He released the knife, leaving it to stand perfectly upright, held in place by her constricting flesh. Over her head. He gestured to the leeches at the end of the table. Truss, he said. Mordaunt, come. They shuffled across the dais toward him. The remove Agnes felt made her sluggish, her reflexes slowly. By the time Truss and Mordaunt reached her, she could not manage to rest her hand free. And then, at the king's gruff instruction, they each took her by one shoulder and thrust her down onto the table. Father. Leopron's voice rang out in horror. Stop this. Let her go. With her cheek pressed roughly against the wound wood, Agnes could not see what scene played out above. She heard scraping as Leopront pushed back his chair and stood. The king stood too. Rosier was letting out little wordless squeals of panic, muffled as though she had one hand clapped over her mouth. Metal clattered against metal. She could glimpse only the legs and feet of the dolorous guard as they cracked the doors and poured into the room. Room. Storming the dais, they crowded the table like weevils upon a crop. Agnes struggled to turn her face up until at the blurry edge of her vision, she managed to see four of them holding Leoprond back. Their steel clad arms gripped him about the waist and the chest, and then two others came and grasped each of his wrists. She had not given Nicephorus enough credit, she realised hazily. He had some wiles after all. This was no impulsive turn. It had been planned and calculated, arranged like an act of a grand masque. And this mask had a theme to impart upon its audience. Do not ever mistake sluggardry for idleness. The slumbering bear is not complacent in its den. It is merely working up its appetite again. Adele Blanche had made this error. And now Agnes would pay a martyr's price for it. The knife was removed and blood spurted from the wound like a spray of seawater. Agnes barely had the chance to draw breath before the blade was driven down again. Again. This time into the tender webbing of skin between her finger and her thumb.