Power Ranking the Books of 1995

Summary

Book Riot - The Podcast: Power Ranking the Books of 1995

Release Date: July 23, 2025

In this engaging episode of Book Riot - The Podcast, hosts Jeff O’Neill and Rebecca Schinsky delve into a nostalgic exploration of literature by power ranking the books of 1995. They navigate through a diverse selection of titles, reflecting on the literary landscape of that year and its enduring impact.

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Setting the Stage: 1995 in Literature

Jeff and Rebecca begin by discussing the unique challenges of ranking books from 1995. Jeff reflects on his teenage years during that period, stating, "In 95, I was 17 and just starting to become aware of the wider literary world" (00:49). Rebecca, being younger at the time, adds, "I have read fewer of my top 10 here than on many of our other power rankings" (02:01). They both express a sense of detachment from the books of that year, highlighting the difficulty in assessing their significance retrospectively.

Top 10 Power Rankings

Jeff O’Neill’s Top Pick: "Blindness" by José Saramago

Jeff crowns "Blindness" by José Saramago as the top book of 1995. He praises its profound impact, mentioning, "This was probably the most influential book of the year and maybe the decade" (10:53). He appreciates its high-concept narrative and its exploration of human nature under crisis, noting its alignment with contemporary issues.

Rebecca Schinsky’s Top Pick: "Dreams from My Father" by Barack Obama

Rebecca selects "Dreams from My Father" by Barack Obama as her number one choice. She emphasizes its significance as a political memoir, stating, "This is maybe the best written political memoir of all time" (48:09). The book's introspective journey through Obama’s early life and his reflections on race and identity resonate deeply with her.

Other Notable Rankings:

• "Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies" by Douglas Hofstadter (10:00): Jeff places this book at number 10, highlighting its historical significance as the first book sold on Amazon.

• "Independence Day" by Richard Ford (17:50): Occupying the eighth spot, Jeff appreciates its portrayal of personal introspection and the father-son relationship.

• "An Anthropologist on Mars" by Oliver Sacks (20:27): Rebecca ranks this collection of case studies highly for its insightful exploration of neurological conditions.

• "Practical Magic" by Alice Hoffman (26:07): Both hosts acknowledge the book’s lasting appeal, with Rebecca noting its continued presence in book club conversations.

Honorable Mentions

Beyond their top 10 lists, Jeff and Rebecca acknowledge several honorable mentions that, while not ranked, hold their own significance:

• "Liars Club" by Mary Karr: Recognized for its gritty and honest portrayal of a troubled childhood, drawing comparisons to modern memoirs like "Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls.

• "Emotional Intelligence" by Daniel Goleman: Highlighted as a watershed moment in popular psychology, influencing workplace dynamics and personal development.

• "Wicked" by Gregory Maguire: Noted for its cultural phenomenon, especially with its successful musical adaptation, even though Rebecca felt its literary placement was more tied to its Broadway success.

Insights on 1995’s Literary Landscape

Jeff and Rebecca delve into the broader trends of 1995, discussing the dominance of evangelical Christian fiction and its impact on the book market. Rebecca observes, "1995 is peak evangelical Christianity as mainstream culture" (03:34), citing the "Left Behind" series as a prime example. They also touch upon the absence of the New York Times' 1995 Notable Books list online, adding a layer of mystery to their ranking process.

Jeff shares his skepticism about the presence of a collaborative or well-recognized literary list for that year, humorously suggesting, "We might have to unearth it with the help of our pal Gilbert Cruz" (05:33). This absence underscores the challenge they face in curating their lists without comprehensive archival resources.

Discussion on Literary Quality and Cultural Impact

The hosts engage in a thoughtful discourse on what constitutes "great art" in literature, with Rebecca expressing reluctance about some of the popular works of 1995, stating, "It's not great art. It wasn't great art in 1995. It definitely doesn't stand up as great art now" (03:00). Jeff counters by highlighting the cultural influence of certain books beyond their literary merit, such as "Practical Magic" and "Wicked", which have permeated popular culture through adaptations and continued readership.

Closing Thoughts: The Legacy of 1995’s Books

As the episode wraps up, Jeff and Rebecca reflect on the enduring legacy of the books they discussed. Jeff underscores the lasting relevance of "Blindness" and "Dreams from My Father", while Rebecca highlights how memoirs like "Liars Club" continue to influence and inspire modern writers and readers alike.

In conclusion, Jeff O’Neill and Rebecca Schinsky offer a nuanced and comprehensive power ranking of 1995’s books, balancing literary critique with cultural context. Their insightful analysis provides listeners with a deep appreciation of the year's literary contributions, making it a valuable resource for both nostalgic readers and those discovering these works for the first time.

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Notable Quotes:

• "In 95, I was 17 and just starting to become aware of the wider literary world." — Jeff O’Neill (00:49)

• "This is maybe the best written political memoir of all time." — Rebecca Schinsky (48:09)

• "1995 is peak evangelical Christianity as mainstream culture." — Rebecca Schinsky (03:34)

• "Everyone is always worried how uncivil we are." — Rebecca Schinsky (37:16)

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Resources Mentioned:

• "Blindness" by José Saramago
• "Dreams from My Father" by Barack Obama
• "Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies" by Douglas Hofstadter
• "Independence Day" by Richard Ford
• "An Anthropologist on Mars" by Oliver Sacks
• "Practical Magic" by Alice Hoffman
• "Liars Club" by Mary Karr
• "Emotional Intelligence" by Daniel Goleman
• "Wicked" by Gregory Maguire

For more insights and detailed discussions, visit BookRiot.com and tune into the latest episodes of Book Riot - The Podcast.

Transcript

[Rebecca Schinsky]

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[Unnamed Speaker]

Venmo purchase restrictions apply on WhatsApp. No one can see or hear your personal messages. Whether it's a voice call message or sending a password to WhatsApp, it's all just this. So whether you're sharing the streaming password in the family chat or trading those late night voice messages, that could basically become a podcast, your personal messages stay between you, your friends and your family. No one else, not even us. WhatsApp message privately with everyone.

[Jeff O'Neill]

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

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And I'm Rebecca Schinsky.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And this episode is a look back at the year in books of 1995 in the form of a power ranking of the books of 1995. We've each selected 10 books in order of power. Right. Because that's definitely a real unit that we use to measure books where we're trying to get a sense of what books mattered for that year and into the future. Always a fun exercise, this. In 95, I was 17 and just starting to become aware of like the wider literary world. Like publishing and books were a thing that were still happening. We're still peak Oprah. You, you're in sixth grade. Yes.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Sixteen to seventh grade. I'm 13 in 1995.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. So I think I read one of the books in my top 10 in this year that came out because it won a major award. Everything else I got to a lot later or have never gotten to. Rebecca, how about you?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I did not read any of these the year that they came out. A couple of my honorable mentions I read, I think like right around then because they were Oprah picks. This is really peak Oprah. Like 1995 is the second year of the book club and there were so many. I have read probably fewer of my top 10 here than on many of our other power rankings.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Very strange year. A very strange year.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

This was a weird year. And I like, honestly, if we just were like, here is a list of 10 books that are unranked, that would be about the same as what I'm going to do today.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, some, some of these exercises I feel like. And we have had very similar lists like shockingly, maybe embarrassingly similar, depending on your point of view. I think I'm sure we'll have some overlap, but I think we're going to be like, you know, someone got someone sneezed while throwing darts all over here. At this point.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

That's the feeling that I have for sure. Like, there have been versions of this one where we've had really strong opinions on what should be number one, why something had a place on the list or not. I don't have super strong feelings about any of these. Maybe a couple of the authors. I have some like, okay, well, this person just has to go on the list regardless. But the difference between two and nine is I'm just going to be upfront with folks this time around. It's virtually meaningless to me.

[Jeff O'Neill]

As we've talked about, I'm not having the best time with the world of books and reading right now. Just the. I don't like the sameness of it and I'm just not thrilled in general. There's always more than enough for me to read. Let me just put that out there, though. I have to say, I think I would still pick 2025 over 1995, at least in this lineup. I didn't see a lot. He was like, oh, wow. Wow, that's great. In some years we have opposite experience.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And it just goes. I feel this way every time we come to this point in the year because for folks who are newer to the show, first we go back 10 years, then we go back 20, and then we go back 30. And these 30 years back ones, it's like so commercial.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

1995 for the kids out there is also like peak evangelical Christianity as mainstream culture. So the left behind books come out in 1995. Frank Peretti, who if you don't know that name, you don't need to Google it. But if you do, you know what I'm talking about. He's got big books out this year. There's a lot of soft Christian fiction and even not so soft Christian fiction that's just in the top 100 books of the year from Goodreads from 1995. And a lot of that. I mean, it's not great art. It wasn't great art in 1995. It definitely doesn't stand up as great art now. But this just seems like a weird year for me. A couple good adaptations. But, like, I much prefer the reading year I'm having presently, even though it is not my favorite reading year ever. To what? I don't know. I'd get in the time machine if I went back to 95.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. So anyway, I think maybe it's because I have a better knowledge of the deep catalogs now that I can go beyond the surface clutter of stuff. I'm not interested in deep dive into Norton's list or avid readers list or FSG MCDs list or deep Vellum or whatever. And it occurred to me to. I don't know that they'd exist. But what were like the deep catalogs of the imprints looking like in 95? I have literally no idea.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

You know, and one other thing we don't have an idea about, that's usually one of my sources of research for these shows is the New York Times 100 Notable Books of the year from this year. For Some reason the 1995 list is just not on the Internet.

[Jeff O'Neill]

They're like, you know what? The year sucked. We're not doing it. We couldn't even come with 11.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I think this is the first time I've run into that you can find the top 10, but the notables are nowhere to be found. There's a couple people on like library thing message boards wondering where the notable.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Book Gilbert list, where is it?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I feel like that would be an abuse of our delicate connection to our pal Gilbert Cruz over at the New York Times to be like, could you.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Unearth us the 1995 in updating some CMS, it just went bleep. Just gone. Sorry.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, somebody was, you know, digitalized, digitizing old newspapers and just the notables did not make it.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And it's not such a hot year. They're like, we gotta rebuild it bigger, faster and stronger.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And it kind of. As always, the going back to the 30 year jump, most of the award winners and especially the things that made awards shortlists and long lists but didn't win are things that we've. That I've never heard of that we don't talk about anymore. Like most books just do. Not just most, period. Don't stand the test of time.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, 30 years is long enough that it's like a couple of gener. I mean 15ish years as a generation, we're multiple behind a different world in a lot of different ways. Okay, let's do a sponsor break and we'll get it into it.

[Unnamed Speaker]

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Close your eyes, exhale, feel your body relax and let go of whatever you're carrying today while I'm letting go of.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

The warmth that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1-800-contacts. Oh my gosh, they're so fast.

[Unnamed Speaker]

And breathe.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Oh, sorry.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry. Namaste. Visit 1-800-contacts.com today to save on your first order. 1-800-contacts.

[Jeff O'Neill]

We'll go from 10 to 1. As we do in the past, we'll talk about a book. If one of it has it higher, we'll wait till the end. Higher Person's chance. I doubt you'll have number 10 because not only is it a weird book, I'm talking about a single copy of a book makes my number 10.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I mean, tell me it is.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Let me make sure I get the author. Here is a book published in 1995. It's called Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies. Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought by Douglas Hofstadter and other members of the Fluid Analogies Research Group.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I need you to do some explaining.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Well, I will. I want to give. This is like kind of a riddle, but you can think of yourself. Rebecca. Emotional leadership. Give yourself. What do you think this could be about? Just. You don't have to guess. It's not a quiz for you. I wouldn't get it myself.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Fluid Dynamics. Read me the title.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies Computer Models are the Fundamental mechanisms thought. It's a single copy. And I'll also give you a hint. The title and contents of the books do not matter.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay. I mean this sounds to me like early neural network kinds of things. Or a pre AI computer program that like generates the analogies.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I love this. I love this for you. It's a great guess. It is incorrect. This was the first book sold on Amazon. Sold on July 16, 1995. Fluid cons. So in a lot of ways I think probably the most influential book of the year and maybe the decade in that regard.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

A creative and halfway cheating selection. But the court of rightness will allow it.

[Jeff O'Neill]

The court of rightness. The court of reason mis agrees. They chimed in with the amicus brief for us real quick. So again, this was the beginning of it. Barnes and Noble was dominant right now. Like this is. This is like I guess you've got mail was a couple years later. But Barnes and Nobles were starting to come into the neighborhoods and the big box stores and everything is happening. But this little old company called Amazon.com that got started in I think late 94 it incorporated and by 95 they'd actually sold the first book. And I don't need to tell you and everyone listening what hath been wrought in its weak.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Do you remember the first book you bought on Amazon?

[Jeff O'Neill]

No, I don't know. I don't remember.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I don't either.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I think I started out buying used books.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Oh, okay.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Because I was living in New York, was I? I wasn't buying books online until I was in grad school. So I was buying all my books at the Raven or the Border Borders in Lawrence or the Barnes and Noble in Kansas City. But used books, if you're looking for something unusual and I was doing some book collecting then online was the business and Amazon had a good. My memory was it was either that or ABE books. I don't remember, but I'm pretty sure it was used along the way.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Interesting.

[Jeff O'Neill]

All right, I assume you didn't have that at one.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I did.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I don't need to wait on to talk about it.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I didn't cheat for number 10. I had the Liars Club by Mary Carr.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I have this at 6, so why don't we wait for it there. I struggled with nine to put it on, but I thought given what you said, you give me a nice opening for it. I did have left behind number one at number nine here.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

That's in my honorable mentions. I could not bring myself to put it onto the actual list.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Once I broke the seal of speciously sourced books with 10, I was like.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I see what happens here.

[Jeff O'Neill]

This is the most Christian series of all time. It's not a. It's not a part of the book world we are personally interested in or we talk about very much. I'm not even sure. And you can email me podcastookriot.com, how evangelical hardcore this is. So the story is there's this plane, this is how it starts, and the passengers disappear and it is basically saying what if the Rapture actually happened as described in the Bible and it's 12 books long?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It's pretty evangelical hardcore. I read a couple of them.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Oh, did you?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I did a brief evangelical series. So yeah, I read a few of them and it purports it's basically a fictionalized representation of a literal reading of the book of Revelation, if that phrase.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Let me just say something that may be controversial again, that's a great idea for Christian book thriller series. What a great idea for a series. If you're going to do this kind of thing. That's a great.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

The Book of Revelation. To go back to our. My argument that you should Read the Bible so you understand things in literature is fucking weird.

[Jeff O'Neill]

It is so weird.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It is bonkers and dark and there's like multi headed beasts and horsemen and all sorts of apocalyptic whatever. Like the phrase the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse comes from the book of Revelation. And they imagine like, yes, that there's a plane crash on the day that the Rapture happens, which if you don't know what the rapture is, it is the, in some forms of Christian belief that like Jesus comes back and all the true believers gets immediately pulled up into heaven.

[Jeff O'Neill]

They get to the group a boarding, let's put it to continue the plain metaphor.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

If you've watched the Leftovers, the Leftovers is basically a rapture like experience. And then everyone who's left behind, thus the title, realizes the error of their ways and they have to suffer through all of like the plagues and locusts and the horrors of the Revelation and the Apocalypse and that's their chance to become believers and actually get saved. And then like there's a global like world order, globalized government, the Antichrist. And so like it also makes sense that that was coming into consciousness like in kind of fiction, mainstream consciousness in 1995, as the Internet was becoming a thing. And the idea of global communities and global business communities especially was, you know, out there in the zeitgeist. They're bonkers.

[Jeff O'Neill]

They're very. I have not read any. I've read the first couple of chapters of one just to get a sense of it and I was like, nope, that's not me. I. I mean, I wonder how much of this sort of Christian dogma inspired thriller that like Dan Brown was somewhere being. Huh?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Oh, you know, maybe.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Huh. I wonder if we sort of liberal arts the shit out of this.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Let's do like this, except heresy.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, this accepts so much flagellate. I mean, just so, so much flagellations. Okay, so I left behind it 9. What is your.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

My 9 is an Ishiguru that I haven't read.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Oh, the Consol is something we struggle. You say why? And I'll say, I'll explain why I don't have it on my list because.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Well, I haven't read it. But Ishiguro is going on my list. And by 1995 he was already a big deal. He was coming off the success of the Remains of the day in 1989, which was huge. And then the adaptation in 1993, which was equally huge. This is his first book after that. It is one of the gaps, not as notable a gap as the very giant in my Shigeru reading. But you know, dude has a Nobel. He's one of my faves. I'm going to put him on the list in the year that he has a new book out. But since I haven't read it and it's not really in the conversation, like nobody talking about Ishiguro is talking about the unconsoled anymore. It couldn't go any higher.

[Jeff O'Neill]

It is very weird. I didn't include it on there because I've read it and I don't particularly care for it. It's really experimental. It's 500 pages. There's this, I think a piano. Violinist. Piano player. It's a classical musician is sort of in this unnamed European city. And then like a bunch of people just started asking to do stuff.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, that's what the synopsis.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Very strange. I struggle with what to do with an author that matters, but it's a book of theirs that either. I personally don't care for. It's like middle tier or below. We may have some above here, but I don't. I don't have this on my list.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, I also didn't have a long list of other things that could go in the top ten.

[Jeff O'Neill]

That's fair. That's fair.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay, so what is your nine?

[Jeff O'Neill]

Mine? My nine was left behind. Then to your. To your eight.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

My eight. Bloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia Butler.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Walked me right into it. I left this off because it's a late Butler and it wasn't like there's novellas. It's a collection. I also left off the Moore's Last side in Sabbath Theater by Rush.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I also left off Sabbath Theater because.

[Jeff O'Neill]

They'Re kind of all in the same. Of like Lesser's not the Right Thing. But they're like C tier works by a tier authors.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

My notes for it are that short fiction doesn't do much in general and Butler is better known for her other work. But I am not leaving Octavia Butler off a list.

[Jeff O'Neill]

That's fine. I can complet completely understand.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay, so what's your eight?

[Jeff O'Neill]

This novel should be called 1995 Literary Fiction. I have such a strong memory of reading it and it's one of those things like you have to. It's a sense memory. Like you can't describe it. It exists in the realm of ineluctableness. How 1995 this is. It's Independence Day by Richard Ford, which won the Pulitzer Prize for this year. It is a. It's in his Frank Bascom Series. It's the second. I think there's three. The Sportswriter was the first one about a sportswriter. And this one, I'm trying to do this from memory. He is divorced and he takes a car trip to his son, to the halls of fame, basketball and baseball halls of fame, and has thoughts and feelings about it the whole time. In a lot of ways, fathers and sons. This is not. Franzen's corrections in 2000 became kind of the. If we're using the dartboard metaphor, the double 20s in the middle or whatever is in the middle, or hundreds of, like. This is what you kind of are referencing when you're referencing literary fiction by white straight guys. It is not. It is Independence Day because it's sort of post updike, pre modern sensibility. I think it's quite good, honestly. I think I read it subsequently. It's been 15 years since I read it again. But it is of a time and place. It's like watching, I don't know, film noir. Like, it doesn't feel modern and you wouldn't make it this way, but you wouldn't have that thing be any other way. At the same time, it won the Pulitzer Prize and the Pull the Pen Faulkner Award was the first novel to win both. Anyway, it's just really, really. It's kind of an amazing. This would be an amazing reread for us to sort of do as a book club, because it is so. It is the thing and the simulation of the thing in itself. I really feel that way about. It's also quite long. Yeah, that's Independence Day by Richard Ford.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. I have not read this one, so it didn't make my list. I perpetually conflate Richard Ford with Richard Yates. So in my mind, Independence Day is Revolutionary Road.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Well, it's not. But it's not not.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, but this is like, if you're writing in 2025 a bunch of essays about where are the men of literary fiction. You were reading r. Ford in 1995.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Kirkus described Frank Bascom as main character as part angry white male, part new sensitive guy, but mostly just a smug fool. Which also feels a little relevant, weirdly, in its own way. But, like, that character kind of begins, I think, with Bascomb, and it's kind of stuck around. Interesting to some degree. Anyway. All right.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay.

[Jeff O'Neill]

So you're seven.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

An Anthropologist on Mars by Oliver Sacks.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I love that you put this on here. Tell us more about what this one is. I don't have this on my list. This is.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I don't remember which theme this is. But Oliver Sacks is always writing sort of case notes, case studies about patients that he saw who have interesting, fascinating, rare, surprising neurological conditions. This is one of the early ones, I believe. This is the one that was adapted. And Robin Williams played Oliver Sachs. I think that's right.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Oh, I don't think that's right. I think it's a different one. It's called Awakenings, I think, even though.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Oh, it is. That's right. It's Awakenings. That's the other one. But there are so many of these. An Anthropologist on Mars was not my introduction to Sax. I got hooked on the man who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. And then I went back to the previous. The Saxiverse, I guess, just they're all delightful. I don't think there's a loser or a dud in the bunch of his books. And the early ones are especially rich because he hadn't mined his whole, you know, catalog of experience yet.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, again, Middle Tier Sachs, for me, it's not the one that made him. I don't think, and he. His sort of a crude. I don't know that there was one. Maybe the man who mistook his wife for his hat. I'd be curious to know the sales data as those things gone on. So I didn't have that on my list there. I have at my number seven, Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

That's my number four.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Okay, so we can wait there. That means we're at your six.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yes. Which is the Golden Compass by Philip.

[Jeff O'Neill]

This is my three. Okay, so then to my number six, I have the Liars Club by Mary Carr. Did you have this?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, that was my 10.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Okay.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Oh, right, you just said that we've been holding it.

[Jeff O'Neill]

So this is one. And I have an honorable mention. I think this book and another one we'll talk about the honorable mentions would feel modern today. So this one I remember being a big deal at the time. It's her memoir of growing up in rural Texas, her father a blue collar worker of some kind, I don't remember which. And the titular Liars club is like his friends that would sit around and tell stories that she would listen to, but in the vein of like Bastard out of Carolina or the Glass Castle or frankly Educated by Tara Westover.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Those are the comps in my notes.

[Jeff O'Neill]

But this is the first modern one. Like Bastard out of Carolina. Like there's earlier ones. Like A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, I think is sort of in the same working class, illiterate girl grown into a literate woman. But this one's kind of dirty. I mean, my memory is. It's kind of like low down and dirtier.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It's like hard scrabble and gritty. Yeah. It's a precursor certainly to the Glass Castle to Educated without the culty sorts of elements and really just like a signal memoir about a troubled childhood. But also it still gets name checked today.

[Jeff O'Neill]

It does.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And it still shows up in comps for this kind of memoir today. And it's widely taught. It's on some high school, but especially some college and creative writing syllabi. It was one of the best books of the year that year. It was a bestseller. It still sells very well and has little moments kind of coming back up.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I bet there's a great audiobook. I bet the audiobook, whatever they've done recently, is terrific for it.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, just of the. Actually of the ones we're talking about today, really real staying power with bookish people.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. It routinely shows up on the paperback favorites list. Her subsequent books did quite well. I don't remember the name of the sequel to, but there's one she wrote. I believe it's called lit, which is her memoir of being an alcoholic or just drinking heavily or very, you know, as you can tell from the title. But also about the. I think it's also about the relationship of writers to drinking. I remember being pretty fascinated by that book. I don't have a sense of her at all, weirdly. Like, I don't know, I couldn't pick her out of a lineup. That's not unusual for authors. But this one I have real. No, even sort of like index card of like misinformed attributes of any kind.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

The book reads like she would have been a great podcast.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Oh God.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It came out now. You know, like you download five of those when she's doing her publicity round.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. Okay, let's do a quick break here before we get into the rest.

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[Rebecca Schinsky]

Drive Up.

[Unnamed Speaker]

That's ready when you are. Only in the Target app. Just tap target.

[Jeff O'Neill]

The McDonald's Snack Wrap is back. You brought it back. Ranch snack wrap. Spicy snack wrap. You broke the Internet for a snack? Snack wrap is back.

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[Jeff O'Neill]

All right, what do you have for your five?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Wicked by Gregory Maguire. She says making like the grimace emoji says Deuce.

[Jeff O'Neill]

This is two. My number five is Blindness by Jose Saramago.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay, I put that at one.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Oh, at one. Okay, so let's wait on it.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

This is our most different list so far.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Well, we have, we have quite a few that are overlapping. They're just all over the place.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Your four then, Practical magic, which is your three.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Oh, I should have. Now we talked seven. Now we can talk about it.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, Practical magic. Lead off on Practical Magic, Alice Hoffman. This also for a 30 year old book continues to be in the conversation. And not just because the adaptation is beloved, but not. Not because the adaptation is beloved. And they're making another one. Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock. And who is the third sister? Is it Stockard Channing? Is she in this one?

[Jeff O'Neill]

Don't quiz me. I'm so sorry. I know there's a lot of people in this audience that love this movie. I'm so sorry for how little sorry, y'.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

All. I've only seen it a few times. Vanessa is listening to this. I'm sorry, Vanessa.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Don't cast a spell on us. No curses, please.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

This was the first Alice Hoffman that I read and then later picked up one of the titles that was the. And Oprah's Book Club title. Just, it's just great. It's charming, it's fun. It's sort of early wave, what we would call chick lit in the 90s.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Women's fiction today, spec literary spec fic. Witch lit. Like this is an important book. This is a super important book.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And nobody would have categorized it as specific 30 years ago. It was just like these three sisters in like a small New England town in a really charming house and they happen to be witchy and stuff happens and it's great. Just real staying power.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And so the Hocus pocus movie is 93. So this comes out afterwards. But like somewhere in the 90s Pop culture witches like that is just a thing that happens.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And Sabrina the Teenage witch is also a thing in the 90s.

[Jeff O'Neill]

In the, in the 50s and 60s we, Adam's family and Bewitched and I. So there was this weird like supernatural thing going on. But I think this is a. Oh.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And there's also the craft. This is a really witchy moment in pop culture, actually.

[Jeff O'Neill]

The witch being reclaimed by, not to put too fine a point on it, like Gen X women and girls is like a real thing that happened in the 90s. Like I remember thinking this at the time even.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And that's happening at the same time that the Left behind books are becoming bestsellers is really interesting with each other.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Very much so. And. And also the DND Satanic panic is going on, starting a little bit earlier, but really following into like this push and pull of an embrace of, you know, pagan stuff, supernatural, the occult and then the backlash or forelash or however you want to call the religious rights and evangelicalness being strange about it. It's interesting that this has largely gone away because what we do instead is adjudicate who can be what gender and who can read about those genders. But like this battle over the Harry Potters, the DNDs, like, we just don't get it. We haven't had a good satanic panic in a while.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Rebecca, we. Do you want a good Satanic?

[Jeff O'Neill]

Well, I just wonder. I mean, I wonder what. I bet there. I'm sure there are scholars of this kind of thing that have a theory, but like this is gone. We just don't do it.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Something of the like feminist progress that informs this. That in the mid-90s there's still like really active of a different flavor, like pushes for feminism, especially as the Gen X women are coming of age that like, if you can't have power in the structures and institutions of the world or in relationships with straight men as the women in practical magic, you can have actual powers like make them magical. And there's less of a need for that kind of storytelling. But I think it's. It has moved into the sort of like magical, like the TJ Klune sort of magic.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Well, I think it's been defanged.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I think that's probably what's happened is and fantasy stuff. But it's different communities. It's not women that necessarily need the magic powers. And these days it's the queer folks and the people of color specifically, because that's who the religious right is coming after.

[Jeff O'Neill]

But as sort of the Harry Potters of the worlds, the hocus pocuses, the practical magics, we can go on and on. The supernaturals like X Files, like there's enough of them that it has defanged as being sub. I don't know, subversive in a way. Witches are no longer subversive. Hot take it just isn't any Hocus Pocus 3 is coming out, for God's sake.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And it's like mind blowing when I think about how controversial the Da Vinci Code was when it came out. Like churches, like big church bodies coming out making statements about how heretical and blasphemous this book was. And maybe it would get that response from some places today because you know, the argument that Jesus was married and had a kid and all sorts of. All sorts of stuff that it contains. But it seemed very threatening to the church at the time. And I think you're right. Like the church has moved on to deciding that it's threatened by the existence of queer people. So they're, I mean, they're still trying to keep everybody else down too. But that's the biggest front in that war right now.

[Jeff O'Neill]

It is. I mean, we've talked about, I guess probably, I feel like five or six years ago as we were watching new books came out, like there was an initial like real surge of witch related stuff. Now it just is a part of the publishing tarot cards and you know, cozy mysteries and regular mysteries and all kinds of stuff. And I, you know, I don't know if it's Practical Magic or Hocus Pocus that's more or less influential, but at least in the book world, like there's been other books in the series. Alice Hoffman continues to be a staple. There's too many Alices and Anns. I just don't know what to say. It's hard to keep them all straight.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Like all the literary jobs and Tyler.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And Alice Hoffman and you know, and it's just very, you know, Ann Carson's, that one's a little bit easier. But Ann Patchett and Patchett, these, the mainstreaming of this idea and these kinds of sisterhood representations is really important at that moment. And I don't know that the book sold crazily well. That's one thing that's hard to tell now if you're looking at Goodreads ratings. Like there's things that have had ongoing surges and then things have, like I have one on an honorable mention that's a this year Book talk phenomenon.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Me too.

[Jeff O'Neill]

But I don't know how.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Well, Practical Magic, like Alice Hoffman is a book club staple. So I don't know, maybe you read a more recent Alice Hoffman and you go back and you pick up Practical Magic. I think it still hits.

[Jeff O'Neill]

There's probably a lot of people that read Practical Magic has no idea who wrote it. Like the title is more famous than the author for sure.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I think so too at this point. Okay, so that was my four.

[Jeff O'Neill]

That's my four is Emotional Intelligence by Dan. Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I had this one on honorable mention, so take it away.

[Jeff O'Neill]

This. We're still in the era where self help books had this weird like watercolor. I don't even know how you describe it looks like fake marble or fake linoleum with these really narrowly kerned fonts on them. Like whatever you imagine Billy Crystal's book picking up when he's in personal growth. They all have the same cover design and this has one of those. But this I think is a watershed moment. This idea is still around by the way. Emotional intelligence.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

This is a watershed moment in like.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Popular psychology and then moving from self help to. I don't even, I don't even what you'd call this personal development or just understanding yourself and the world a little bit better.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Like interpersonal skills.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Right, right. Beyond dating and diet. Right. It's this idea that there's this, this Freudian idea. There's this other thing going on with your intelligence that's about how you with other people, your feelings, their feelings and navigating the emotional fields around you. It was a huge bestseller. But I think even more than the book, this idea went viral and is now part of like it's now part. It's like COVID 19 of our understanding of things. It's just out there.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Oh yes, it's just in the water for sure. I remember, I think Goldman was on Oprah or Oprah talked about this. I remember.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I have to believe that that has.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

To have been, you know, coming in from school and my mom watching some segment about EQ as the concept that EQ was going to be just as important as IQ because emot. Emotional intelligence was important. You know, this is also the moment where like workplace harassment, our attitude, attitudes toward that start shifting and sexual harassment becomes a thing that we talk about more openly. And it's just people want to be treated better. And Goldman is out there being like, here's how to be a person and talk to other people in a more intelligent way and more into. Not intuitive but like more productive kinds of communication that you can have with, with, with other folks. He's still researching. He's had books out in the last couple of years. Just very influential. I think this is, it's a good pick to put on the list.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And then like I think there's some Seeds in the idea of this book. And I don't think I've ever read it. I think I've read reviews or something of it or like maybe a, A Wikipedia summary or something back.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It would probably feel like you had read every page of it at this.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Point because like ideas of self control are in it. Persistence, like grit, self motivation, like it's not as much about. I don't know what's the, what's the really distilled bald. Oh, being an empath. Right. That. Remember how that was a meme for a little while maybe still people do that. It's actually not about that as much. It's. It's more about your ability to marshal your own emotions, like control them and recognize them and do.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It's also low key. One of the first like mainstream books that was sneaking mindfulness into stuff.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Goleman is a longtime meditator. One of his more recent books was called why We Meditate that was written with a monk who you know, had been teaching meditation for decades. And the concepts like all of the things that you just rattled off are things related to meditation and mindfulness of like taking a beat before you respond to people.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Right.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

That you know, like your agency exists in the space between the stimulus and the response. Understand like taking responsibility for how you show up and stuff and not just pointing blame at other people. And I don't know where he was in the like the mindfulness pract practice at the time that he wrote that, but my impression like, like my casual understanding of him is that this has also been a long time component that I think these two things are inextricable. His experience with meditation and mindfulness and the way that he approaches psychology research. And so it just infuses the concepts there. But we weren't yet like Oprah had not gone, had not made woo woo mainstream yet in 95. So we weren't in a place where somebody could just write a book that that took real mindfulness principles like Dan Harris would have not done as well in 1995 as he's doing today and brought them into the workplace or into everyone's relationships.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I mean Goldman's an interesting guy. I don't know much about him, but he was twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for work at the Times like reporting this. And he's a psychologist and he's in using neuroscience. And there is a little bit of like Pre Cambrian Kahneman and Tversky here about like we're not rational beings folks. Like we reason are not the tracks that we run on. We run on the tracks of emotions rather than of reason and thought.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

There's a lot in this of the like, just because you feel it doesn't make it real.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, it's so interesting. I read a couple of the, like, the critical responses since. And like, in his introduction he's like, how can we get. Why are things so uncivil today? Right. How can we. And it's just like, oh, it's, oh, we're always doing this.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Everyone is always worried how uncivil we are.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I had. Did you have the Golden Compass below three.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I had it at six. Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Okay, so now it's time for the Golden Compass by Philip Pullman. If you don't know Phil Pullman, an English author and this is part of a three book series largely referred to as his Dark Materials, but I call it the Golden Compass series. This is kind of what happens here. An interesting kind of steampunky fantasy world, not unlike ours, but different than ours. The main character, Lyra, is a young girl whose parents are important players in the wider geopolitical machinations of this world. One of the signal differences and what makes it specific is there are sort of these magical fantastical elements, not the least of which maybe the primary of which is that people have a daemon familiar. You have like an animal who is a manifestation. It's like a real thing. It's not a ghost, but they are. Are bound to you. They are part of you. They are a part and partial of you, but not you at the same time. You have conversations with them, you can get in arguments with them. But then there's this wider thing happening and at its core there is a very like, it's not. It's Christian, but not. It's like. It's like variation of Christian. It's like a supernatural good and evil story that uses some Christian stuff.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It's less Christian than like the Narnia books.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yes, very much so. And it's really good. I read it all in one go on a vacation, like I like to do. I got a big, you know, it's one. I had a big gap in my sort of knowledge. And I got a big nasty paperback that I didn't care about spilling pina coladas are and getting copper tones on and sat there and read it and had a really good time. I recommend it to my kids and they've enjoyed it.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Michelle has a great affinity for the movie starring Daniel Craig. That didn't go anywhere. Like she really likes that movie. And then the whole thing got adapted on HBO and no one talks about it even know.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

That's the thing that I think is interesting and weird about Golden Compass is that the books are out before the Harry Potter phenomenon. I don't think they were really that popular. I don't know before the Harry Potter phenomenon. But then Harry Potter becomes a thing and it's like the Golden Compass publishers.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Are like wait, we too totally. What do we have we can comp to this. And it is.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And it isn't with magic and a different kind of world. Right. But. And like morality kinds of stuff built into it. And it really sold like this was selling very well at the same time that we were mid Harry Potter series. And that was in my bookseller days. So I saw all of that happening. But yeah. Then the. I think it got adapted too late. They waited too long. They missed the.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Well, I don't think they knew what to do with it is because like the eight are they. Are these kids stories or they adult stories? Are they kind of this messy middle of YA fantasy I think has been. It's proven very difficult to make into commercial successes. It just hasn't worked out that way.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

They're too mature for most families to be like reading as bedtime stories where I think at a certain age of kid you can get away with Harry Potter as a bedtime story. And like folks. So it's not a straight cop. Like I totally understand why the publishers did that. And it was successful to a degree. They've sold 22 million copies of the series since then. That's the best estimate I could find. But yeah, the adaptations just fell flat. The HBO second attempt at an adaptation also fell flat. And I think it just doesn't have the name recognition maybe also because. Because kids don't read it when they're young enough to like get really attractive.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Right? That's true. Yeah. And it's like it's more towards Hunger Game in terms of subject matter.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Like it's not quite like geopolitical.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. But like people like kids are getting like kidnapped to this weird place on the North Pole and Harry Potter does some of that stuff. Like it gets dark in its own turn. But really from the beginning there's an element of sinisterness that even with Voldemort and Harry Potter just doesn't feel the same to me. I don't think. And I think a lot of people agree. So I think reading this as adult, if you're inclined probably holds up better than sort of going back to early HP or anything. But. And not for Nothing. You know, the author stuff is a little easier stomach with Philip Pullman at this time. Okay, that means we're at two.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Oh, we didn't do my number three.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Your number three.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

High Fidelity by Nick Hornby.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Okay, sure, go for it.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I think I probably read this one in, like, 1997, so not too far after. I mean, millions of copies sold. A good movie adaptation, a Broadway musical, and then also a pretty good Hulu series that updated and rebooted and did some gender flipping of stuff. It's like, low key, endurable, and also a meme. Like, the main character of High Fidelity is a cultural meme. Now, he would be a reply guy. He's got his opinions. He's the music version of Name Five Robins, but lovable somehow. And it's because Hornby knows that that's who that guy is and skewers him, like, just the right amount. It's fun. Also, I happen to have read it.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, I read it. I watched the movie too. Again, if, you know, both, they're. They're moved around a little bit in terms of where people are. The great Jack Black performance in the.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Movie is, I mean, Jack Black singing let's Get It On. I know, is, like, reason enough to put anything that inspired that scene to happen on number three.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Number two.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I don't know, Jeff. I told you the difference between, like, it's three, but the difference between, like, two and nine on here is meaningless.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Well, I'm not between two and nine. I'm. I'm talking between and. Yeah, that was pretty good. Wow. Okay.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

We always get into weird territory in these 90s episodes because I'm a child when this is happening.

[Jeff O'Neill]

That's right. Again, it's a fun movie and a fun book. No qualms with that.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I'm not gonna make, like, a strong argument for it. And also, I was staring at my list and I was like, there's nothing else. I'm, like, stoked to put up at number three. So, okay, all right.

[Jeff O'Neill]

So now we're two. What did you have at two?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I have Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I have that at number one. So let's now do Wicked at number. Well, now we're like, who does not what at number one? Let's do Wicked. And then Obama.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, I had Wicked as five.

[Jeff O'Neill]

So, yeah, let's do that two years ago. Is this number two, number one? It's on the list, though, because of the phenomenon of the musical.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

That's why it's five for me. It's like the book. And also because the thing is not the book. The thing really is the musical.

[Jeff O'Neill]

The thing is the songs in the musical.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And now we have the movie that I think the musical will just continue to be like. That will be the central piece of media from the this universe that people get attached to and interact with. The movies, whatever. I did not care for the movie. I thought it was quite a mess. But Gregory Maguire, the book was popular in 95. I do remember kids were reading it at school.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Absolutely carrying it around and a lot different. It is a weird aspect.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Much darker.

[Jeff O'Neill]

It is a weird book.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. So tell me about how it's at 2 on your list.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Well, well, I think there's something to be said for you were the thing that made a cultural phenomenon and Wicked has become a cultural phenomenon. And in a down year it was easy. Rather than stay at the top and fought people off king of the Mountain style, it just sort of kept floating to the top. I couldn't find anything to put above it really. Like Golden Compass. Like compared to Golden Compass, Wicked is a juggernaut. Whereas Golden Co. Merely a prize fighter in the wider situation. I think on the reading, reading for if this was purely just book book and you considered nothing outside of books in culture, it's on the list, but way down. But I think you have to take account for people know what Elphaba is. If you say what is Wicked about? It's like, oh, it's what if the Wicked of the Witch was good? It was actually the good guy.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And that matters. And it's had a series and it sold. It sold well. And it's going to be around for a long time. Much like wizard of Oz the movie has supplanted wizard of Oz the book book, the underlying text is still something that exists and matters in its own way.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

How many people know today that wizard of Oz the movie is based on a book?

[Jeff O'Neill]

Are you looking for an absolute number.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

A ratio, a vibe? Give me a perspective.

[Jeff O'Neill]

So if they were like, so you're asking people on the street a do you know what the wizard of Oz is? We'll assume we're going to filter out.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

For the sake of my soul, we.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Need them to know, is that based on a book? Just ask the question. Just is that based on a book? I think I'll put it this way. Of movies or other properties based on books. I think this would have among the highest recognition that it's also a book.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay, I'm a little skeptical.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Okay, what are you 50%, 30%, 25%.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I would go like 25. Maybe like younger. It depends on the generation of the people we're stopping on the street. But I would think the younger you are, the less likely you are to know.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Okay. Yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Anyway. Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Which is. That's not about now. That's not about the book. That's just about young people don't know anything.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Right. And that the movie has. Yeah. Surpassed it for generations now.

[Jeff O'Neill]

How about this? Do you think people know that there was an original version of the Wizard? Like if you stood at the ticket taker at Wicked for good and asked the people coming in, do you know what this is based on? Where the kids are from?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I don't want the answer to that.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I know you don't want the answer.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Really depressing.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I don't think we'd like the answer. I don't like the answer to that.

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[Jeff O'Neill]

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[Rebecca Schinsky]

So no matter where you go in.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Every bar, you'll always know someone by name.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Jack Jack and co Shot of Jack.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Jack Daniels, please. Right away. That's what makes Jack Jack. Please drink responsibly. Responsibility.org. jack Daniels and old number seven are registered trademarks copyright 2025 Jack Daniels Tennessee whiskey. 40% alcohol by volume 80 proof. Okay, let's do. Well, we just do dreams of my father now.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay. Yeah, so it's my number two. It's your number one book is good. Yeah. And hell of a comeback story.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And is Obama president without this book? Book? He wrote it when he was getting ready to run for the Illinois Senate. Like this book was. This got reviewed in the Reason people do these books is for this reason. This is maybe the best written political memoir of all time. It's like he based on Ralph Ellison's Invisible. I mean, come on, Rebecca.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

He's not a political figure at the time he writes it. Which is why it's good because the memoirs people write in the middle of their political careers are horrible because they are campaign document documents. So it comes out in 95 and it sold like 8,000 copies and it went out of print. And then I think they bring it back into print around the 2004 DNC, the big convention speech. That might be wrong, but that's when he breaks out. I think he's president without this book because that DN speech does it. But this helped that it was like you can read this thing as evidence of this person's character. He was a new kid on the political scene. He'd only been in the Senate for four years when he became the president. And this was a way to like connect with who this person was and who he had been well before he was trying to be a politician. And now like, you know, 7 or 8 million copies have sold and he was the president for eight years.

[Jeff O'Neill]

It's a fascinating document. I think I said dreams of my father. It's dreams from my father. I misspoke a minute ago. It charts his sort of life from early childhood through going to Harvard Law School. So it's not, it's unusual in this kind of. I'm going to write a book to raise my profile because it doesn't follow like his early years as a politician and rah rah stuff. It's non ideological sense and it doesn't have a platform. I think it's political of course, as all books are blah blah blah, but like he's working through ideas of race and inheritance and his own story is fascinating and I think the reason it's one for me is again, it's Obama and that's easy to put up there. And it's the best written political memoir I've ever read. And I've read a hand. I haven't read all of them. I should say, I don't know that maybe Calvin Coolidge could really craft a sentence or whatever. But whatever makes Obama special or we thought or hoped was special is in this book.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yes, that's right.

[Jeff O'Neill]

That's why this book is number one one for me. And everything that's happened since and compromises and all things that happen as people get older and even the artistic license he took and the conflations but like, this is what you. This is what I want to vote for. This sensibility, you know, the mind at work thing from Hamilton, that like a soul at work really trying to do something. And again, I know it's all performance and it's all staged and it's not like that's the other thing about Obama is no one's a better manager of his own own presence. But like, that's part of the shtick too. At the same time, it holds up tremendously. Well, I read it. I read it when he was running for Illinois Senate a little bit later and then I read it during the election. His first election.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And it's really, it's really, really good. And I would shudder to go back and read it now because it's, you know. What? You know.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I mean, I was just thinking what we don't have is so wild. It's just so strange.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. From deep in season six of the West Wing, I can tell you I'm longing for the political arguments of 25 years ago. Yeah. That. I mean, a mind at work. Yes. And also that he wants to demonstrate a mind at work and perform it and show us that that's what's happening. But like. Yes, that's what I want from a.

[Jeff O'Neill]

All writers do that. No, all writers do that. Yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And all politicians are performers. And if the thing you are trying to perform and you do it successfully is evidence of your mind at work. Work.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay. Maybe I'm arguing myself into having made this number one because I had Blindness by Saramago at one. Like he won the Nobel. Come on.

[Jeff O'Neill]

It wins it later in 98. The book is very good, I should say. But I guess if we're going to do the people coming into Pals on a Thursday afternoon test. Who is Jose Saramago?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. They don't know. They don't know. The kids don't know.

[Jeff O'Neill]

The book. Have you read Blindness? Yeah. It says signal work and won the Nobel largely on the back of it. So the meta. It's magic. European. Well, this sort of magical realism that was very in vogue at this time.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And a pandemic of blindness.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yes. Yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Sweeps the world.

[Jeff O'Neill]

It reads great. It has like a thriller esque quality. Like what's going on? How is this?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I missed it in my education. I think I first read it in like early book riot days. You know what it was an oyster. Pour one out for oyster Beloved, all you can read ebook platform. And I remember coming across it and being like, oh, I've been meaning to Read that. Let's do it.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, I got made into a movie which I never saw that I was interested to see the first. My dad was in on this early because the first person who gets the disease is an ophthalmologist. As my Dan would. Any eye related literature. My dad's just on that like white on rice, man. He is just all.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

So it's. What's blindness at the country of the blind.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, yeah. I don't know what else there. The blind assassin. We're just naming stuff now. I also like. What was it called? Saramogo has this one called the something raft, the stone raft and the conceit. There is Iberian Peninsula, which is Portugal and Spain just break off from Europe and just like float into the ocean.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Great.

[Jeff O'Neill]

So these high concept. He's Portuguese, he's not, you know, South American, which was the white hot center of magical realism. But very operating very much in the same mode of the. These high concept fable like literary tales. This is real. Probably. If I'm interested in like recommending a book to someone who will try literary fiction, blindness might be the one I pick off the board here.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Oh, interesting. Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Just. Just to try and have.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Oh, I mean off this board.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Off this board. Yes, off this board.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

To try and. A lot less, now that you say it, a lot less literary fiction than these top tens tend to have.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not very long. Is my memory. Yeah. 288 pages. I wrote a sequel which I never read.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, it's high concept, but it's not hard to get into. Like I think if you liked Station 11 and that kind of vibe, it didn't feel that different to me.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Here's another thing. I almost texted you this essay that it was a film piece in the Times and the Central.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Always text me, Jeff, I want you to.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I just. I forgot it and I was gonna. Because we talked about it and I don't. I'll look for. I'll try to find it. Maybe we'll talk about it later. Later about the overtness, the on the nose ness that we've been talking about recently. Did you see that piece?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I did, yes.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I thought it was quite good. I was like, I could just port this right over the. The converse of that is my memory, at least is what Saramago does in this in which there is not an obvious. This is not a metaphor for anything necessarily except existence. You know, we're all blind and we go, I guess, I don't know, it's been a while and I'M not prepared to do a close reading and explication of it right now. Now. But it is not a neat metaphor for our prejudice against migrants or something. And, like, there are reasons those are worthy goals, but this is doing something more elemental. And it's left to our own interpretation and creative readings to make meaning and experience out of it. I find myself longing desperately. Even someone like Jesse Ball, who I really like. The last one's like. It's kind of on the nose about thought, crying, even, like the Dream Hotel. I mean, it's a little.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I keep thinking the Dream Hotel was a little on the nose.

[Jeff O'Neill]

A little on the nose.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

A little on the nose.

[Jeff O'Neill]

It is the nose. It's the nose and the ent and, you know, your Noxzema pads all roll into one.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I want. I need this phase to be over. I need us to go back to subtlety in art, please.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, yeah, I think that's. I had not. If you have a message that can easily reduce. Just easily reduce that message into a tweet or something or an essay or something else. But like. Like this, what Saramago does here in the reading experience of, like, what is happening, what's going to happen. A lot of people will find it frustrating, which is fine for me. I don't care if other people are frustrated necessarily.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I mean, I think also that that's a mark of good art in many ways. Like, that it is frustrating that it asks questions that it doesn't provide answers to and that the author trusts you to see. Sit in those questions and either deal with your frustration or I don't. To draw from the Daniel Goleman, like, accept that you're not going to get the answers to the thing. And maybe that's part of the point of the whole exercise.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, the Oishi is so helpful in the psychological richness because so many people like. And this is online culture, it's the easiest to do. Rotten Tomatoes. Thumbs up, towns down, three to five stars. Your first instinct is to. Whether or not you liked it, it in most instances, that's fine. We walked out of Superman, the movie, the other day, and we're talking about whether or not we liked it. That is also fine.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

That's also the kind of movie that. That's the right conversation.

[Jeff O'Neill]

But that is not criticism. That is not engagement. That is reaction. And that is the explication of personal opinion and experience and sort of, you know, filtering it through yourself. If you can hold in that in abeyance, you can have a different kind of relationship to these things. And if the author allows you to hold it in abeyance. Right. Like if it's a little more vaster wilds and a little more antidote, I think we can do something there.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, I think that's right. That's one of the things that's frustrating to me about this moment we're having right now is that I feel robbed of an experience that I want to have with a book where I have to. Huh. Or like, that's surprising. Or what are they doing here? But when the author just goes and tells you at the end exactly what they were doing the whole time, it's. It's so much less satisfying. It's like if they hinted at overtly at who the murderer was.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Right.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Halfway through a book.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Like halfway through a mystery. Don't tell me. I want to go on the journey myself, man.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, it's. It's interesting. I mean, you know. 95. A Year of Subtlety Left behind in Blindness by Jose.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. A real. A year that contained multitudes, as most years in books do. Let's do honorable mentions.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, honorable mentions. You go. We can just run through. I'll tell you how I've got them on there.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

But I'm thinking in Pictures by Temple Grandin. I don't think she really. For like another decade or two maybe.

[Jeff O'Neill]

When the movie comes out.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

The biopic the Giant's house by Elizabeth McCracken, just because she is still in the literary conversation. And for anybody to be doing that even from mid list in 1995 to mid list in 2025 for 30 years is remarkable. Let's see. I had Simple Abundance, which was like, I think the first mainstream you should have a gratitude journal kind of book. It's on the Goodreads list from 1995. 95. And I know there was an Oprah episode about it. And that is where the sort of pop culture just be grateful for things that kind of morphed itself into toxic positivity really broke out. But we have this book to thank for it. Sabbath's Theater by Philip Roth was on mine. And then I had Emotional intelligence and Independence Day on my honorable mentions.

[Jeff O'Neill]

You know what'd be a fun episode is, you know how in Back to the Future 2, part of it is they have to go get the sports Almanac from Biff so he doesn't use it. We should have an episode where we get in our DeLorean and we just delete the manuscript of a hard drive off. So that book just doesn't exist.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Just the Pandora's box.

[Jeff O'Neill]

We just put it back in.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Don't start this thing. Don't start it.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I mean, graduate, that's fine, but there's some other books. I'm like, I wouldn't have mind keeping the stopper in that genied bottle a little bit there. I had Bloodchild. I haven't read this book, but I know a lot of people like the Sabriel series by Garth Nix. So I had that here. And usually with the series, if it's the first or last, it's eligible. This is number one in the series, so I put it here. Microservice by Doug Copeland. This is a Canadian author. This book was like early Internet fiction. And if I remember right, like, the microservice were these coders who lived in these pods and they ate stuff called flat, which is like a real, like, satirical dystopian of this emergent technological age, which we were very worried about in 95. Luckily, we had nothing to be worried about and all turned out fine.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Oh, God, Facebook is like not even a twinkle in Mark Zuckerberg's eye. And then we both alluded to a TikTok honorable mention. I assume you're talking about I, who have never known Men, which is a Belgian novel in translation that somehow got plucked out of obscurity and sold 100,000 copies last year and is still going.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Some Belgian royalty statement. One day they're like, what in the is happening? I had.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I don't know if anyone has, like, surfed Booktok all the way back to find the, like, Patient Zero.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Is that even possible? I don't even know if it's even possible. I guess we just do searches for titles you could do and see what the first one was. I had Making Movies by Sidney Lumet, which is in a lot of ways up there with Confessions of the Screen Trade by William Goldman, considered one of, if not the great memoir about how movies are actually made. It is really, really good.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I haven't read that.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And then did you look who what won the National Book Award for fiction in 1996.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I looked in 1990, did not recognize it at all and was like, okay, carrying on.

[Jeff O'Neill]

This is I. To my knowledge, this is the first time I'd ever encountered this book.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Ship Fever and Other Stories by Andrea Barrett. It's a Norton title. I had to have seen it because I was starting to. Anyway, I must have seen this on a table somewhere and just didn't.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Is this the rabbit hutch of the 90s?

[Jeff O'Neill]

I don't know. In terms of maybe it's short stories. The title novella, Canadian Doctor is also in an epidemic, which is weird. One story is like told from the point of view of Linnaeus. Like the great taxonomy.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Sure.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And then the littoral zone. Two marine biologists wonder whether their life is alter life altering affairs. Like there's science writing. Like it's very much a. Like Richard Powers, Claire McGonaghy antecedent. I'm fascinated to know what this is in the tradition of Alice Monroe and William Trevor. Trevor, yeesh. But yeah, William Trevor looking a lot better than Alice Monroe anymore here. But yeah, that's one. You know, you'd always get it right. You take your shot and you do. Also looks like a book from the 80s.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I mean the book covers of 1995 are a real.

[Jeff O'Neill]

It's a real transitional thing. My son was talking about how he's like, you know, he will do a real non sequitur. Like he's the king of like I've been thinking about and I'm just going to say with no context.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Oh, he's his father's son.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, right. He's just like, you know, you can really tell that the tape here was a transitional animal.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And I'm like, okay, okay, that is a next level non sequitur.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Well, he's like, well, you can see it's got like sort of a pre insale nose, but not. You can see that. And these long legs and the spots. Like you can see it's sort of between a deer and an elephant. Like some of the morphology of both, but not quite either.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And we're between like book design by hand and actual graphic design.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Like, what is that? What is going on with the spacing in this on this title?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It's not good.

[Jeff O'Neill]

You and I could do better in Canva. I'm not kidding.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Bless Canva.

[Jeff O'Neill]

There's like a wood cut of some settlers, like doing some stuff by water and then just capital copper plate bold.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

There will be some podcast 30 years from now, looking back at all these romantasy books and being like, what were we doing with book covers in 25 in 30 years?

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, I mean, okay, I'm here, the future is here. It's just not evenly distributed as Chuck or no William Gibson.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Oh no, it won't be us getting.

[Jeff O'Neill]

My dystopian cranky futurist.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

They'll be like beaming their podcasts right into your brain and looking back at book covers going, what?

[Jeff O'Neill]

All right, so those are the books of 1995, Rebecca. Thank you as always. Book Riot.com Listen to find show notes emails podcast.com the Book Riot podcast is a proud member of the Airwave Podcast Network. Rebecca, we'll talk to you later.