Power Ranking the Books of 2015

Summary

Book Riot - The Podcast: Power Ranking the Books of 2015

Hosts: Jeff O'Neill & Rebecca Schinsky
Release Date: January 22, 2025

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In this engaging episode of Book Riot - The Podcast, hosts Jeff O'Neill and Rebecca Schinsky embark on the challenging task of power ranking the best books of 2015. Despite the complexities and the emotional toll of revisiting a past year's literary landscape, Jeff and Rebecca navigate through a diverse array of titles, offering insightful commentary and personal reflections that capture the essence of each work.

1. The Challenge of Ranking

Jeff: "We've had many difficult tasks, Rebecca. Getting through Covid, you know, dealing with life. This was way up there, you know, as." [00:29]
Rebecca: "This was painful. Yeah, we've had versions of this. Actually, the most recent one that we did, which I think was the books of 1994, was really tough because none of them were particularly exciting." [01:02]

Jeff and Rebecca express the emotional difficulty of ranking books from 2015, highlighting how personal experiences and the sheer volume of quality literature make the task daunting. They grapple with differing opinions on what constitutes a standout book, reflecting on how their perspectives have evolved over time.

2. Criteria for Power Ranking

Rebecca proposes a two-part formula for their rankings:
"I think it's a two part formula where the book was significant in the time it came out and it retains some kind of significance or influence in reading culture or the publishing industry or made some kind of lasting splash." [05:53]

Jeff concurs, emphasizing the importance of both contemporary impact and enduring legacy. This dual approach ensures that their list acknowledges books that not only made headlines in 2015 but also continued to influence readers and the literary world in subsequent years.

3. Top 10 Power Rankings

10. Nimona & Lumberjanes Combo

Rebecca kicks off the ranking by celebrating Nimona and Lumberjanes as pivotal works that expanded the scope of comics and graphic novels.
"They were geared towards women and girls and non-binary folks in ways that we had not seen comics do before. They weren't about, you know, saving the world necessarily, but about friendships to the max." [11:37]

These titles are lauded for their fresh perspectives and inclusive storytelling, marking a significant shift in the genre.

9. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

Described as a monumental yet controversial work, A Little Life delves deep into the lives of four friends in New York grappling with trauma and identity.
"It's as I said, it's at my seven and it's like, surprisingly, it just has a surprising endurance over the last 10 years and was surprisingly popular for a book that is all of those things, but is also quite literary." [16:35]

The book's intense emotional narrative sparked widespread discussion and remains a touchstone in contemporary literature.

8. God Help the Child by Toni Morrison

Jeff and Rebecca acknowledge Toni Morrison's contribution with God Help the Child, though they debate its placement due to its reception and lasting impact.
"It’s a Toni Morrison novel, even when it's eclipsed by almost everything else in her catalog, is still worthy of a mention." [26:58]

Despite mixed feelings, Morrison's work is recognized for its literary significance.

7. The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, The Sympathizer is praised for its unique blend of memoir and spy novel themes.
"This was a huge flying out of the gate there." [16:57]

Its critical acclaim and thoughtful exploration of identity continue to resonate with readers.

6. The Sellout by Paul Beatty

Paul Beatty's satirical masterpiece is highlighted for its incisive commentary on race and society.
"It's a real product of that political moment. And I think Beatty is perhaps more skeptical or was perhaps coming from a more skeptical place about where." [33:34]

The novel's sharp wit and bold narrative make it a standout in 2015's literary offerings.

5. The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

N.K. Jemisin's groundbreaking work in the fantasy genre earns top spots for its intricate world-building and social commentary.
"This has become a modern classic of the genre and she pulled off two Titanic series in a row that won all the awards in the genre space." [21:46]

Jemisin's The Fifth Season is celebrated as a transformative piece that redefined speculative fiction.

4. NeuroTribes by Steve Silberman

NeuroTribes is lauded for its profound impact on the understanding of neurodiversity.
"It was really, really important and getting a mainstream conversation going in a way that somebody who didn't have an autistic child or an autistic friend has an experience, expanded understanding of what it means for someone to be autistic." [46:37]

Silberman's work is credited with revolutionizing societal perspectives on autism.

3. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates & Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine

Combined into a powerful duo, these works are recognized for their poignant exploration of race, identity, and the African American experience.
"It was part of the popular discourse... significant title." [51:18]

Their intersectional narratives have left an indelible mark on contemporary literature.

2. Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

Fates and Furies earns high praise for its innovative storytelling and deep psychological exploration of marriage and identity.
"This was the moment that Lauren Groff became, I think, much more of a like a recognizable reading culture household name." [59:33]

Groff's exceptional narrative structure and character development secure her place near the top.

1. H is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald

Crowned as the top book, H is for Hawk stands out for its lyrical prose and heartfelt exploration of grief through falconry.
"Look through scarves of scent curl from the forest and swirl toward a beautiful medieval village... retains some kind of significance." [65:44]

Helen MacDonald's memoir is celebrated for its emotional depth and unique narrative, making it the definitive book of 2015 in their ranking.

4. Honorable Mentions

While focusing on the top ten, Jeff and Rebecca also acknowledge several other noteworthy books from 2015, including Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins and The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah. These titles, among others, are discussed for their popularity, cultural impact, and varying degrees of critical acclaim.

5. Reflections on 2015’s Literary Landscape

Both hosts agree that 2015 was a pivotal year in publishing, characterized by diversity and a surge in influential works by authors of color. They note the role of social media and cultural shifts in amplifying these voices, making 2015 a standout year for literary diversity and innovation.

Jeff: "This was a notably diverse year. We need diverse books. Was cooking." [75:59]
Rebecca: "2015 felt like a real turning point in Publishing. That 20 in a great way." [76:11]

6. Closing Thoughts

As the episode wraps up, Jeff and Rebecca reflect on the enduring legacy of the books they discussed, contemplating how these works have continued to influence readers and the literary world a decade later. Their honest assessments and passionate discussions provide listeners with a comprehensive understanding of 2015's literary achievements.

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This episode serves as both a nostalgic look back and a critical analysis of a formative year in literature. Through their thoughtful rankings and engaging dialogue, Jeff O'Neill and Rebecca Schinsky offer listeners a nuanced perspective on the books that shaped 2015, highlighting their significance and lasting impact.

Transcript

[Rebecca Schinsky]

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

[Jeff O'Neill]

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

[Rebecca Schinsky]

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

[Jeff O'Neill]

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

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And I'm Rebecca Schinsky.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And today we are ranking the books of 2015.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Why did we do this to ourselves?

[Jeff O'Neill]

We've had many difficult tasks, Rebecca. Getting through Covid, you know, dealing with life. This was way up there, you know, as.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

As existential dread involved in this.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I'm joking, but this was as hard of one of these tasks we've had to do of late. And we didn't talk about it until about 30 minutes ago when I DM'd you, and I was like, this is painful.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

This is painful. Yeah, we've had versions of this. Actually, the most recent one that we did, which I think was the books of 1994, was really tough because none of them were particularly exciting. And Also, I was 12 when those books came out, so my frame of reference, especially for that episode, was tough. We've had some where it was just really clear what the number one book would be or what the top couple would be, and we felt like we were gonna have a lot of overlap in top 10. This one, my long list was like 35, 36.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Mine was 36.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. There were multiple directions to go in. I told you when you were saying how painful it is. I did three versions of this list, and I don't love any of them. And I reserve the right to move things around on the fly.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I think there's two things happening for me, at least. I think one thing I might feel more comfortable saying. Well, one thing I know wasn't happening for you, and one thing I know was I think this point in the podcast live and Book Riots life. We were reading a lot of the same things we were covering. Like, we're two. We're three years into Book Riot really cooking. We've been doing the pod for a couple years. And so I was paying attention in a way. I think even. I wasn't even paying attention away before this, where we were doing the side in front list and everything. I just wasn't thinking in those terms as much for. For a variety of reasons, I think also have with that and a lot of mutual faves here. I Think that just happens that way. So I'm fighting the BR Pod canon. There's like four or five entries, my own personal favorite. So there's a lot of overlap with that. And then the IT books And the other thing that happened for me is by 2015 both of my kids were at least 2 years old.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

So you had some bandwidth.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I just had a little more juice to get to some of this. I was looking at my 2015. I read a lot of books in 2015. I think of all the lists we've done, I feel like I remember more of these. And I read so many. Looking at the Goodreads top 200, looking at the New York Times notable, the prize winners. Like I was like, I feel like I read a higher percentage of the books on these lists than we've ever talked about and maybe it'll be a high water mark or maybe this we're going to get used to as these 10 year anniversaries get. I don't feel closer and closer. I mean they're always going to be 10 years away, but they somehow feel closer.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Or as they're more. As the 10 years are more embedded in the life of, you know, book riot and our professional careers doing. I've read everything on my list, I think, except for one.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I know what it is.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And then there's also like the diet. We'll talk about the dynamics of this as we get into it. But there is a book that came out in 2015 that's having a real moment right now or has been having a moment for a while that I wrestled with. Do I put this on my power ranking? Because it has popped right now. I didn't either because I think about these power rankings as longevity analyses really. But that's what we can just say it's ACOTAR. A Court of Thorns and Roses came out in 2015. Interestingly, on the Goodreads tracking, which is usually my first stop for doing research for these episodes of the popular books that came out in a given year. Girl on the Train is ahead of ACOTAR because those rankings are done by shelvings, not by ratings. And Girl on the Train also as a spoiler, not on my top 10 because had a big moment, but in the longevity game we can talk about.

[Jeff O'Neill]

A Court of Thorns and Roses now, I think because it's either not on my list or number one. If I'm going to include it, it should be number one. But it wasn't a book of 2015.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It was not a book of 2015.

[Jeff O'Neill]

It's a book of 2020. I mean, again, it had its own trajectory, but in the last three or four years it's really come on strong. So there's part of me that thinks, okay, longevity, certainly there's things I have on my top 10 that maybe 1% of the people that have heard of thorns and rose have heard of this. So that's, I think there's a, like, that's a, that's a parallel list which is like, if you think about it this way, it's one and you think about it differently. It's not on it. And I'm not sure, I'm honestly not comfortable with my choice.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

We haven't come to like a grand unified theory of these power to power rankings in the way that we have sort of a pretty set way that we think about it books. But it, if I had to propose one on the fly, I think it's a two part formula where the book was significant in the time it came out and it retains some kind of significance or influence in reading culture or the publishing industry or made some kind of lasting splash. Even if the book itself was not lasting, it might have furthered some conversations. I don't know. That's sort of, as I look at my list, I can see that that's what I did, at least in this version that I'm going to roll with of my list here.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, you just talked me into putting it number one. I, I mean, I know you're trying to go the other way, but like, okay, I'll do a. Well, what am I gonna.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Was it significant in 2015 though?

[Jeff O'Neill]

I don't, but even if it gets a 01 column, it gets a hundred in the other column.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Go. You go right ahead.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I'm just, I don't know, like using the IPA quadrants. Like sometimes you can get a zero if you're really strong in your other situations. You can, you know, Mariano Rivera threw one pitch as a closer for the Yankees and he did it for 40 years or. No, it wasn't 40 years. He did it for a long time and it just didn't matter that he had a, didn't have a billion other pitches or couldn't pitch seven innings. He was so valuable in that one specific thing. And this is. Romantasy is the ascendant genre of our time this year window. And this was the alpha version of it. Now again, Onyx Storm comes out today. Yeah, so it's like not the biggest selling, but I think, I don't know.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

The argument against it though, is Girl on the Train was in the ascendant genre of 2015, but that genre is dead. Yeah, which is where Romantasy is going to be in 10 years.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, but if you. So then that's, I mean, okay, so it gets 0 for now and 100 for back then. Your two prong approach I think is actually right. I think my. That's my own thinking.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I think it needs both, not just one or the other. So a zero.

[Jeff O'Neill]

So all of yours are going to have both. You have to score at least one because now I'm judging all your 10 pics, Rebecca. They have to have something in both. You said it yourself.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Listen, we do this for a living. I can talk my way to anything on this list. I was not going to put Acotar on my list, but you go right ahead if you want to talk yourself into making it number one.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Well, we're going to see when it comes time for my number one pick how much of a dithering fool I end up being one way or the other. Let's do our first sponsor break and we'll come back.

[Kira Jane Buxton]

This episode is sponsored by Tartufo by Kira Jane Buxton. Stick around after the show to hear an excerpt from the audiobook. After nearly losing the election to a geriatric donkey, newly installed Mayor D'Alizia Micucci can't help but feel like the sun has finally set on the rural Italian village of Lazzarini Boscarino. Tourists only stop by to ask for directions. Nona Amara's cherished ristorante is long shuttered and the town hall is disguised, disgustingly overrun with glee.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Glee's poo.

[Kira Jane Buxton]

Even Postman Duchio has been disgraced. All that's left is Bar Celebrita, a rustic establishment where weary locals gather to quibble over decades long disputes, submit their poor stomachs to bartender Giuseppina's volcanic espresso, and wonder what will become of the place where together they've spent their entire lives. Little do the villagers know that local truffle hunter Giovanni Scarpazza has just happened upon something that could change everything. A truffle un tartufo, that is, sits beneath the soil with the power to either be the greatest or the foulest curse the village has ever seen. Written in the same enchanting style and raucous humor that defines hollow kingdom and feral creatures, Tartufo is a reflection on the interconnectedness of life in all its manifestations, and how holding onto harmony in the face of hardship can grow something beautiful and rare Beneath the Surface can stick around after the show to hear an excerpt from the audiobook.

[Jeff O'Neill]

All right, we'll do honorable mentions at the end, which will be what, a six hour pod at the end for honorable mentions? We're gonna do 10. We'll do 10 to 1. I'm not even happy with my list of. In the order of the 10. I'm not happy with my 11. I'm looking 11, 12, and 13. Like, what am I doing? How is that not four?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

This project goes. Most of the time is I make my list the night before and I feel like, all right, they got this into a place that I feel okay about. And then by the time I open it up the next morning or sitting down to record, it's like, what did I. What was I thinking 24 hours ago?

[Jeff O'Neill]

But actually, one last meta comment. It wasn't just an awesome year in books.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I think it was pretty strong.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. Okay.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Like, there was, if you look at award winners that year, the bestsellers there were. This was a strong, like, pretty stacked reading year, both in terms of the individual titles and the names that had the books out that year.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Okay. Yeah. I think, you know, in movies there's like classic years. Like, 1999 is one we haven't. Maybe that's a fun game. We could do. Look at the last 10 years in power Rank the years by folks. We're just going to power Rank the power rankings. Right. We're gonna get really meta in it. But, like, this seems like an exceptionally strong year.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I think so. And like, knowing now what we know about how publishing tends to sandbag around election years, I wonder if 2015 got a ton of titles because we knew 2016 was going to be a big election year. I don't know, maybe this was a really, really strong one.

[Jeff O'Neill]

All right, without further ado, Rebecca, you kick us off with number 10.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I'm just going to start by cheating. I've paired up. They go together. My number 10 is Nimona and lumberjanes combined. Because this was 2014, 2015, a really fresh era in comics and graphic novels that was expansive and inclusive. And where comics, I think, as a result of the democratization of most forms of media, thanks to the Internet, were catering not just to the superhero. Like, I know that there were non superhero comics before there was Lumberjanes and Nimona, but these were geared towards women and girls and non binary folks in ways that we had not seen comics do before. They weren't about, you know, saving the world necessarily, but about, like, Lumberjanes. Their motto Was, you know, to be interesting and interested. And who among us can think of a better way to go?

[Jeff O'Neill]

Friendships to the max.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, right. Friendships to the max. Both are stories geared towards, I'd say, middle grade readers, but that adults equally loved reading and looking back and seeing. Yes, those came out in the same year. And a lot of other stuff was happening culturally in 2015 as well. That. That feels to me like an encapsulation of something important that was really happening in publishing at the moment. Comics and genre in general reaching out to new segments of readership. And both of those did then have ripple effects. They were quite successful, both from Boom Studios. And Boom spun that into a whole bunch of other comics that also continued that mission Nimona made into a great movie for Netflix. I believe there's a Lumberjanes adaptation somewhere in the works. Maybe.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I don't know. I mean, I am. I hope so.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Both of these. I looked at these two. They're on my honorable mention list, just outside the top 10. Nimon I read first. Andy Stevenson has become a reliable creator of art. And this was, I mean, saga number five came out this year as well. Right. That's not even on my honorable mentions. I don't know what to do with stuff like that for this, honestly. Omnibus editions, the Lumberjanes number one is. I don't want to. I don't like to use cliches. I'd rather make up my own garbage than use cliches. But I think in this case, it does best describe my feeling of reading Lumberjanes. A breath of fresh air. It just goes wafting through the. It's like this.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Oh, it just felt good.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Could do this. This was so great. Like, and I had young kids and like, a few years later, I would read it with them and they would read it and we follow the whole thing. And it's a mix of. It's got. It's got sort of horror, supernatural vibes. It's silly, satirical, surrealist, and then with a really warm beating heart at the same time. Nimona, I think, holds up a little bit better. It's like a standalone, feeble, like quality. But some of it, some of what made Lumberjane, and still, I would imagine makes it so endearing is their tweens, plus, speaking colloquially to each other. And that tends not to age super well on the whole, but I think.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It'S pretty terrific as you were getting at it. Both of these do something that's really hard, which is to be like, wholesome and good for kids. There's A message. But they're also fun. They have some edge to them, some bite. There is some silliness and a lot of, you know, creative expression. Also just some of the best reading experiences I had in 2015. I think a Breath of fresh air is a great way to sum that up.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Number 10, which could be two, six. Sure. The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen, which my seven won the Pulitzer Prize in 2016 because it's. But it was a 2015 debut novel. If Lumberjanes felt like a breath of fresh air, this to me felt like a meteor. Like, I didn't know you could do this. It's kind of a mashup of memoirs and spy novels and Vietnam novels in the news of late because Robert Downey Jr. Decided he wanted to get involved in the production and make it the Robert Downey Jr. Show. Unfortunate to me, the parts of that. I watched a couple episodes. Some of that I see. I saw the awesome. It wasn't bad. I should say it just wasn't bad. But it felt a little Robert Clowney, I guess Robert Clowney showed up, but she can do that in some of these. Anyway.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

He's playing like a bunch of parts.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. It becomes different characters. Like, I don't know why. Maybe that's the only way it gets made. And I can see how, you know, would I rather have nothing? I don't know. It doesn't matter. But it's a thriller, it's comic. It has a little bit of the energy of interior Chinatown. Right. Like, there's a zaniness to it. But the book itself is extremely well written. The follow ups have been very, very good as well. And he is a serious. Has a serious career now.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, it was.

[Jeff O'Neill]

That's right.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

One of those. Yeah. It's as I said, it's at my seven and it's like, surprisingly, it just has a surprising endurance over the last 10 years and was surprisingly popular for a book that is all of those things, but is also quite literary. Beautifully written, you know, like, written in a way that you're going to win the Pulitzer Prize for. And like, not for nothing also, the COVID is on the artsy side of literary fiction. Like, it's not marketed in any way that makes it look like this is, you know, supposed to be a commercial hit or a book club pick or anything. But it had real legs in 2015. And people still talk about it, not just because of the HBO adaptation, but you still hear it come up in like comp titles and discussions. It's still very Present in publishing's memory. I had a hard time figuring out. Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Which is cool. But also, here are the awards. Pulitzer Prize. Edgar Award for Best first novel. Edgar is, I think, mysteries.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Mysteries, thrillers.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I can't remember which. How they break those up? The date Literary Peace Prize, which quite is its cap.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

That's the big money.

[Jeff O'Neill]

That's bag, baby. That is a bag. I think it's a quarter million. Center for Fiction, First Novel Prize, Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. The AAPI American Award for Literature for Adult Fiction. So that is quite a flying out of the gate there.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I had a real trouble figuring out where to put that on my list. And seven was just kind of like, okay, it has.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I mean. Yeah, I think seven in there, not above the middle, probably is right to me. So now it's your ten, since that's your seven. So.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay. Yeah. So my. Nine.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Nine. Pardon me. Nine. Yes.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I had this at 2.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, there's. I was just about to say there's a version of the list where it's like, the biggest thing ever. So this was like the book of the year. It was everywhere. It's huge. If you have not read it. It's about four friends, gay men in New York who are friends for many years, wrestling with the elements of their friendship, wrestling with components of their sexuality, dealing in some ways with the AIDS crisis. And it's quite traumatic at the time. Like, there's a lot of trauma on the page. Trauma and violence, abuse. At the time, it was like the slugline for pitching. It was. You're not gonna believe how fast you read this book. And I remember having that experience of, like, sitting down. And Yanagihara's writing style, which has been my experience with everything of hers that I've read, is just like, you keep turning the pages. There's something propulsive about the way that she tells a story, and the characters are very compelling, and there's a lot of emotional stuff going on. I think it's lower on my list because we've run a couple cycles of, like, revisiting and reanalyzing a little life. Like, what does it mean for a woman to be telling these stories about gay men outside her experience? Is this trauma porn in some way is one of the retellings of it. And then it got a little life, got new life over the last couple of years by way of crying videos on TikTok from readers who have just discovered it. And I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do with that. So I have it at nine. But I think you're going to have a strong case for two as well.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, I mean I think the, the prominence is hard to deny and it hit all the quadrants. There's a literary angle. The critics got involved right. Even at the time.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Oh God. The discourse.

[Jeff O'Neill]

The discourse like, you know, some more interesting than others. And I think some certainly should be taken seriously as there is with most criticism. And then the backlash I think happens with any book that gets this big that anyone. And I don't know how much of his racial. I don't know how much of his gender. I don't know if his sexuality. Probably all of them rolled into the mix. I have never read this, to be perfectly honest with you. I've read summaries and I've read about it, but I didn't ever pull the trigger again. My kids were just two. I had time but. But I'm not sure the. The tender little snail at the core of my being had enough shell yet grown to do this. So I. I read subsequent yanagiharas that I've liked quite a bit. So I kind of feel like I know what it is. So take that for what it's worth. Maybe if I had read it that would color my feelings. But in to some degree I think maybe objective is not the right word. I can kind of stand outside of it and just sort of see the whirlwind without having to navigate through it. And I think we also have seen waves of people discover it like it had a huge tick tock moment and I think it still gets picked up and passed around. I see it on paperback favorites tables. I see it on best selling and staff recommended. I see it out in the world if you mention it in any kind of way. People say I read that or that ripped me to shreds. I think there is, you know, every generation gets sort of the coming of age middle grade series. I think every generation of like 25 to 32 year olds get the It Ripped Me to Shreds book. And I think this was the It Ripped Me to Shreds book for kind of this era.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I think that's right. And like honestly I had a lot more capacity for a Rip Me to shreds book pre2016. Yeah, the last eight years I've not really wanted to be ripped to emotional shreds by fiction. Like, you know, real life has been enough. I have not revisited this. I doubt I ever will. I remember who I was at the time and what the reading experience was like at the time. But I don't know that it would hold up through my, you know, middle aged 20, 25 eyes. But it's kind of impossible to overstate how significant it was in the moment.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Right. So that was your nine. My two. And we could both be wrong or right at this name.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And what's your nine?

[Jeff O'Neill]

The fifth season by NK Jemisin.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay, that's my five.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Your five. So we should. We don't talk about this but we should maybe do the thing where we don't talk about till later. But that's what we're doing now because that's what we haven't been.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, we'll just keep doing what we're doing.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Keep going at this point. So Hugo Award for best novel first volume in the Broken Earth series Obelisk Gate in the Stone Sky. So we have good. We get quite a few series entries this year as we do most years. There's a nascar, there's a Ferrante. I usually. Unless I don't know, I usually say first and last are eligible to me but I'm not picking three out of five. I might make some exceptions depending on the book and when we do future years for some of these things but right now. But this one is a boy. It's a fantasy near future I think different planet and it has this one giant continent and the main character has. There's a whole complicated social structure and abilities and people do stuff Gardens warriors Geo mess who study. It's like what if all the magic was about rocks I think is the. The best way to put this is called the Broken Earth series. But this has become a modern classic of the genre and she pulled off two Titanic series in a row that won all the awards in the genre space what unfortunately for whatever reason and I don't need to lay that what they could be at this point never got the Apple tv let's throw all the money at it adaptation that frankly seems warranted seeing what else has been put out into the world for lots of money and been why Silo and not this? I don't know the answer to that. I haven't. I've seen two episodes of Silo. It seems okay. I read this series, thought it was terrific. This was just what I was in the mood for on my Kindle when I was sitting in the park watching my kids try not to die on playground equipment and you know, the city. The most. The most recent duology I can't remember the name of Them the city in its wall. So I can't. What was it? What was the name? City we became the city we became in the duology. The second one, I thought that first one was okay, but I didn't pick up the second one, to be perfectly honest with you. So she hasn't had a. A recent kind of hit, something that's broken through that we've talked about recently. So I don't know. But still, I think when this came out and maybe the second of this came out, I was like, oh my God, she's done two of these series that are this awesome at that moment. And still I think if you're a power ranking science fiction and fantasy author, she's way up there. But at this moment, it's like, who? I mean, everyone can all shut it down. Jemisin's going to win everything forever.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, I had this one at five and this is also the one on my list that I haven't read. I just missed it. Like I forever intend to go back and pick this one up. But this was not Jemisin's debut. But it felt like a debut the way that it landed. This was a big breakout. People who do not typically pay attention to science fiction and fantasy were paying attention to NK Jemisin and the fifth season. And that also feels very of the 2015 moment. Like 20 around then is when this literary genre thing really started to take off.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Like, I think the first entry, the first big entry was zone one by Colson Whitehead.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Station 11. I got my dates mixed up for that.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I think it was because zone one predates book riot and station 11 does not. Right.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Or they might be both 2011. Actually. Hold on, hold. Please. Keep talking about.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Oh, I thought station 11 was 2014.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Oh, you're right. 2014. 2014. That's right.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

So there's zone one, there's station 11. Those both lean. I think more like they feel like literary novels that have genre components.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I don't think if you're a big fan of Station 11 or Zone 1, I don't think I could immediately jump you the tracks into the Jemison verse just without saying it's going to be more genre heavy than your. They're big thick. I mean, like you could get a giant omnibus and the world building is pretty intense and powers and classes and world building social structures where the more literary ones tend to like just kind of drop you in.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And you know, it doesn't make sense. That's okay. You know, you don't have to understand every Single little thing about it. It's like if you wrote a contemporary literary novel and you start explaining how the IRS worked, just because you need to do the world building, they don't tend to do that. But we're saying that Jemison is a titan of the genre. Okay, so that's your. To your eight.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

My eight. God Help the Child by Toni Morrison. There's a way to argue that a Toni Morrison novel should be number one by virtue of being a Toni Morrison novel. I didn't. Honestly, I didn't know what to do with this.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I left it off.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I don't. I read this. I don't remember what it's about.

[Jeff O'Neill]

That's what I. That was my. I was like, oh, once I read the. The Summer is. Oh, yeah. That was it.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. But my notes are like, you know, a Toni Morrison novel, even when it's eclipsed by almost everything else in her catalog, is still worthy of a mention. So Toni Morrison is sitting here at 8. I easily could have left it off. I could have made it one because she's Toni Morrison. Here we are.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, I think we're looking at number 11 out of the 11 Morrison Corpus. 192 pages.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Forgettable in a lot of ways by two huge fans that are recording right now a tough beat for God Help the Child. Notable, I think. For sure. I don't think. Did it make. I had to note about this. I don't even know that it made the New York Times 100 Notable Books of the year list. No, it did. Never mind.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I'm pretty sure it wasn't one of.

[Jeff O'Neill]

The top 200 best selling books of the year. Or at least mush shelved on Goodreads, which take with a grain of salt, but still, it's Toni Morrison. So.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. What's your 8?

[Jeff O'Neill]

What is my 8? I flip flop 8 and 9. I didn't know whether or not to put V E Schwab's Darker Shade of Magic or Fifth Season. They're kind of. They're each eight and a half in that regard. So this was the first installment of Schwab's breakout trilogy. I think the reason I gave her a nudge for eight is she has published several books over the last few years that have been giant hits. I think she has a bigger fan base now. I think the reasons for that could be interesting to interrogate for people who are interested in that sort of thing. But she has a new book coming out this year. They tend to be more standalone after this. Like after this, she gets into Standalones, the Invisible Life of Addie Roulou and some other things. She's done some genre stuff in it. She did Galant, which was more of a middle grade standalone, which I thought was pretty good to be. To be honest. But Schwab is now a. We have a new standalone, standalone, 500 page Schwab novel. It gets a 500k print run, and you just cannot say that for that many people. Yeah. And I like both Jemison and Schwab. Probably lean a little more Jemison on the whole at this point, but I like them both. I think it's just. I think it's just name recognition and Q rating right now for where they.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Are in their career. I left this one off because it feels to me like her more recent ones. And the standalones have eclipsed Darker Shade of Magic in the conversation. And also because I don't have personal context for her, so that always makes it more difficult. I am getting on the Schwab train this year with the Toxic Lesbian Vampires.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Right. She's coming to you. You didn't have to come to her. She's coming to you, Rebecca.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

If you wait, as the great artists do.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, right. Okay, so let's see. You did your eight, right?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

So, yeah, so. And then my seven was the sympathizer. So we could be your seven.

[Jeff O'Neill]

This is where I put between the World and Me.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay, I have that at three.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Okay, you have that at three.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

But let's just talk about it.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, let's talk about it now. This was a huge deal when it came out. Between this and another book that I include on my list, I should say that was explosively charged in this moment around racial politics, especially around black experience in America. Again, it's hard to remember this. This is pre Trump. This is pre Covid. This is pre Floyd protests and the whole, you know, Black Lives Matter movement as a major sort of headline defining moment. Coates writes this book as a series of letters to his son about the nature of his. And what he would expect his son's navigation of American racial violence, policing and experience. Moving, articulate, germane, and short. And I. And I don't mean that derogatory. I think it was very approachable to do. I don't know how to do 500 pages of this, but it was easy to pick up and read. Like, literally, physically easy. And once you got in there, it was inviting because it had that epistolary frame. It sucked you into that dynamic. I think in hindsight, it's much more genius that I recognized in the moment to do it that way.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. Framing it as letters rather than as just a memoir was, I think, really smart. It did the rare thing for a memoir, especially a memoir or epistolary situation about such serious subject matter to do, and it did. This did get picked up also by, like, book clubs. We're reading this and we're talking about it. It was part of the popular discourse. And we were at the end of 2015 is the end of, you know, eight years of Obama presidency, a different kind of conversation about race in America. And we did. Trump had not come down the escalator yet when this book came out, so we didn't know that that was even a possibility. Folks on the left felt a lot of momentum and there was a lot of appetite for this conversation. And this was so well received and so powerful. I remember the feeling of sitting on my couch with that little hardcover and pausing to take in sentences and just how sharp coats is. This is also around the time that he has that huge Atlantic piece about reparations.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I think it was a little before. I think that was. I think he. He had some kind of a name coming into this book, and it was built on that long piece and some other writing he had done. For sure. It takes an interesting turn after this, where he starts writing movies, gets involved, I think, with the Black Panther series. I think one of the movies and maybe some of the comics. I know he has wrote another, wrote a novel, the Water Dancer, and then. And then came back to. And not a dissimilar. Not a dissimilar mode in the message. I would say it doesn't have that intimacy of the. The child and more of a. Has, you know, international component as well. But this is a landmark work. And if you told me in 100 years, like this is with the book that people remember, I would believe you. I wouldn't be surprised about that at all. All right. I think we're up to your six.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

My six is the Sellout by Paul Beatty.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I had this at 4.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay. I figured that would be somewhere high up on your list. I don't know if it should be 6 or if it should be 10. Paul Beatty, wonderful satire that deal. This deals directly with race, but also, like, popular in a certain small group of publishing people and readers who like the thing that Paul Beatty does. And I personally perpetually want him to be more popular than he is. But the book also, I think it's interesting to talk about it next to the Coates book. It's a real product of 2015, a real product of that political moment. And I think Beatty is perhaps more skeptical or was perhaps coming from a more skeptical place about where. How much progress had we actually made?

[Jeff O'Neill]

And I think Coates was too, actually that sort of late Obama skepticism of. By black men specifically and black people writ large is like, wait, no. What just. Did we. What did we get here? Did this. Did we move the needle? Is it.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Did we move the needle at all? Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Oh, I think we moved the needle. I'm not sure in the direction that the country. I mean, that I certainly wanted to go after the fact. So this. What's interesting about this is it's like. What would you describe? It's like a absurdist, like, alternate universe. Satirical rather than absurdist.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yes.

[Jeff O'Neill]

There's this Herb. They're in this, like, city farming area, and there's a trial about someone attempting to restore slavery. Right. And then the main character is this person that's on trial and it's them remembering kind of how you're probably wondering how to end up here. Life comes at you fast, which is there. It's a. It's a pretty wild book for 304 pages now. I love this book. I love Paul Beatty. A lot of people who ride the F train in Brooklyn. In Brooklyn. I was riding the F train in Brooklyn in 2015, so I know I was one of those people. This is the inverse, I think, of a court of thorns and roses. Because who is reading this book right now, Rebecca? I mean, I'm not. I. I don't want to. I don't come here to besmirch the sellout, but I don't know that his name this book 10 years later even winning a prize. I just don't know. Is it a zero for today? Effectively, of course, because the quarter throws. It wasn't a zero point.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I'm going to give it like a 10 for today out of the 100, because it is still a popular comp title.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Almost won the Booker Prize, but, like.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It won the Booker Prize. And when folks are doing satire that deals with race, it's overused for like this shows up in way more comp titles than it should by virtue of the fact that not very many people read Paul Beatty. But references to Paul Beatty abound, at least in book synopses. And so there's also then an argument for not even putting it in the top 10, because we're not really doing anything with this book today. But Beatty stays relevant and I think as a time capsule of literature, or if you put it In a time capsule that captured what the culture was like in 2015. What we were concerned with, what writers who were willing to do weird things were using that permission to do weird stuff to explore. Paul Beatty does it.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Do you think in 2015, Percival Everett saw this and was like, huh, Really?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I don't know that Percival Everett needs notes from anybody else.

[Jeff O'Neill]

No, I don't think he knows. So he's like, huh, that's, that's interesting that you would award this. I wonder if there's any other writers I can think of that write sort of comically satirical dark all into one.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I would pay money to listen to Percival Everett and Paul Beatty talk about writing and American culture for an hour or two.

[Jeff O'Neill]

This, the sellout was 17th on the new York Times Best Books of the Century list, which is really high. On the other hand, for something that won the Pulitzer Prize and the Booker Prize, maybe low, I don't know, a hard time looking at it.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It lives in such a weird zone. And. And if we were to take this podcast, like, out of our happy little, like, book publishing bubble and stop ran and do, like, man on the street interviews, my expectation is that no one has heard of it.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I think they're still selling remaindered copies of the paperback run at Pals, Like, I'm not kidding, like nine years later.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Because, well, I hope they're selling well.

[Jeff O'Neill]

They're not because they sold out nine years ago. Because after it won everything in the awards, I think they printed a whole bunch.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

One of the great covers. One of the more memorable covers. If you haven't read this book and you're the kind of person that likes literary fiction at all, well, you don't have to run out because you can still get them. Stroll out there at some point and pick up the sellout.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

We're in charge here. We could do a sellout 10 year revisit on the Patreon.

[Jeff O'Neill]

That's interesting. It's pretty interesting idea. All right, that was your six. My six. This is where I put Girl on the Train.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Can't say I'm thrilled about it.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, I left it off.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I never read this. Did you read this?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I did, yeah. Because it was the first. It's. It's fine.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Like, all the things that made Gillian Flynn and Gone Girl remarkable and fresh and exciting are absent from this. Except that. Oh, the narrator is also unreliable, which was the big surprise about Gone Girl. Like, you don't know that that turn is coming halfway through the book and that you're going to find out that the narrator is unreliable. And so to me, like, and this is of course, me as a person who is not drawn to reading tropes because I don't like to know what's coming. That to me, is not a selling point. That' a bug, not a feature. It was like, okay, well, how are they going to pull this off? And I remember it was the first book on the Gone Girl train to be marketed as, like, two fans of Gone Girl. This will blow your minds. And I wanted to see what. What that looked like. What does the first big attempt to pick up the Gone Girl momentum look like? It was fine.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. Do you remember? So this, this came out of the shoot like a cannon fire. Like it jumped up.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And the Goodreads review or whatever. Karen, I think, Yeah, I don't think.

[Jeff O'Neill]

That'S a joke either. Like, there was some reviewer that's interested. She got an early copy and raved. And I think we had a big list Dickelous moment. Like, there's a history of, like, one person, you know, at a. At a critical moment says just the right thing and just the right way at just the right time to just the right people. And you get a dis. You get an asymmetric response. Yeah, to this one. And also, Hawkins waved off the Gone Girl comparisons. And I think her waving off. I read. I was. I was reminding myself of the second Amy Dunn is a psychopath, where I can't remember the name of the. The. The protagonist because I've read the book.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Who knows? She's just a mess and can't do anything.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

She's an alcoholic. And so, like, that's where. That's where the unreliableness for her narration comes in is like, did this happen? And is her memory correct? Or, like, is she completely pickled?

[Jeff O'Neill]

Right. And this Gone girl and then the girl on the train then set off a run. And we may not be off this. I mean, I think we're sort of asymptotically approaching zero, but not zero of the girl. Preposition, article, noun. Right. Just so many. We even did parody ones and mocking up the site for stuff just to see what it would look like.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It's like 2015, 2016, 2017. One of those is the year where Emily St. John Mandel did a piece, I think, for the Guardian that like, dove into the stats of books with Girl that's right in the title. And there it was prevalent enough that, like, a percentage of books that year had the girl with something in the title. That's probably worth digging up if you've never read it. Yeah. I think we're mostly to the end of this. But the feminist revenge thriller isn't. Is just a going concern. That's a thing still. And Girl on the Train was the first one that tried to follow on to Gillian Flynn. I believe Paula Hawkins that maybe she was not writing to that space but that is definitely the space that the publisher marketed her book.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Almost couldn't have just because it was like less than two years after Gone.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

She would have been working on this book at the time that Gone would.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Have had to have been. It sold 3 million books in the US alone in the first four months of release. As of 2021 has sold 23 million copies world wide. There was a pretty forgettable adaptation that came out in 2016.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Oh right. I totally.

[Jeff O'Neill]

She's. Paula Hawkins has a couple of other books that have come out and I could name one of them without looking at Wikipedia.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Me neither.

[Jeff O'Neill]

So there you go. So that was my number six. Six. So you're up to five.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

My five was. Was fifth season.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Fifth season. You may not have this on there but. And I. I guess I went back and forth with this spot. Argon. The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson did not making my list but I did put Eileen at number four.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Interesting.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Kind of feel like they. They're not really about the same thing at all.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. Say more about this but just like.

[Jeff O'Neill]

In terms of if you were like me at one point a 25 or to 28 year old in New York who cared about books and I was older than this at the time but I feel like they kind of like okay, I'm serious. I want to get into something different and edgy and strange and I want my mind expanded and. And this is. None of this is satirical or I'm not trying to. I'm.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Completely earnest in my categorization identification and sort of valorization of this mode where you're ready. You're eager to like get something that speaks to you that feels like it's yours, that feels like it's weird and you want other people to like it but you also don't because then you're not as weird and strange like you like that happens with both of these books. I think in hindsight I like the Argonauts better. I think it's more interesting and I think the idea is in a hold up Eileen again there's a movie that got made of recently that wasn't very good. Moshe is can feel to me like strange for strange Sake sometimes can feel like that happening. Whereas Maggie Nelson is Maggie Nelsoning. That's kind of. So I prefer the Argonauts, but I think Eileen still gets read and talked about a little more popularly. I don't know. I was kind of going back and forth.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

That's really interesting. Yeah. I didn't put Eileen on here. I think I read it after its big moment. Like, I came to it a year or two later, so that's probably part of it, but it does it. I think Eileen and Moshe in general were, like, on the earlier tip of this. At least this current round we're in of, like, women get to be weird and gross.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Female narrators get to be unlikable and unconcerned with whether they are likable. And Eileen is just unapologetically all of those things. It's really interesting. I have an honorable mention for the Argonauts attached to one of my upcoming picks. Okay, so I can see a case for Eileen here. It's kind of surprising me. I did not make my top five.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I mean, again, I went back and forth. I think the other thing is this is her debut novel and she's a writer that people really care about and pay attention to. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Won the PEN Award for debut fiction. A penguin. Yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. I feel like it got adapted too early.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Oh, too late, maybe.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I don't. Or like, in the wrong. In the wrong place. Like there's. It needed to be. The adaptation needed to be, like, grittier and grosser.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, it was National Book Critics Circle Award. Like, this was the. This was the. It. The lit book. I think.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. This is the Diddy and Tote bag. Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I was like this in. In the sellout. And I think for whatever reason, Moshfegh has endured a little bit more.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, it's interesting. Okay, so that's up to four.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. Let's do a sponsor break right there and then we'll come back. All right. So you are up to your four.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

My four is NeuroTribes by Steve Silberman.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Okay. I didn't know what to do with this. I didn't either because I think this book is super important. It changed my own thinking and I think a lot of people's thinking. I do not know enough about the direction, origins and I'm sure inner discourse, discussion around the neuro. In the neurodiverse community about. Was this the. Was this the sort of manifestation of a lot of other work? Was it as groundbreaking or inflection? Point generating that felt like to me and a wider public, I don't know, so to speak, on why you put it here.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. I think precisely for that second part of what you were just saying that Silberman was in this year, the voice that wrote a book that took conversation, that taught us all who are not members of the neurodivergent community. The concept of neurodivergence, like popularized that language, helped us to. This was mind expanding in several ways of like, what are we really talking about if we talk about a spectrum of autism? What are we, what are we even trying to talk about when we talk about autism at all? And. And that this category of neurodivergence holds so much more, so many more kinds of difference in the ways that people think and the ways that they function than the very one dimensional portrayals of autistic people that had been in popular culture and in books, frankly, up until that point. Like, like the Rain Man.

[Jeff O'Neill]

The Rain man figure. Right.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yes.

[Jeff O'Neill]

To pick the one that's the most cliche at this point.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Right. Like the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime was before and it was getting passed around as like, if you read this, you'll understand autistic kids. And Silberman comes out with this big book, like it's like what, 500 pages? It's huge.

[Jeff O'Neill]

542. I'm looking at it right now.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. That a lot of people, like outside of literary circles and outside of the kinds of Circles that read 500 page books about neuroscience end up picking up and it furthers social discourse. Like I, I know that there have been criticisms of the book and criticisms of Silberman and that probably this text from 2015 does not hold up to the ways that we understand and talk about neurodivergence here 10 years later. And I also think that's exactly how it should be. Like a signal work should move the conversation forward in a way that eventually that signal work is no longer the signal work. But it was really, really important and getting a mainstream conversation going in a way that somebody who didn't have an autistic child or an autistic friend has an experience, expanded understanding of what it means for someone to be autistic and how we think about these things and how we can accommodate for autism in our personal lives, professional lives, all of those things. Steve Silberman did something very significant with that book. And so that's why it makes my list. Even though I don't think many folks are still passing out copies of Neurotribes today as the way to understand neurodivergence. But it was really, really important.

[Jeff O'Neill]

It feels like it can be and might be as important as, you know, something like Silent Spring or the work of Jane Jacobs of, like, a popularization of a idea or perspective that, you know, needs some attention. The other thing that's worth saying about this is very long, but it reads beautifully well, very well written. He brings in, like, it has a narrative history in it of thinking about autism before we had that language and using different languages, a different sort of descriptors. I think the idea, the title itself is a stroke of mini stroke of genius, of thinking not about a spectrum or even the diversity, but like different groups, right? No, none better or worse or different, but different groups. And they behave and can behave and have different sensory experiences and processing experience. Wonderful characters. Like an intellectual history of thinking about thinking and intelligence is super interesting. One of the great Jeff Catnip books at all time because it. Oh, yeah, it spoke to my soft heart but also my omnicurosity at the same time. And I recommended this book up and down.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I think Silent Spring is a really interesting comp to reach for here because that did a similar kind of thing. Like, for an issue that is cared about by, like, a group of activists, to become a mainstream issue takes someone finding a way to communicate those ideas to people who have not been engaged in that conversation already for 5 or 10 or 15 years or for their entire adult lives. And Silberman did that. Like, the book is beautiful and it's intellectually serious, and it's written in a way where you don't need to have any background understanding, really, of autism or what neurodivergence might mean in order to walk away with an expanded understanding that equips you to move into, like, to become part of a movement that says we can do better in how we understand this, we can do better in how we talk about it. We can do better by people who are somewhere on this spectrum. And like any social movement requires that kind of communication, I think.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And there's a lot of ways of. Of cracking nuts, but I think one thing, and it goes to the reading experience too, Silverman. It's very approachable. And if you know nothing about autism at all, I don't think my memory of it is. It's been a while since I've read this. I should say my memory of it was that it was actually pretty open arms, welcoming to people who are coming to it for the first time. Yes, it's not polemic in that way. It's passionate and it cares. But it is not a screed. It doesn't have a. It doesn't have one strand, one nucleic acid of screed in its DNA. And I think that is Silberman himself in reading the appreciations of him when he passed away. Was it last year?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I can't remember.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Time.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

You're so crazy.

[Jeff O'Neill]

For me, a really well thought of person and genuinely. And so much genuine warmth flowing towards him. And as people reminded him. And it shows on the page. It just really shows on the page that was mine was a sellout.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay.

[Jeff O'Neill]

We talked about that already. So we're up to your three.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

My three was a pairing of between the World and Me and Citizen by Claudia Rankine because of the way that both of those captured that very specific end of the Obama era moment of American life. And that we were already beginning conversations about police violence against black people because a lot of Citizen is written into. Into that space as well. And beginning as in like mainstream American culture was having these conversations. Obviously activists have been having them for decades.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

But it was very significant and just like significant in general for a work of poetry to be one of the big books that gets talked about in a given year. One of I think the few books from 2015 that's still on my bookshelves having survived, you know, yearly rounds of weeding. A really significant title. So I paired it there because if I had to knock out one, I would have kept between the World and Me and knocked Citizen off my top 10. And I needed to give her some space here. So we have grouped them.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I should have done that. This was my number 11 book. I kept swapping it in and out and I couldn't figure out what to do with it in hindsight. What a. What a strange book. I mean in a good way. Me saying that is the highest of praise. Mixed media, multiple chapters detailing individual personal experiences. I remember even like one chapter that's about a YouTube character. Serena Williams is involved. Racist language. I remember this idea of like size into aches. Then there's this other poem about self identity. There's other stuff about microaggressions and Katrina. Like I'm just looking at my notes when I was flumming through the copy last night. Yeah. And there's like a little script at the end. It's wild. It's sold well. It was one of the best selling books of the year. And I guess the thing that kept me away from putting it up there and I could be wrong about this. Is anyone picking this up now? I don't know. I don't know.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I also decided that I don't care. It's going on the list.

[Jeff O'Neill]

That's fine. Subsequent work, I should say the white card. She wrote a play in 2019 and just us in 2020, which was a collection.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Oh, that's a Beautiful Things, which is.

[Jeff O'Neill]

A beautiful book as well. That book came out, I think, at just the wrong time. September of 2020. Don't think the anthology of Collected Work. I mean, it's just. It was so hard.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

2023, tough year for books in general to compete.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. And it wasn't. I think if Citizen comes out in 2020, it may be even bigger than it was in. In 2015.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

That particular one when, you know, I don't. 2020 feels like a lifetime ago. I don't recall if Citizen, like had any pop after the murder of George Floyd.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I think I feel like, fortunately that didn't. In hindsight, we got the how not to be anti racist stuff. And probably Citizen is closer to the bone, harder for people to approach. It's not an easy book, man. It's not an easy book.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. And you're right, it is like in the best way. A very weird, very weird, weird document. And then the fact of its weirdness makes it even more exciting that it was as popular and well received as it was.

[Jeff O'Neill]

My number three is the Nightingale by Kristin Hanna.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay.

[Jeff O'Neill]

This was the book that moved the needle from one state of her to another. It was a huge book in the year. And then the next one I think that came out was the Four Winds. And then there was another one now. Now we're off to the races where she's the best selling author in America writing women. Centric historical fiction. That sort of upmarket historical fiction, I would say. I tend to like it. I remember liking this. I thought it was lumpy at points, to be honest with you. But it's also got in early on. The World War II lady spies, let's Make Them Sisters. I ripped through the book. I'm not gonna lie. I enjoyed the book, but I think I kind of got the Hannah vibe in that regard. And I haven't really returned to anything since. But you know, there have not been writers like Kristen Hannah before. Really. I mean, we have to go back. It's interesting. I was talking to somebody other day and they probably looked at me like I was from Mars. I'm like, you know what? She's like a modern day James Michener. She's Doing James Mitra for ladies. And you know what? James Misha.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

This person know who James Mitra.

[Jeff O'Neill]

No, they're like, what are you talking about? You've had one daiquiri.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Honestly, one daiquiri in is one of my favorite of your modes, so I have no doubt.

[Jeff O'Neill]

2 in is insufferable.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

The raccoons are on fire in the stories after two daiquiris.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I play the hits. It's like Billy Joel playing Piano man at the end of a set at Madison Square Garden. The raccoon story comes out.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

A man is who he is. Daiquiri. You talk about Michener.

[Jeff O'Neill]

That's right. It's my life. Is Billy Joel also saying. So I again, I could be too high. Maybe I don't put it on it. But for me. And again, I read this book in the moment everyone was talking about it. So sort of my memory of like, wow, this is a really popular book and here's a new person and this is kind of exciting. And now I'm like, okay, I know what the kristenhand.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, I. I left it off because I think if we were power ranking the authors of 2015, I would have had to put it on because she's still in the conversation today. But nobody's talking about the Nightingale. You know, it's been eclipsed by the next Kristin Hannah thing, which I think is just what's going to happen. Like, for as long as she's popular, whatever the current Kristin Hannah is will be the one we talk about. And then people move on to the next one. Like, there's. I don't. Just don't think there's a lot of, like, endurance in those titles. And I'm committed to not reading her because I'm still mad about how bad Firefly Lane was. I did read that one. I hated it.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Like, she came out of a. More. It was like a straight up commercial contemporary, like Firefighter Jodie Picoult. Like, it's Jodi Picoult imitations, chick lit.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Derivative of the movie Beaches. And I was just mad at it.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And then one day she picked up a used copy of South Pacific by James Michener and she changed her. She changed her life.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

She should at least have called you so you could write her PR talking points for that book tour.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I don't think that would help her sales.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Talk about James Mitchner.

[Jeff O'Neill]

You mean the one that everyone forgot and no one reads anymore? The Edna ferber of the 2000s.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Oh, man, we're going down the Rabbit Hole now.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, we really are. Okay. Was that your. So what's your deuce?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

My two. And I suspect we're going to have the same top two. I just don't know what order. My number two is Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I left it off for about a month.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

You left it off. Okay. I am more alarmed that. Do we know each other?

[Jeff O'Neill]

So here's my bonafides about this. I got on NPR and said it was my favorite book of the year. So I've done the Groff work.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay. All right.

[Jeff O'Neill]

In looking back, it's now my fourth favorite book of hers.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. This is the Lauren Groff breakout moment, though.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, I couldn't, I couldn't. So I had little life at two. So that's right.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Oh, okay. Okay. Right.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And I think I am eventually I'm now going to say, well, my number one is not Fates and Freeze. I love this book. I'm just like it for the. None of the rest of these picks is it my fourth favorite book by this person.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay.

[Jeff O'Neill]

It's either a giant hit by itself or probably my. It's like my. Yeah, I just. It wasn't popular enough. Didn't win any awards.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It was so popular.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, it was popular. Lots of books were popular.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It was book club fodder. Every. It was like it was a big deal off.

[Jeff O'Neill]

You cannot give me grog. That's true.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I do have Berry Giant question mark in my notes. We are doing a berry giant 10 year revisit. This year I will read the Berry Giant.

[Jeff O'Neill]

There were so many painful things left out that maybe it made the bitter pill of leaving Groff off easier to swallow. I've taken up too much. This is your time to talk about the great.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

This is Lauren Groff's big breakout. So I think that is significant. This is when she, I mean, she had written novels. She had written short story collections before. They had been mostly received among like the Diddy and Tote bag crowd. Fates and Furies did pop in a mainstream way about a couple who are both writers, artists in some capacity. It's been 10 years and she like the perspective flips halfway through. It does a similar thing to what Gone Girl does. But the book is not a thriller. But halfway through the perspective of the book flips and you find out a whole other side of the marriage than what you thought you were getting in the first side. And that at least from the wife's perspective, she feels that she is doing like a whole. Like that her husband who has this creative career is having his creative career on the back of her labor and her heavy lifting and maybe her original ideas that he has spun up and not given her credit for. It captured a really particular feminist vibe of the moment that I do still think is very relevant today. But this was the moment that Lauren Groff became, I think, much more of a like recognizable reading culture household name.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And you know what she used that capital to do? Get weird, baby.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

That is what we love.

[Jeff O'Neill]

That's what I'm. That's what I'm kind of. I mean, maybe it's not fair because I'm kind of dinging it because I'm like, you know what? I like the Matrix way better. I like the Vaster Wilds way better. I think in hindsight, I think even Arcadia is more interesting and stranger.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And I think that when we do the 10 year follow ups where Matrix and Vaster Wilds land, those books will be high up on my list as well. Precisely because she took her capital to get weird. She didn't go the Kristen Hannah route, but the way that Fates and Fury sold in 2015, she could have gone that route of like, oh, this works. It's like, it's well written literary fiction, but it's also commercially viable. What if I just run this back and make a billion dollars forever and ever? But she took it and she got weird and she's exploring all kinds of interesting.

[Jeff O'Neill]

She's like opening up bookstores in Florida and doing all this kind of stuff.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I just. Stan Lauren Groff. I'm not gonna. Yeah, I have. No, I'm not. Sorry.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I think. Yeah, I can see that. It pained me to leave it off, but maybe I feel like I've been there, done that with Standing for Fates and Furious. I love this book, I should say.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I mean you did go on npr.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I did, I did, I did. I went to. Had to go use a special mic. I had to drive on New Year's Day to record a segment in downtown Oregon. Downtown Portland. So strange. That leads to number one. And after using this time to vamp and wonder and think, I will indeed crown a court of thorns and roses the Most the number one power ranked book of 2020 15. I mean, look, I mean what else do you. Genre defining continues to sell.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

H is for Hawk is at the top of my. That's my number one baby. I'm going. I went. H is for hawk.

[Jeff O'Neill]

That's my third number 11.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I, I think ages for Hawk did a kind of usher in a new vibe of like a new flavor of memoir.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Everybody Book about raising rabbits. Right now, 10 years later, I guarantee this book does not exist. Agent for Hoc doesn't.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Right. Both in the like, here's my relationship to this animal memoir, but more in, like, what a memoir. Like, that could be like, you know, I've talked about it on the show before, but that, like, early chapter where she is just. Helen MacDonald is just sitting in the dark in silence while this murder bird is on its perch in the corner of her living room and she's like, just trying to regulate her heartbeat and not make eye contact with it until it decides that it's curious enough, that maybe it'll check her out and trust her and that this is how she's processing her grief of her father's death through what is happening with this hawk. It's not just like, how zany I decided to train hawks like she's doing. She's working on several levels. This is where my Argonauts shout out also goes, because Maggie Nelson also an unconventional kind of memoir, an unconventional kind of writing or personal essay writing about the self and doing it in a lot of layers where you can just read H's for hawk, especially as, like, wow, what an interesting story. But there's also, I think, a lot of meat on the bone, if you want to dig into, like, what is she saying here about what we do with grief, what we do with emotion? Why do we. Why do people pursue stuff like this? What drives someone to not just decide that they're going to train a hawk, but, like, to pick up any kind of activity like that, how we're channeling our attention and our relationship to the living world. I don't know. Acotar. Fine. Helen MacDonald is going to get my crown.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I'm looking at my notes here, just a point of order for both of us. McDonald uses they, them pronouns that. Okay, yeah, I'm going to try my best to. To thank you, to honor that myself. But one thing they do in this that I remember the feeling of distinctly is the sense of wildness of being around that bird like that. Like that point you mentioned in other points like this is, this is not a. This is not a pet. This is a wild animal. And then of course, the grief memoir element, which is the, I don't know, the falconry element, kind of holds that in abeyance, but you understand that the reason they're doing this is because of that. Like, there is a relationship there that isn't one to one, but it is causal. And encountering wildness, trying to tame your own Wildness, experiencing the animal and the primal. And how do you, as a civilized so called being exist and get in your car and pay your bills and also carry around an existential weight? How is one wild and tame? How is one so exposed and so buttoned up at the same time? How different are we and how similar we are and how close those emotions and feelings can be? Look, this is one of my 50 favorite books of all time. And I know 50 sounds like a lot, but it's not. That's.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It's not.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Do not. We are not doing that podcast because I've got things to do with my life other than do that.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And that list is a living document.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And I think it has been influential. And the influence that we also get, Rabbit Memoirs is both a credit and a demerit because that's what it's influenced. Right?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I mean, that's not Helen McDonald's fault.

[Jeff O'Neill]

No, but I'm just saying it had. There's no onyx Storm of Rabbit Memoirs because, like it's just where it is though. That would be amazing. I feel like that's something. Maybe Okorafor could write another book about an author whose book gets away from them and it's about a rabbit memoir. They become sort of a fetish object in the. In the animal husbandry community there.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. All right. I mean, I mentioned a couple that were really hard for me. Argonauts, H is for Hawk, Nimona and Lumberjanes. The Morrison I didn't know what to do with. I really didn't. 11 out of 11, but it's Morrison. Have fun. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. If I'm right, I'm right.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, I had the Turner House. That was hard. Like I loved Angela Flournoy Turner House when it came out.

[Jeff O'Neill]

She hasn't done anything else. So she had another novel or two.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I think last year there was an announcement that she's got a two book deal. So I'll be excited to see it. But like, yeah, that we're not still talking about the Turner House. I'm excited to resume talking about Angela Flournoy when those books come out. The biggest conversation in Books in 2015 that nobody gives a fly and flip about. Now go set a watchman. And I'm just going to take my victory lap.

[Jeff O'Neill]

This is a dishonorable mention. Dishonorable mention.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. Yeah. I called it 10 years ago that this did not matter because HarperCollins insisted on wrapping it up as a new novel by Harper Lee. And that business is a Manuscript from an earlier draft.

[Jeff O'Neill]

That's a draft, baby. Yeah, that's a draft.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And it doesn't matter. And having published it, contributed basically nothing to literary discourse. But it came out in 2015.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I remember sitting in our Brooklyn office with Jen Northington and Alex when this news broke and we immediately got up a news post and I couldn't. I thought. I was like, is this a gag? Is this. I was. I was like, what is this? What is this?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, I remember I was on the train, I think on the train to New York for. For a business trip on the day that that podcast would have recorded. So I was off that episode. Amanda Nelson and sat in with you.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Oh, that's right. She was on the news.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And I was on CNN talking about Ghost of the Watchmen.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And I listened to y'all talk about it and was just like, I'm so mad about how all of this is being done. That was out. Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic came out in 2015. That still makes the rounds in creative circles. One of the I think the next wave of Body Keeps the Score type self help books. Adult children of emotionally immature parents.

[Jeff O'Neill]

That's having a moment now.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, yeah, it's cooking now. It came out in 2015. Year of yes by Shonda Rhimes. Everywhere in there was a Brene Brown.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I forget the name of it in this year, I believe.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, it was one of the middle of the. This post. Daring greatly Pre. Brene Brown.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, pre. Pre. I am a walking TED Talk.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Right.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I'm super available for the right quote.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. And on the move. Oliver Sacks memoir.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Look, okay, I'm just gonna do the ones that I'm like, these are awesome. I love them books.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay, so on the move, let's hear it.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Barbarian Days by William Finn.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Oh, that was a hard one to leave off.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Our Souls at Night by Ken Hroof. The Buried Giant by Kazu Ishiguro. I left off Citizen. I left off the Argonauts. I left off. Yeah, I guess those are the big ones. But combine that with Darker Shade of Magic. Fifth season. H is for Hawk and the Sympathizer. Argonauts, Fates and Furies, Neurotribes.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Like, what a. I know. I'm looking at my 2015 reading spreadsheet right now. Also on Immunity by Eula Biss.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Oh, really? I didn't even catch that in my research. That was a cool book too. The Fisherman being five years too early, right?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. The Fishermen by She Goes the Obioma, which was. That was a huge Debut that year. Hyperbole and a Half. Ali Brosh. Like hard to be bigger than that.

[Jeff O'Neill]

My son loves Allie Brush. I picked up a couple of used copies and he just blew through them.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

That was so much fun. Rebecca Mackay's short story collection Music for wartime was 2015. I really loved that. Anything else? Oh, Half an Inch of Water. The Percival Everett short story collection. That was that. Bonnie Jo Campbell. Mothers Tell youl Daughters. Another favorite short story collection of mine.

[Jeff O'Neill]

The Library of Mount Char, which is one of the great. I mean, Lib clued me into this. I don't know what to do with that book. I remember reading it. I can't recommend it. I also think it's singular reading experience.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

The Wright Brothers. The last of the David McCullough books. SPQR by Mary Beard. There's a huge book that came out that year which was terrific. The Soul of an Octopus by Simon Gummy. Was 2015. We are still pussing it up in this business. I think if there's any more secrets to octopuses. Bad job. Marine biology. We've had 10 years to get this figured out. There should be no more secrets of this. There's one of the first tree books about how trees are actually geniuses. That book came out life changing. Life Changing Magic of Not Giving an f by Sarah McKnight. There was a whole sweary self help genre.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. That was a whole thing then. Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

The Invention of Nature. A biography of Alexander Von Humboldt. I don't expect anyone to care, but it was terrific. The last of the Ferrante Neapolitan novels. Story of a Lost Child. I didn't make it that far. I didn't even know this was part of that. Someone could. I can look it up to see if the character is actually the same. Got made into a movie starring Olivia Colman. Was very well received in that book Outline by Rachel Cus. Came out that year. Fortune Smiles by Adam Johnson won the Pulitzer Prize. A short story collection that followed up his. I think Booker win for the Orphan Master son. I know he's not as underrated by Bar as Barbara Kingsolver. Rebecca. So you can put that one away. But for that pedigree, if we said Adam Johnson, maybe he. Maybe we need his. He needs a nickname too. He. Even Kevin Wilson. We can give them monikers. Well, luckily for some reason he's not thought of. Just isn't.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. Tomorrow we're recording authors who need a breakout moment.

[Jeff O'Neill]

But if you've won a Pulitzer Prize, you've had your breakout.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I don't know, I mean this is a weird thing about publishing that it's totally. You can win a Nobel and not have a breakout moment according to your book sale.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Well, but you get. You got the cheddar, right. You got the kroner to show for it. You don't. You've done broke out of the bank. You gotta break in to make a deposit there.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

2015 also had Alexander Chee's big novel the Queen of the Night and Presents by Amy Cuddy, which was that self help book about power posing that was everywhere for a little bit.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Remember, that was a real book that actually happened. It wasn't just a dream I had.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Just stand with your hand on your hips before you have to have a tough conversation and everything will be. Be fine.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Is that. I wouldn't be surprised that. That would be a good list too of books of popular science that maybe I wouldn't be surprised if they had a replicability problem in subsequent trial.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I think that's what the if Books Could Kill podcast exists to do.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, that's right. What a year. What a year. All right.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It was a. It was a big one.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Why don't you finish up with doing your ten to one? I'll do my ten to one.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay. My ten was the Nimona Lumberjanes combo. Nine was A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. 8. God Help the Child, Toni Morrison 7. The Sympathizer 6. The Sellout 5. Fifth Season. Four NeuroTribes. Three was my combo of between the World and me and Citizen. Two is Fates and Furies. One is H is for Hawk 10.

[Jeff O'Neill]

The Sympathizer 9. The Fifth Season 8. A Darker Shade of Magic 7. Between the World and Me 6. The Girl on the Train 5. Five Eileen for the Sellout 3. The Nightingale 2. A Little Life and One A Court of of Thorns and Roses. I think it makes sense that when we have so many targets that we have more of a. We've sprayed the darts around a little bit.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. And coming out of a couple rounds of this where all if not most or most if not all of the big books were white people. This is a notably diverse year. We need diverse books. Was cooking.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

A lot of the big books were by people of color. A lot of the ones that have endured have been by people of color. 2015 felt like 2014. 2015 did feel like a real turning point in Publishing.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

That 20 in a great way.

[Jeff O'Neill]

2005 to 2015 is a real jump. Like it's a. But like you could like 95 to 2005. Don't. Doesn't feel that different.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

That's right, yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

This 10 year period, we need diverse books. I think Twitter and the Internet and social media. The Obama years and everything that came along with that all combined to. I wouldn't be surprised in hindsight to see it be one of the. One of the peaks in the range that I hope to go up into the right. But. All right, if we're wrong, how are we wrong? I'm serious. Like, if we got this screwed up, I guess obviously the one, I could be real right or real wrong. About a quarter right.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And whatever you are, I'm the opposite there. Like, if you're really right for Acotar, I'm really wrong for it, I think. Well, we had different placements for a lot of them. So I think there's probably quibbling about should a little life be higher or should it be lower?

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. 2 and 9 suggests some ambivalent collective ambivalence about where it could be on this list.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

What do you do with. I mean, I think maybe it's wrong to have not put fates and furies on here, but I don't know. We'll see if people are mad about that. The sympathizer. I think I could have had it higher. Seven feels maybe low for it.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, that, that's. That's a difficult one too. The Schwab, I think is. I think whatever it is now to become more so in the future. So if it's over, if I've overestimated Schwab's career, it's going to really look like a weird pick. It also could look. We look like this is the first. You know, it's like the first George or it's like the Hobbit or something like that. Yeah, like you could see it that way. If in 30 years she continues to run up popularity and she's still going.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It'S hard to know where she is on her trajectory.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Another one I didn't even put on my long list. So an honorable mention for the honorable mention list. The 6.6ofcrows by Leigh Bardugo.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Oh, yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Like I.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Like I looked at that one.

[Jeff O'Neill]

It's like a side quill to the shadow and bone, which will break out. But now she's doing all kinds of stuff. I kind of. I didn't know what to do with that at all.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I didn't know what to do with it either, so.

[Jeff O'Neill]

All right. Thanks everyone for listening. Throughout the course of the year, we're going to be running it back we had 2005 and 1995 coming up. I think 1925 is a year we should look at. Maybe just I don't.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I believe that I did schedule in at the end of the year a look back to 50 and 100 years.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, 50. 1975. Weirdly, because of my educational background, I know 1925 a lot better than 1970. You know what? Who's big in 75? James Mitchner. Thank you every Watch everybody. Tell the callback bookriot.com listen for show notes podcastookriot.com talk to y'all later.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

That's how you do it.

[Kira Jane Buxton]

Thanks so much for listening today. Now please enjoy this audiobook excerpt of Tartufo by Kira J. And Buck Buxton read by Caroline Hewitt.

[Caroline Hewitt]

The wisest souls say that pure mountain air makes us all go a little mad. A wind, lawless and long tailed, slices through the snow stippled Apuin Alps and the Apennines with all the wantonness of La Befana. The winter witch swifts catch this wind on their wings, carving up the crisp blue morning. Dipping down into the valley, the wind now worries over the murmuring blue tongue of the Serkio river on its journey to the Tyrrhenian Sea. It slips an unseen spirit under the Devil's Bridge, shivers along the great gray hunch of the devil's back, hissing over every ancient stone rising from the river. The wind picks up speed, hastening toward the woods, hurtling toward chestnut trees spaced like the pews of a great Duomo. The wind now weaves between golden leaves, whispering quick consonants between the branches, borrowing an autumnal aura, sweet sighs of ripe chestnuts and shed leaves. And here, where the wind steals woodland scents, hides a curiosity cloistered by soil, moss, stone, and leaf litter. A thing unseen, a thing quite mysterious, lies in waiting, a thing that sits buried like old bones. What lies under the soil has stayed secret. It is an underground barterer, a schemer who has set a trap in the soil, a sylvan swindler, a tormentor, a tiny God swelling to irresistible bulk. It has ripened into a nobbled fruit of corruption. And now the time has come. The tiny God releases a lusty sigh, soundlessly unfurling a phantom into the wind. No more visible than the notes of nightingale song, no more audible than a wordless wish, the tiny God has released a cipher. The breath of the tiny God is whisked away by the breeze, slipping through the damp woodland of chestnut worship deeper into the woods. The breath in the breeze paints the pupils of a fallow deer into great glistening lakes. Fir stiffens along a back freckled with the white of first snow. The dose salivates in answer to the call of the stranger. She can smell but cannot see. Her nostrils flutter. Messages flood her bloodstream, but the breath blows on. Now a wild sow lifts her moist snout from the leaf litter and inhales a slip of the wind. Instantly intoxicated, her muddy snout snuffing, the grunting sow is aroused into a frenzy. Bristled legs stab at the soil as she arranges them to assume her stance, ready to receive the boar she smells. Turning her head toward her tail, she hunts for him. But and here is the trick, here is the olfactory deception. There is no boar and the breeze blows on through the woods, fanning the sensual scent along with it. See through. Scarves of scent curl from the forest and swirl toward a beautiful medieval village perched upon a peak, its tallest point an 11th century bell tower with memories of steel swords and shields. The wind, pickled with flavors of the forest ridden by the breath of the tiny God, tickles trees of olive and cypress until it dangles its string of little calamities above cobblestone streets and terracotta roof tiles and it settles upon the medieval village like a spell. Down in the village, past the sleepy post office, past the boarded up ristorante and the 16th century church and the water fountain, past the teeny tiny grocers and a ginger tomcat slinking under an archway to go make mayhem, Nona Amara shuffles slippers over cobblestone on her morning walk. The breeze and the mysterious thing it carries slip under her shawl, bright and invigorating, a sonnet red to her skin. Nona Amara tightens her floral shawl, the silver cirrus of her hair aflutter. She lifts the lovely lines of her face to the sky, squeezes her eyes shut.