← Book Riot - The Podcast
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- [00:01]
Jeff O'Neill
This episode is brought to you by Buffalo Trace Distillery. Powerful yet smooth. Contained but never tame. Proudly going their own way, but never going alone. This is the spirit inside Buffalo Trace Bourbon. Made at Buffalo Trace Distillery, the world's most award winning distillery. Buffalo Trace is always perfectly untamed. Distilled, aged and bottled by Buffalo Trace distillery, Franklin County, Kentucky. 90 proof, 45% alcohol by volume. Learn more@buffalotrace distillery.com Please drink responsibly.
- [00:29]
Rebecca Schinsky
I'm 32, juggling family, working full time and earning a Bachelor's degree at University of Phoenix. I earn career relevant skills with every five week course. Skills I can use now, not just after graduation.
- [00:40]
Jeff O'Neill
Earn skills in weeks, not years.
- [00:42]
Rebecca Schinsky
Visit Phoenix.
- [00:43]
Jeff O'Neill
Edu this is the Book Riot Podcast. I'm Jeff o'. Neill.
- [00:51]
Rebecca Schinsky
And I'm Rebecca Schinsky.
- [00:52]
Jeff O'Neill
And we're. It's kind of a slow news week. We were just talking about this a little bit before early November. I don't know, there's a lot of, I guess on the backside. There's a lot of business happening. Like we do a lot of ad sales this time of year as people are looking at the end of the year into January because in about 15 days here when Thanksgiving hits, things really fall off a cliff. And I think we're in a bit of a lull for end of year announcements, new releases, other things happening. And not for nothing, I think the election cycle sucked up a lot of attention and people were pumped, especially the kind of people that are like us and work in books. So a little bit of an eddy in the, in the river of 2025 for book news.
- [01:31]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah, we are in that lull in between shortlists being announced and book awards actually being given next week or on Monday. As you're listening to this podcast, the booker will be announced the week after that. The National Book Awards take place somewhere in there. We're going to get Amazon's list of best books of the year. It came out, I think November 13th last year. So I'm expecting to see that soon. And then when those things have happened, the last thing to wait on is the New York Times list, which will be out around Thanksgiving usually. And that'll be it for the year until April when we find out about the Pulitzer. But in terms of the book stories of the year, big lists and big announcements are about to start hitting the final round is about to start hitting goodreads Choice Awards voting opens in the next couple of weeks. Yeah, but it's been remarkably quiet. You know, we didn't have a News episode. Last week we had the. You were on with the. We need diverse books, folks. And if people haven't had a chance to listen to that important, powerful conversation, challenging, I hope that they will take some time to do that. But we've got just a couple news stories today and all of them are from last week. This week was just very, very quiet in publishing.
- [02:44]
Jeff O'Neill
Well, let's start here. This. This can be sort of content that's also cross promotion. This week in the zero to well read feed, we took on Oedipus the King by Sophocles. The. The great, the greatest tragedy, the perfect tragedy according to Aristotle. Had a really good time with it. Check that over there. But we were thinking about, you know, what to do at the. The end of the year in one of our shared tenets of what we understand it is to be well read for us. All the caveats and everything's applied. Right. You don't have to think that's what it is, but is to have some sense of what's going on in the current moment and as a way of transitioning into best books of the year or the, you know, the next couple of installments. I can't for the life of me. And maybe the booker will do it, depending on what wins, but it's really hard to say. Here is the book of the year. Don't you think I was expecting to be Katabasis. Katabasis. I still screwed up. I don't know. I'm screwed up forever. I can't. I can't unwire myself. I think that's done well. I don't think it's done what we thought it might. And then beyond that, the next couple things, it's been pretty flat. There's a lot of stuff I really like, but in terms of even picking four or five to choose from, I think that's a pretty difficult conversation at this point.
- [04:04]
Rebecca Schinsky
I think it is, too. There's a chance. I mean, if I'm guessing.
- [04:10]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah.
- [04:11]
Rebecca Schinsky
I think we could be having a conversation about a Guardian and a Thief by Meghan Majumdar. Could win.
- [04:18]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah. Let's talk. Let's just put some in the air. I think that's one we should put in the air. Okay. That's a candidate.
- [04:22]
Rebecca Schinsky
Could win the National Book Award and.
- [04:25]
Jeff O'Neill
Yep.
- [04:26]
Rebecca Schinsky
Could be like one of the Amazon Books of the Year. Could be a Barnes. I don't. Was it a Barnes? It was a finalist for Barnes and Noble Book of the Year, I believe. Actually, we can talk about that in a little while.
- [04:38]
Jeff O'Neill
But it was an Oprah.
- [04:40]
Rebecca Schinsky
Oh, that's right. It was a Kirkus finalist. It's currently a National Book Award finalist. It's an Oprah pick. There's some juice behind that. Could be a loneliness of Sonja and Sunny if it picks up one of these big awards. 600ish pages, more than 600 pages. That can be tough for people. But, you know, Kiran Desai is sort of an anointed author with this in a way that we didn't fully realize with this release. Outside of that, I am also really struggling because, as you said, Katabasis did not find the audience that we anticipated that it would. That the publisher seems to have anticipated that it would. I don't know. It's just been a much quieter publishing year. There have been great books, but it's been a much quieter year.
- [05:31]
Jeff O'Neill
I'll enter a couple others into the record. I think Audition by Katie Kitamura does still have a chance. It's on this PW list we've talked about.
- [05:40]
Rebecca Schinsky
I would love to see that happen.
- [05:42]
Jeff O'Neill
I think the Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones has been talked about. It's also made this Publishers Weekly list and made some others. Wild Dark Shore got picked.
- [05:53]
Rebecca Schinsky
Oh, that's right.
- [05:54]
Jeff O'Neill
For which was that?
- [05:56]
Rebecca Schinsky
Amazon's best books of the year so far.
- [05:57]
Jeff O'Neill
Amazon's best books of the year so far. And there was another big one. It might have been like Jenna's Book Club or Reese's Book Club or one of the. One of the big ones picked it. And that's late in the season. It's been out for a while. It sold extremely well. I think Buckeye by Patrick Ryan has a chance. That sold extremely well. It continues to sell well and people really like it. I do think I want to watch Mona's Eyes, which we talked about last week or when last time we did a new show. And that appears again here on the Barnes and Nobles list. And then the one maybe that is sitting in there in front of our face, that's. It's maybe like looking at, like, which star is the brightest? I don't know. I can't see it because the sun's in the way is Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins. Rebecca, there's a chance that that's the book of the year, even though. I guess you can hear me petering out that sentence. Is that what's the even though is on there? I don't know that well.
- [06:50]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah, I mean, it's extension, but whatever literary event. Yeah, I mean, it's a. It's more of a broad culture event, which. Good, good job, Suzanne Collins. No knocking that. But yeah, it's that does feel like it lives in a different zone. I think in hindsight, Omar El Akkad's One Day Everyone will have always been against this is going to be a defining book of 2025. I'm not sure that we fully appreciate that right now. It has also been nominated for some things. It's going to appear on a bunch of these best of lists. But it just. That conversation just hasn't it's hard for serious nonfiction in general to be a book of the year and then like celebrity memoirs, we've had some notable ones, but nothing that has, you know, there's a Michelle Obama book out this month, but it's not one of her narrative story of her life memoirs. So that's not likely to. I think it'll be that the look is going to sell very well for the holidays. I think a lot of folks are going to be placing that on their coffee tables into the coming year. But we don't have a big like another big like we also haven't had like a big dad book because like the Mark Twain Ron Cherno biography that did pretty well. But there hasn't been a big a big history book. I think all the history, the big American history authors are keeping their powder dry for next year. The lineup going into July of next year for America's 250th anniversary is bonkers. Meacham's got a book coming out about the Declaration of Independence. There's a bunch of stuff about the Constitution. Of course, Jill Lepore had her book out we the People this year about the Constitution, but it's going to be insane next year.
- [08:31]
Jeff O'Neill
I think even some of that stuff got pushed in the fall because there's so much because like Walter Isaacson's book about the Declaration of Independence got pushed in this year. Another couple of things that we may have forgotten. I mean, at some level, if we've forgotten about them, that tells us what we need to know. But just to get them into the air like bury our bones in the midnight soil. The River Has Roots by Amal Al Mutar Onyx Storm. You know the there was a Taylor Jenkins Reid's atmosphere.
- [08:57]
Rebecca Schinsky
Oh atmosphere. That's.
- [08:59]
Jeff O'Neill
That's one that keep intense. So let's keep our eye on it. We probably will do some we have done in the past a books of the year episode, but in terms of picking one, the idea we were kicking around was what if we picked a 2025 novel to give the full zero to well read treatment I think would be interesting. And it. We don't have to get it right. Right. We're not making any bets or doing some sort of like leveraging of our taste to win something, but even to pick amongst these. And our idea is maybe we have people vote. Like here are the five candidates what you most like us to hear us talk about. Now that is maybe even a more interesting question to me than what we think the book of the year about. We put together sedentary candidates. Like what are people most interested in hearing about that they maybe didn't read themselves or they're hearing about in their own lives.
- [09:45]
Rebecca Schinsky
I'm concerned about making all of that scheduling and reading happen.
- [09:48]
Jeff O'Neill
Well, maybe we could ask them and we don't have to commit to it. But like we. We could make it into subjunctive if we were to do it. What are you interested in?
- [09:56]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah, I'll be interested in how we land on candidates or that could even be something that we do at the top of the year when we have more close on.
- [10:05]
Jeff O'Neill
Oh yeah. It doesn't have to be at the end of this year. That's a great point. It could be the Pulitzer doesn't get it. We in our fantasy league. It doesn't. Points don't get counted till April. So the long 2025 will continue for all right, now let me ask you this question of you yourself, Rebecca Schinsky, and I'll continue in the subjunctive mode. If we were to pick out a 2025 book to do zero to well read, which would you be the most interested in talking about just for your.
- [10:31]
Rebecca Schinsky
Own self that we haven't already talked about?
- [10:35]
Jeff O'Neill
No, not necessarily. It could be one that we've talked about.
- [10:39]
Rebecca Schinsky
I really enjoyed our conversation about audition. I'm always excited for a chance to talk about Kitamura and I think she's the kind of author who lends herself to a more exploratory conversation. Sunrise on the Reaping would be interesting. Or like a Hunger Games. I would. I actually I would like to revisit the Hunger Games.
- [10:59]
Jeff O'Neill
We will. We will absolutely do that.
- [11:01]
Rebecca Schinsky
We will do that at some point. But I be. Oh, I haven't read Sunrise on the Reaping, so that would be interesting.
- [11:09]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah. Emperor of Gladness maybe. You know what was. There was something. Oh, we did the. The Han, the Hong Kong earlier.
- [11:17]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yes. We do not part. Yeah. A Nobel winner is good fodder for a big conversation, you know, because a lot of the other contenders this year are the kind of fiction that is really plotty and when it's mostly plotty and not very much about the writing that just doesn't lend itself super well to like a big discussion. Maybe the Wilderness by Angela Flournoy. There's more going on in that book than than you really know you're getting into at the jump. I found it to be a really rich reading experience and so many references like there's Octavia Butler stuff on the page there. And then we we just finished reading Parable of the Sower for a zero to well read recording that I was like, oh, I see you Angela Flournoy. So maybe, maybe that.
- [12:07]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
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- [13:10]
Jeff O'Neill
Hello friends. Guess who? That's right, it is I, the Replacer. Once again I've been called on so you can play the new Call of Duty Black Ops 7 with three expansive modes, 18 multiplayer maps, and the tastiest zombie gameplay you've ever freakin seen. Available November 14th pre order Call of Duty Black Ops 7 now rated M.
- [13:36]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
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- [14:26]
Rebecca Schinsky
What would be on your list?
- [14:29]
Jeff O'Neill
I was afraid you were going to do this to me. Once it came out of my mouth. I'm like, you better be ready here, o'. Neill. I'm interested in. I agree with you that Sunrise at the reaping or the more plot driven stuff is less interesting for us to discuss unless it's part of a bigger phenomenon like we did with Twilight. So there you might say, maybe it would be worth taking a look at the Emily Henry or the Taylor Jenkins. Like look at one of these pop sensations. Right. Like we can talk about what's going on with these. That could be pretty interesting. I do think Buffalo Hunter Hunter, which I have not read though I did talk to Stephen Graham Jones and I don't generally read horror because I'm a wuss. Where we are with literary horror and his writing life and you know, his emergence is quite interesting. I think there's a case to be made to do abundance to go on the nonfiction side. That book has been extremely talked about and it's an idea that's not going away anytime soon. I think if the Mel Robbins was published seven days later, this would be a much easier conversation. And Barnes and Noble, you notice, just decided to put in 2025.
- [15:39]
Rebecca Schinsky
They did. They just put it onto the 2025 list.
- [15:42]
Jeff O'Neill
Which I really respect that actually. I'm like, you know what?
- [15:46]
Rebecca Schinsky
Take a stand.
- [15:47]
Jeff O'Neill
We're just gonna. This is ridiculous. This is one of the books.
- [15:50]
Rebecca Schinsky
Everybody else has weird eligibility windows. You can do whatever you want. Barnes and Noble. Time is a construct. Yeah, I think, I mean the let them theory would have been really interesting. We will take. We'll have to take on some kind of self help at some point. Stephen Graham Jones has another book coming out in the spring. He is so prolific.
- [16:09]
Jeff O'Neill
Those horror writers, man, they, they do not, you know, they're. They're worried about getting caught sleeping because of zombies. So they're just writing all the time.
- [16:16]
Rebecca Schinsky
Anyway that I've also wondered about like a different format option for some 0 to well read of more like reading pathways. Like here is this author that has broken out. Let's take a, a wider look at their history or the back catalog or which one to start with because yeah, he's been on my list forever.
- [16:37]
Jeff O'Neill
I think the other, you know, The Empire, the Dream Hotel hasn't stuck around as much. That would be interesting to talk about.
- [16:45]
Rebecca Schinsky
That would have been good for conversation, I think.
- [16:48]
Jeff O'Neill
Another one that could be interesting. I bought it. It's a big boy and it hasn't got the traction. But I would be quite interested in talking about the Wayfinder by Adam Johnson. I think there's a lot going on there. Flesh by David Zaslay has gotten a lot of press. I have not read that. So that would be a good excuse. That would be a good reason not, excuse me, to board that train. Yeah, I think those are kind of the. The contenders at this point. I mean, the other choice would be to look at a book by the Nobel Prize winner as I threatened us with earlier. We could take on one of those on the nonfiction side. I think you're right. The Ellicade, the let them theory, abundance. Those are kind of in the ballpark. I think I'm not seeing a lot else that makes me sit up and take notice. Yeah, I'm not sure. Do you want to talk about other these lists specifically? The publishers Weak list is one of the great browsing lists, maybe the best browsing list because they break down so many genres. They have a top 10 and a fiction, mystery, thriller, poetry, romance. They have some categories other people don't. They have a. They have a religion one, they have a lifestyle one which is usually cooking. But there's only four candidates this time, so I'm not sure what to do with that. They also have a good comic section.
- [18:13]
Rebecca Schinsky
That's the thing that I really appreciate about the PW list is they seem to take the philosophy of however many books deserve to make it on the list. Make it on the list. Like you get the top 10 and then the different categories have different numbers of books in them. There might be like 15 novels and only like four poetries. And that's just because they decided that those were the ones that they were gonn put on the list and they weren't going to like arbitrarily fill out a category. And I appreciate that this is also, and we say it every year, it's the most surprising list. And like this makes sense to me because the people at PW are reading everything. They are reading so widely that they're going to put stuff into the top 10 that we've never heard of. And it happens every year. This year it's on the calculation of volume book 3 by solves Bale or Ballet. It's a book in translation from the Danish. Haven't heard of it. They put it in the top 10. It sounds interesting, but also like Searches by Vahini Vara makes the top 10. The Buffalo Hunter x Hunter makes the top 10. Audition by Katie Kitamura, which this is my redemption cycle for books that start with A and therefore appear at the top of the list because I got trolled all season long last year by all fours and I am so glad to see you audition right here at the top. But just really interesting stuff. And same for like the fiction list, you know, is the one that's going to be most interesting to me. But there are things on it I've heard of things on it that I loved, things I meant to read and didn't get to flesh by David's all might be like the sort of quiet phenomenon of the year. It's shown up in a lot of places.
- [20:00]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, the Slip by Lukas Schaeffer, which won the Kirkus Prize has gotten a lot of talk is Sola by Allegra Goodman is showing up on a lot of these lists. So like there's it's not like it's so evenly distributed. But I also, I also think it matters for the conversation between the two of us that the two of us haven't read something together. We've read a lot of things together, but a lot of things we both haven't both read and or haven't one of us hasn't like like jumped up and down screaming about. Which you know, it's not too late. There are things that I will get to even though as you will find in frontless foyer is I've been dating it up pretty hardcore in my reading the last 7 to 10 love this for you but yeah, there's something there. You know the other it could be in looking at the Publisher's Weekly like bestselling books I think we we have hit or will hit Peak McFadden by the time the Housemaid movie comes out in December. So that would be a. That would be sort of a phenomena to put under the category of bookish phenomenons. I think Freedom McFadden certainly will have crossed that line by that point though I'll be curious if it does as well as it ends with us did at the box office because we just don't know.
- [21:12]
Rebecca Schinsky
I saw the trailer for it when I went to the movies last week and it does not look good.
- [21:19]
Jeff O'Neill
Like it looks okay. Ish. It looks familiar right? Like I feel like I've seen something like this all the time where there's like creepy upper well not more than Middle class people doing bad stuff.
- [21:30]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah, I mean, it's a familiar vibe. I mean, I haven't read the McFadden, so I don't know what all the twists are, but at the end of the trailer, a thing. There was sort of a perspective flip thing that happened, and I was like, I don't know if you haven't read the book, if you're going to be able to appreciate this at all, or if it will work. It ends with us. Hook. I think obviously, Freedom McFadden books are being read a lot by very, very many people. But I don't think see the readers having, like, the emotional attachment and connection to the stories. It's just like popcorn reading that you can plow through really quickly. And the Colleen Hoover has that, like, for, you know, all of the caveats that we can draw around it about the quality of the writing and, like, the melodrama of it all. Readers really connected to the emotional aspects of those stories, and they wanted to see how that was going to come across on screen. And those were like, big movie stars. Not that Amanda Seyfried and Sydney Sweeney are not big movie stars, but, like, Blake Lively doing a thing is a big deal. And there was a whole story. Like, there was all the drama that was happening around the release of the movie, too. But, like, I went to see it at, like, an early screening. The Wednesday that it ends with us was coming out in theaters because Vanessa and I did a recording about it and there were people lined up to get into the theater holding their copies of the book. And I just don't see that happening for Frida McFadden.
- [22:57]
Jeff O'Neill
No, she is clearly good at what she does, but it feels like a popular version of a genre that always needs to have someone carrying the banner for it. Like, is it that different than David Baldacci and James Patterson thrillers? I haven't read one. I'm guessing it is a little bit different, but scratching that same itch. Where I do think you're right. The Colleen Hoover phenomenon scratched a different itch.
- [23:24]
Rebecca Schinsky
And the McFadden looked to me like a trailer, more of like a trailer for a Netflix series that was developed with the intention that your second screening, the whole time, which they do this.
- [23:36]
Jeff O'Neill
Now, everything is not fine in wealthy suburbs. And yet there's murder. It's just like, I don't know, Stepford Knives is the genre. Like, that's all that it is.
- [23:45]
Rebecca Schinsky
That's good work there.
- [23:46]
Jeff O'Neill
We should do Stepford Wives for zero to. Well, read like, that's a. That Would be fun can like that people know. They get the vibe of your reference with the actual story. My memory, it's been a while since I read it is quite a bit stranger. The more I stare at this. This being the Internet I guess I think Wild Dark Shore.
- [24:05]
Rebecca Schinsky
You think?
- [24:07]
Jeff O'Neill
I think the other. The other thing in the favor is it's climate fiction which is going to be a courant for a while. And this is not the. This is her third hit.
- [24:17]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah.
- [24:18]
Jeff O'Neill
Like there's three in a row and then you can kind of take on this, you know this level of litfic. It's more litficy than I think people understand than commercial. It's. It's certainly much more litfic than say Frederick Bachmann or other things on this list like the Taylor Jenkins Reid or Broken Country. I think that might be the one that would be interesting to talk about but I'm open. Yeah Choose Email podcastookright.com if you think we overlook something over there. This sort of a related story which is that there was a summer slump in publishing and probably because there was not. Was it last year we had James. Of course that. And we probably will have occasion to find ourselves talking about James at some point in the future. I dare say. But we had a book of the summer. We had the Guest by Emma Klein. Wasn't that last year?
- [25:15]
Rebecca Schinsky
No, it was two years last year.
- [25:17]
Jeff O'Neill
Oh God of the wood. Yeah. So those two books sold extraordinarily well through the year and I think we still had some Hoover stuff going on. But I can't help but think that a lot of this is that adult nonfiction, adult fiction was off and children's. Everything was off. Everything was off. I don't know what the adult nonfiction comps were. Was there a big memoir or something last year? Was everyone doing Streisand last year or Brittany? I don't know.
- [25:48]
Rebecca Schinsky
I don't think so. Not that would have sold enough to make a difference in year over year comps when it fell off. Also not for nothing, the economy has been an adventure since mid summer with especially and like government shutdowns now in the fall. Like there are a lot of people not working. There are a lot of people not getting like the support that they typically receive from the government. Just a lot of people have been laid off from corporate positions. You know entry level and retail jobs are slowing down like a lot of sectors. It's tough out there and books are a luxury item. So I think. I think as much as anything this is not a recession indicator. But an indicator of people tightening their belts. You're spending 10 bucks a pound on ground beef for taco night at home. That's going to eat into your paperback budget.
- [26:43]
Jeff O'Neill
The only category, the only format that was up is again, Digital. Not up 9%, but still up 6.8%. In an environment where books are being bought less rapidly is still really notable on that farm. Even adult fiction, which is where most of the romantasy stuff gets categorized, is down. That whole category is down 4% over last year. So I do wonder about not a bubble bursting, but the deflation of some kind is happening over there. The Book of the Year finals. I think Barnes and Noble's list is not unlike the Amazon list. And certainly their Book of the Year pick is. We think this is a book people that come into our store are going to like once they pick it up and read it. There's not. What's the most challenging book on here of the ones we've read?
- [27:35]
Rebecca Schinsky
Probably the Roy King of Ashes, I would say.
- [27:40]
Jeff O'Neill
Well, it's violent, but like, I think violence.
- [27:44]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
Oh.
- [27:45]
Rebecca Schinsky
But in terms of like a difficult.
- [27:46]
Jeff O'Neill
Reading experience, probably it's more sophisticated, I guess, as well.
- [27:51]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah, I wouldn't call it challenging, but more sophisticated. Like, my money here is on Mona's Eyes. Because this book had been. It had been nowhere until Barnes and Noble made it one. Like, it was at the top of Barnes and Noble's fiction list in their best books of the year. And now it is just sitting in the middle of their Book of the Year finalists. And I think that, you know, next week when they announce what this is, it's going to be Mona's Eyes. Like, it just seems it would be surprising for a book to kind of have come out of nowhere, appeared at the top of their fiction list, and be nominated for this without there being a bigger story to it. And it's like right in the Barnes and Noble Book of the Year zone. It's about art. This young girl and her grandfather are running through a museum trying to see all of the art. It's about a family relationship. There's a connection there that feels like the kind of thing that they're gonna want to put up for the season as a sort of Swiss army knife gift recommendation, which is, I think, a helpful way to think about what Barnes and Noble is trying to do with Book of the Year. It's just not going to be Katabasis. It's not going to be King of Ashes.
- [29:01]
Jeff O'Neill
I was going to say, what would we short. Right. I would be surprised if it is this way up When Maps Go Wrong by Map Men, which again, don't think I'm not interested in this book. I just would be very surprised to see it there. Maybe sometimes I'll put a hat on a hat, right? I mean I wouldn't be surprised to see Sunrise on the Reaping, but how many marginal readers are you going to get that you haven't picked up already? I picked up Puzzle Mania in the store the other day. I was at the Terrific. Oh, I've got Bookstore Talk. I should have put this on the agenda of my San Diego bookstoring adventures. I went to a couple cool bookstores but I picked this up and looked at it like this is a great coffee table gift book, but Book of the Year, I can't imagine that would be the case. And I think Mona's eyes, you're of kind wise to zone in on that one because we're old enough to know that this does happen every now and again where you get this book from overseas that has sort of feel good readable quality to it. I can think of three off the top of my head thinking Elegance of the Hedgehog. That was, that's number one because that was also Europa Editions, which this one is as well. The Frederick Bachmann. The first one. A Man Called Ove, right?
- [30:04]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yes.
- [30:04]
Jeff O'Neill
Uwe, or how you say that. That was one. And I think I would put my brilliant friend in this category. Like it's a little more. It's a little more. It's not as literary as people think. Like it's not that edgy. I mean it's a story about friendship and it's quite beautiful and it's moving but it is not way up the art writing ladder. This and then the Girl with the Pearl Earring is also similar like the using the same open. Open source, what I'm calling it public domain. Public domain art that you can put in here. So it has, it has a lot more precedence than people who, you know, don't follow this stuff or think about it would do. Do you think the picture book about a goldfish and a potted plant would be a real candidate Growing by Beth Fairy Superdill. I do appreciate that for I Am Rebel, which looks like to be a middle grade chapter book about a dog going on a journey. They just tell you the dog survives.
- [30:57]
Rebecca Schinsky
That is important. And I mean a dog wearing a kerchief is a thing I'm always in favor of.
- [31:02]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, that's right. This is, this is the single biggest difference between now and when I was 11 years old is that the dog always died in the books they gave to us. Like, literally, the dog.
- [31:14]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah.
- [31:16]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
We read.
- [31:17]
Rebecca Schinsky
What was it? Old Yeller.
- [31:18]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah.
- [31:19]
Rebecca Schinsky
Like in school, Old Yeller.
- [31:21]
Jeff O'Neill
That's where they had to shoot their own dog. No, no. Old Yeller is where the cougar. The. The dog dies fighting the cougar. Right.
- [31:28]
Rebecca Schinsky
I don't remember.
- [31:29]
Jeff O'Neill
Because where the red fern grows.
- [31:30]
Rebecca Schinsky
That's.
- [31:31]
Jeff O'Neill
It. Is where you have to shoot your own dogs because they got rabies protected.
- [31:34]
Rebecca Schinsky
And there were multiples of these. We have multiple examples of books that traumatized us in childhood where the dog dies or you even have to kill.
- [31:40]
Jeff O'Neill
Your own dog or pig or your pigs. Pigs were in jeopardy all the time. Charlotte's Web. I read a book. We were assigned a book in eighth grade called the Day no Pigs Would Die. Oh, God, did all the pigs die? It tells you about all the other days, though, right? If you say the Day no pegs would die, it says a lot about the other days.
- [31:58]
Rebecca Schinsky
I have not encountered that one, and I don't think that I will be revisiting it.
- [32:02]
Jeff O'Neill
My memory of it, it was like the bizarro retelling of Charlotte's Web, where you actually.
- [32:08]
Rebecca Schinsky
Someone's, like, alternate history.
- [32:10]
Jeff O'Neill
Yes. Can we. Can we tell Charlotte's Web from the axis point of view? So there you go.
- [32:15]
Rebecca Schinsky
It's the Peter Dinklage character from Elf. Just like, on a lot of coke.
- [32:19]
Jeff O'Neill
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I got a. Really. Got a couple of solid ideas here, so a good pop reading list. I think these are. These are great for. If you're looking for gift ideas, which may be the number one use of.
- [32:32]
Rebecca Schinsky
A book like this. That's totally what Barnes and Noble is going for here. So from that perspective, like, maybe Good Things by Samin Nusrat, that's incredibly giftable. But you have to be a person who cooks Buckeye by Patrick Ryan. I think if it got the nod here, that could pop it more into.
- [32:50]
Jeff O'Neill
Do you have any sense of this book? I've read a little bit about it, but I have no, like, sense of, like, what I would be getting into.
- [32:56]
Rebecca Schinsky
I think it's.
- [32:58]
Jeff O'Neill
The writing is both straightforward and poetic. Does that mean it's. What does that mean?
- [33:04]
Rebecca Schinsky
The only thing, like, what is thinking about that. I know about it. I'm thinking of it more in, like, the Jonathan Evison zone, but I think that's because it's long.
- [33:13]
Jeff O'Neill
I don't think it's gonna be that. I don't think it's gonna be it feels more Grover's Corners than that. An intimate portrait of small town mid century America.
- [33:22]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
Yeah.
- [33:22]
Rebecca Schinsky
Our friend Greg Zimmerman at the New Dork Review really liked Buckeye and so I put, I kind of put it.
- [33:30]
Jeff O'Neill
On my mental list after you can't trust him.
- [33:32]
Rebecca Schinsky
After it got the Greg Stamp. When you mentioned Charlotte's Web, it reminded me went to see Blue Moon. It's incredible. And there's a little moment where Ethan Hawkes actually not a moment. There's like an extended scene where EB White is hanging out in the same restaurant that night and he's just sitting in the corner and Ethan Hawke's character goes and hangs out with EB White and they have a little chat about what EB White is working on. And it's a book that turns out to he's stuck. And they solve the problem of Stuart Little in this really charming scene. I mean it's just, it was a bunch of like, I don't know, it was an actor I didn't recognize but really charming. And it was just me and a bunch of 65 year olds at a Saturday matinee there to see Ethan Hawke. And you know, I think they were having Broadway nostalgia and I was there to see Ethan Hawke.
- [34:25]
Jeff O'Neill
Ethan Hawke with a truly awesomely bad hair piece situation to represent that. Yeah. EB White, you know, I know you really admire. Didn't you read a bunch of EB White over?
- [34:37]
Rebecca Schinsky
EB White was my. Yeah, he was my pandemic boyfriend. I read like the essays and letters of E.B. white just like the most comforting thing I could find.
- [34:45]
Jeff O'Neill
And two all time kids books, chapter books. What a career. What an odd and range.
- [34:52]
Rebecca Schinsky
Just such range.
- [34:54]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah. Did he ever write like an adult, a novel for adults? I don't know that. He may have. It does. I don't know it. If he ever tried to do that.
- [35:05]
Rebecca Schinsky
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- [35:34]
Jeff O'Neill
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- [36:02]
Rebecca Schinsky
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- [36:32]
Jeff O'Neill
I guess it's probably enough on that list. What else do we have? Oh, I had a couple things just from today in books this week that I thought I would get into the ether. This one I thought was I know you looked at this piece too, about how writers are using AI. I'll put a link in the show notes. I don't think we want to go it line by line, but a lot of writers are using AI. Not many are using it to produce publishable texts, but some are even among the fiction writers, 11% are using AI to, quote, unquote, produce publishable text. I guess that means they say write me a sentence or a paragraph or whatever. Then they don't do anything with or very light emendations to and put in front of an editor or submissions board or something else here. But a lot are using it to do research or structured data or other kinds of things. And I, I admit that I put myself in that camp. I find that the writing, it writes, that it suggests I give in front of other humans, I find laughable and embarrassing. Our sales director and I were commiserating about that yesterday because, like, I thought I could use this to like write emails back faster and just move the ball along. But every time I get a prompt, like, it's just so cringy, like, maybe people don't care. But I notice and I care.
- [37:50]
Rebecca Schinsky
The only thing that I have had success using it to write is I have been in a protracted battle with a local zoning board.
- [37:57]
Jeff O'Neill
Oh yeah.
- [37:58]
Rebecca Schinsky
Over home construction.
- [37:59]
Jeff O'Neill
We should just let boss fight over that stuff. That's a good idea. Proxy bureaucratic AI And I just like, dumped.
- [38:05]
Rebecca Schinsky
Like brain dumped. Here's what's going on. And I'm, you know, I was raging. Like, the email that I would have written would not have been helpful to my cause. But I drafted that Email and was like please make this sound like a sane and professional person. Like tighten it up and so that this goes off to the bureaucracy. And then. And that was chatgpt conducted most of my negotiations with that zoning board because it was helpful. I was coming in way too hot but for like creative work. I totally agree. It's. It's not great.
- [38:38]
Jeff O'Neill
The most. Those who admit, I shall say to using AI the most, both for non publishable and publishable words are quote unquote thought leaders, which are 84% LinkedIn. Yeah. And do you agree with my hot take here is that the best test of whether or not someone is a thought leader is to ask them if a thought leader. And if they say yes, then they are not.
- [39:01]
Rebecca Schinsky
I agree.
- [39:02]
Jeff O'Neill
Do you agree with that?
- [39:03]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
Yeah.
- [39:04]
Jeff O'Neill
Okay, so there you go.
- [39:06]
Rebecca Schinsky
If you are a thought leader for realsies, you don't have to declare it.
- [39:10]
Jeff O'Neill
That's what I'm saying.
- [39:10]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah. Yeah. People figure it out on their own. That's.
- [39:13]
Jeff O'Neill
And if they tell you proactively they're a thought leader, just turn 180 degrees around and run. Or better yet find out what company they're shilling for and short that company on market. That would be okay too.
- [39:28]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah. You know, with the AI stuff there have been interesting. You put you linked to another interesting essay I think on The Atlantic, John McWhorter talking about AI and how his what he's seeing with his kids and with students using AI. And it reminded me that a friend of mine who teaches creative writing like has just accepted this is a thing. Like she asked her students how they use AI. Some of them are using it to synthesize big reading because they feel like their reading loads are too heavy from school. I would like to see these reading loads because I have notes about what I did in college and some of them are using it for homework and for other kinds of things or for outlining stories. But one thing that she said that she's having students do at the start of the year is talking about this is a reality that we have this tool. And I know that you guys are going are you're going to use AI? Like I don't want to be in denial about it, but let's each sort of set out to create our own personal, not quite mission statements, but like what's your own set of ethical commitments about how you want this to figure into your work so that you also are developing your own skills and your own voice. Like you're in a creative writing class. So presumably you want to develop your own voice. Right. But it's tempting and they use it. It's so much more integrated into modern students, into young people's lives, than it is into ours that I think they do have to actively work to not reach for that tool. And I thought that was an interesting philosophy. That's a good dinner table conversation. If there's kids in your house.
- [41:06]
Jeff O'Neill
Well, I mean, what else are you going to do? That's the other thing that McWhorter got me thinking about is like, okay, the most conservative lowercase C conservative would be some sort of across the board taboo and honor code, because you can't check it. You know, you're not going to check it. And the uses are so valuable for. Especially for everyone, but especially kids trying to get stuff done. In which. I remember my college days. I was a committed and active and interested student, but also I wanted to hang, you know, I wanted to play goldeneye and go out to the bars and, you know, go play football and basketball with my friends. And it was always a negotiation between how much time to spend on what. And this gives students and a lot of people a lot of leverage over if they have to produce a certain amount of words, this can help them get there. Now, you aren't going to get the thing you get out of college or any experience of reading or writing this way. You are getting. You're sort of skipping the process for the product. And most of the time, when in my experience of education, the process is the thing, the process is the thing. This is certainly, I would say we haven't articulated this, but this is a. If not the tenet of zero to, well read is that you can read a summary of any one of these books. But if you think there are quote unquote, answers for you to harvest from an AI summary of Oedipus the King, well, then I got news for you, buddy. That's not what we're here on earth to do. It's to sort of see what it opens up and get you thinking about your own. Your own life and the broad sweep of history. So I think it makes sense. Then the PR comms writers, the thought leaders who are basically in word salad buffet business, where the words themselves are a product.
- [42:55]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yes.
- [42:56]
Jeff O'Neill
They use it more often than fiction writers who either want to or have understood that process to be, you know, to quote the sort of paraphrase, Zaddy Smith, the expression of their own peculiarity and peculiarity. AI can't do that for you. Aid. AI is a regression to the mean and we want your writing to be the regression to the me for you of like, what you can tell us. So regression to me. That's a good one. None of this is surprising, but I think it just kind of lays the cards on the table. Like McWhorter, like your friend are saying, like, okay, here's the reality of it. How are we going to negotiate this and how are we going to keep our live with inside of our own integrity and own desires to make the kind of stuff and consume the kind of stuff we want to do?
- [43:43]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah.
- [43:44]
Jeff O'Neill
So anyway, take a look at that. Let's do Frontless Foy, Rebecca, which is brought to you by Thriftbooks, where you can buy 19 million books, most of which were published before AI was even a thing. That's one good way to prove to guarantee you reading something not written by AI is to read something written before, say, 2001, which is ironical given the movie books. Movies, games. We're in prime gifting season. You have board games. That Puzzle Mania book would be a great gift. You can go find it over there. And also used books across the board as part of Zero to well read. They've sponsored the show for first season. I've been picking out some interesting editions, but for most of these books that we talk about, they've been out long enough. There's been enough you can find a good copy for four or five bucks and every purchase gets you closer to a free book through the reading rewards program and free shipping of orders over 15 bucks. Thanks so much to thriftbooks.com for talking, for making this possible. Rebecca, did we not talk about the 10 year affair already on the show or we did that somewhere.
- [44:45]
Rebecca Schinsky
I told you that I was reading.
- [44:46]
Jeff O'Neill
Okay.
- [44:47]
Rebecca Schinsky
I had just started it, but I have now I have finished the 10 year affair by Aaron Summers. I had like gotten through the first 50 pages and mentioned it to you somewhere and then I read the rest of it in one sitting the next day. So you've talked about it here on the show. You really liked it. That's why I picked it up. Because you, I think you said it's terrific.
- [45:05]
Jeff O'Neill
It's terrific.
- [45:06]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah. And it was a real like, all right, that's a genuine Jeff verbal exclamation point. And you're kind of stingy with those.
- [45:13]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, usually there's a lot of equivocating and yeah. But, you know, whatever. But just a straight up declarative. It's terrific. Like Tony the Tiger style. Yeah.
- [45:20]
Rebecca Schinsky
I sit up and pay attention when that happens. And I really loved it. You know, young couple, like in their 30s who have left New York City and are living in the Hudson Valley. They've got some kids. She's not working. He is having stress at work. And she meets, she takes their kid to a like Mommy and Me class, but she meets a dad at the class and they strike up a friendship that might or might not be also an affair. And there is this, I think you had talked about a really cool like, sliding doors kind of technique that happens in the book where you see both the timeline where they have the affair and the timeline where they don't. And I think I was just expecting it to be like part A and then part B, that you would just flip the record over. But the way that she weaves them back and forth with each other, it felt like, I mean, this is not a sci fi book at all, but it felt like the City and the City by China Mieville to me a little bit where like the people are living in. There's these parallel worlds that they can kind of see into. And I thought it was such a creative way to do it. Like, I think we talked about off mic that we both would have read this as just a straight up affair novel. Like, it's a great affair novel. It's a great like, you know, early middle aged, you know, marital angst kind of thing. But also the, the dialogue is.
- [46:43]
Jeff O'Neill
So that's, that's what we're here, that's what we stay for. That's what the thing that makes it special to me, I could have done without. I mean, the sliding door things was interesting.
- [46:50]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah.
- [46:50]
Jeff O'Neill
But I would have said it's terrific even without that.
- [46:53]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah, just straight up, like just crackly dialogue, really funny. The dynamics between the main character and her husband are really funny. And they felt very true to me. Like the kind of banter that you have with someone that you've been with for a while, the kinds of things that needle you, also the kinds of things you develop affection for. And just the ways that people cope with like stresses of life and stresses of relationships at that point in time, like, or in that phase of life where they're having kids, trying to figure out like, how to have meaning and identity and excitement and one of her. The care. The main character even says, like, this isn't really about the sex, it's about the fact that I'm going to die someday.
- [47:33]
Jeff O'Neill
Yes, right. Which is sort of what all affairs are about in some ways that like, my time is limited. And you know, to quote1 of our 0. Is this all there is? And for a lot of people, you know, having an affair is the most exciting and illicit thing that they have access to. But, yeah, I think when I talked to Aaron Summers, there's a interview I did with her over on the Zero. I'm sorry, the first edition we talked about as people who read books and literary fiction, we know there's a long tradition of the affair going all the way back to just a little book called the Iliad. Right. Which is sort of it's an affair book in its own strange way, but that the particularities of the time and the location and the cultural moment give each sort of scene of the affair or generational affair story its own kind of memory and texture. And, you know, it's a coming of age for the middle age. But I think for me, if this was book didn't have an affair in the middle of it, I was still stayed for the specificity, the precision, the turning the table or turning the spotlight on a group of people in which Summers resides. And I am. I reside sort of orthogonal to. And like, we're talking about peculiarity. Like the specificness of, like, the broccoli mom and this particular yoga class in the back of this particular room and everyone's house and what they're eating and the 40th birthday party with the jazz club and where people are standing. Like, all of it is just sort of rock solid. It's so good social observation with wit and edge. But also, I don't know if you came around to this. This is my. My last question to you about this was like.
- [49:13]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
Like.
- [49:14]
Jeff O'Neill
But there's a. There's a lingering warmth to it. It's not super. It's not dark, really. It's not like Kramer versus Kramer or a marriage story or one of these kinds of books.
- [49:23]
Rebecca Schinsky
It's very, like, compassionate is not quite the word that I want. It's a. She has affection for these kids with.
- [49:30]
Jeff O'Neill
Affection towards all, malice towards none and affection towards all.
- [49:33]
Rebecca Schinsky
She's kind to them. And I think there's a real, like, yeah, it is hard out there. Yeah, it is hard when you're married and you have young kids. And that can be, from what I understand, kind of a slog. And you're looking something to make you feel alive. And there's this person now in front of you with a proposition that might make you feel really alive for a while. There's, I guess, just a real, like, human understanding for the character. She doesn't judge them. She also doesn't glorify it. Like that's what makes a good affair novel too, is just like, this is human shit. And as I said, when Dan Brown's Affair came out, like, I don't care. This is the most common human thing. Like people do this.
- [50:14]
Jeff O'Neill
I guess maybe we feel about the 10 year fear like some people feel about Colleen Hoover. Like, this is my Colleen Hoover. Like this is relationship. Talk about a specific moment that I relate to and understand. I'm interested in thinking about. I don't know. So yeah, I'm glad maybe.
- [50:29]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah. And like I would love to see it adapted. I hope she's got something cooking there.
- [50:35]
Jeff O'Neill
Like a film, a show. What do you think? Because we've had. We've had the affair. I think to make this. I was thinking about this too. I think you need to play up the non affair bit. That's what people would stay for, right?
- [50:47]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah. For the just like domestic life of it all. 40 something splitsville recently. And that had the kind of vibe that it's funny and bantery. It's not quite the same sort of story, but it made me think like there's room for.
- [51:07]
Jeff O'Neill
There's like a Fleischman is in trouble. DNA here is probably the closest vibe I can think of. I guess. Speaking of TV for Patreon, the next one is going to be our recent media diet. So you hear about other movies and TV shows and other stuff we've been into. So stick around for that.
- [51:24]
Rebecca Schinsky
Oh, we have. We have vocabulary. We have to do.
- [51:27]
Jeff O'Neill
Oh, yes, the revectionary. I forgot I had one as soon as I saw yours. I put one in.
- [51:32]
Rebecca Schinsky
That I learned when we read the Secret History. I came across the word chitons, C H I T O N S. And I googled and it makes sense that it is like a toga kind of tunic. A long drapey tunic that people wear. I wouldn't have paid that much attention to it except like two days after I googled it, it was the answer to one of the prompts in the New York Times crossword.
- [51:51]
Jeff O'Neill
Whoa.
- [51:52]
Rebecca Schinsky
I was like, this is why you google things. This is why you look up words you don't know so that later on you can use them in the New York Times crossword.
- [52:00]
Jeff O'Neill
So I will admit this. I knew it was a toga like thing, but in my mind a toga like thing is just a toga. So I don't know. How did you look up different?
- [52:09]
Rebecca Schinsky
I think it's more of a tunic like it was described, which in my.
- [52:13]
Jeff O'Neill
I understand tunics to explain to all the other people who definitely don't know what a tunic is, what's the difference between a tunic and a toga?
- [52:20]
Rebecca Schinsky
I believe you pull a tunic on over your head. It's like an over the head garment. It can have sleeves or be sleeveless, where the toga is the wrappy sheet situation.
- [52:29]
Jeff O'Neill
Okay.
- [52:29]
Rebecca Schinsky
I'm really proud of the gestures that have been happening right here and very sad that I can't see them.
- [52:34]
Jeff O'Neill
I'm looking at a illustrated toga toga versus chitin thing, and I still don't get it.
- [52:41]
Rebecca Schinsky
You know what? This is a question for a bot. Let ChatGPT explain the difference to you.
- [52:46]
Jeff O'Neill
This is like. This is like looking at an illustration of how to tie a tie. When I was. I remember when I was a kid, like, you look at illustration. Like, that doesn't help me. That's just a bunch of hands doing this in different pages. That's no help. Help. So it looks to me like the toga you do wrap, it's like one piece. And the kite, it might be two pieces.
- [53:06]
Rebecca Schinsky
Okay. Or you wear the Chitin, maybe like over pants.
- [53:10]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, yeah. That's how you know Donna Tartt is a real one. Is. She didn't stop at reaching for toga.
- [53:15]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
Right.
- [53:16]
Rebecca Schinsky
She was.
- [53:16]
Jeff O'Neill
Most normies like us, we said, okay, they're wearing togas. She went to Chitin and made a scuba. Google it.
- [53:22]
Rebecca Schinsky
And what is a pugmark?
- [53:23]
Jeff O'Neill
A pug mark is the paw print of a tiger. They call it a pugmark.
- [53:28]
Rebecca Schinsky
Oh, Would never have guessed that.
- [53:30]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, I was at the San Diego Safari Park Zoo and we were looking at the tiger exhibit and they were talking about how each pugmark is unique, like a fingerprint. And I don't know why they don't call it just a paw print, but yeah, it's called a pugmark.
- [53:41]
Rebecca Schinsky
A pug mark. Interesting.
- [53:43]
Jeff O'Neill
It's cute. I thought it was a cute word.
- [53:44]
Rebecca Schinsky
What have you been reading? Tell me about dad.
- [53:47]
Jeff O'Neill
Oh, dadding it up. You know, I started to write them and then I got distracted. Let's see, what did I do? Oh, the Running Mode by Nick Thompson. So, as you know, memoirs by New Yorker writers or former New Yorker New New Yorker writers is all I'm. I'll read them all. Like, literally, whatever you.
- [54:04]
Rebecca Schinsky
Whatever you're memoiring about, go to town.
- [54:05]
Jeff O'Neill
Nick Thomas for Thompson. Pardon me. For a while was a senior editor at the New Yorker. He went on to be the editor in chief of Wired and is now the CEO of the Atlantic. But it's his memoir of running but also his father and growing up and going through Covid and getting thyroid cancer and all that kind of stuff. I picked it up. I was like when I saw was two, it was over Determined one A memoir by a New Yorker writer that has to do with family weirdness. I'm always down for that. But then my son has become a pretty serious cross country runner. My daughter runs cross country too. In middle school like he did. But as he's gotten into high school it's become more, more and more of a thing and I was like looking for a book. As you know, this is not the first book, not even the second book I've read about running. But I did enjoy, enjoy, enjoy that. That that's going to. It's going to happen. I'm going to die of like diabetes and I'll have a syllabi of running books that I enjoyed. That's how this is all going to go down. But it's really great. His father, as they would say in my neck of the woods was a real piece of work. A elite runner, Rhodes scholar who worked in the Reagan administration fairly high up and then came out of the closet and their life fell apart. His life fell apart and ended up running a male brothel in Cambodia.
- [55:25]
Rebecca Schinsky
Will I like this book even though I care nothing about running?
- [55:28]
Jeff O'Neill
I think so.
- [55:29]
Rebecca Schinsky
That's okay.
- [55:30]
Jeff O'Neill
There's. There's a lot about running in it. But I think if to. To reframe it for Rebecca's radars. Running as practice I think is the part that you'd respond most to. It's not like here. I've picked up several running books as my son has done become more and more interested in it. Just that's what I do. I like to read about the things that are in my life and so many of them are just, you can do it and let's run a fast marathon. And here's how I'm not in. I'm not into that. I need. I need some familial drama. I need, you know, pontification. I need some nice language. So I really enjoyed it.
- [56:08]
Rebecca Schinsky
Like New Yorker writers. Is there any like recognizable DNA from. Was it in the early years the Todd friend?
- [56:14]
Jeff O'Neill
No, none of that. What was that now you've poisoned me with the wrong title. But yeah. So that book was very much just about his father.
- [56:25]
Rebecca Schinsky
I think that's a father's.
- [56:26]
Jeff O'Neill
If you combine this with Haruki Murakami is what I talk about when I talk about what we. Is it what I or what we talk about when we talk about running that's the best comp. It's that it's the tad friend. Plus that Murakami book which I am here for every day of the week. I was listening to it and I did in about 36 hours. I just had it on all the time. It's not that long. So I really enjoyed that. And then what else? Oh. Craftland by James Fox. It is a book about English crafts and dying craft culture. I don't know what to say. I. It sounded interesting. He goes around to nine different endangered or threatened craftspeople in England and talks to them about their crafts like barrel.
- [57:05]
Rebecca Schinsky
Making history of the craft in nine dying practices.
- [57:08]
Jeff O'Neill
Basically that's it. And some of the people they died like several days before it could talk to was like I'm sorry about barrel making. They just. The last practitioner in Hettsford mixture died and I couldn't go talk to that dude. But I thought it was interesting. Charming on the audio.
- [57:21]
Rebecca Schinsky
So charming.
- [57:22]
Jeff O'Neill
I had a lot of plane and walking around time that I was in in my ears. I. I learned a lot about dying crafts in England. Did you know this the last name Kellogg. The last name Kellogg was what the English call butchers because it's a collection of Kill hog.
- [57:43]
Rebecca Schinsky
No.
- [57:44]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, a lot, a lot more names like Spurrier, like Steve Spurrier, the old Florida coach. Was that someone who put. Who made spurs just there. Like I knew Cooper and some of those kinds of things but there's a lot more English anglophone names that are just what your five generations of family did. So we called you Kevin Spurrier because you're the Kevins of the people that made spurs and our our country. Anyway, I liked it. I don't know. I have literally no idea who I'd recommend this to. I you know if you. That sounds interesting someone in your life but I can't full throatedly blanket Swiss army recommend it.
- [58:17]
Rebecca Schinsky
That one might make a reappearance during holiday gifting which if you need a holiday gift recommendation from us, now is the season. We're going to be getting into that. So you can email us podcastookriot.com to make your holiday a gift book recommendation request. It can also be for something that you want to read. We will take self requests so that's. Yeah, shoot us an email podcastookriot.com, put something about gift request in the subject line so we know to pull that out. But we're going to be getting into that. I think right before Thanksgiving we'll be starting our Recommendation bonanza.
- [58:51]
Jeff O'Neill
Unfortunately, Craftland does not make my top artisanal related recommendation of the the year. That would be ingrained by, yes, Callum Robbins.
- [58:59]
Rebecca Schinsky
But anyway, discovery this year.
- [59:00]
Jeff O'Neill
I've recommended that several times. I don't know that anyone has read it. I'm having a hard time moving in grain units right now. I don't know why necessarily, but that one I will be very much on the lookout for. I want something for my dad and he likes to putter around in the, in the, in the garage. Get, get the two ingrained by Callum Robinson. All right, Rebecca, check out the show notes@book riot.com Listen, you can shoot us an email and a recommendation request and or a Recommendation request@podcastookriot.com Check out the Patreon over there. We're gonna have our recent media diets and then some other stuff coming up at the end of the year. Zero to well read is off and cooking. We're gonna give an update here for those of you maybe not keeping track yourself. And why would you? We asked. We're trying to kind of do a mini review drive to get to 150 and as of this morning we have 336. So y' all came through in a huge way and really appreciate that. And we're going to be maybe flogging that particular gold star board again because apparently about up to about 500 reviews and ratings. It helps. People are finding it and people are. And we're having a great time over there. Rebecca, anything I forgot about that I should mention?
- [60:11]
Rebecca Schinsky
Nope.
- [60:11]
Jeff O'Neill
That's it. We get out. All right, thanks everybody. Thank you, Rebecca.
- [60:13]
Rebecca Schinsky
Have a good week.
- [60:22]
Jeff O'Neill
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