← Book Riot - The Podcast
Book Riot - The Podcast
Study Shows Book Bans Lead to Increased Readership, the "Shadow Daddies" of Romantasy, and More
00:56:37
Rebecca and Vanessa Diaz discuss a new study that shows book bans lead to increased readership of inclusive content, the men cashing in big on romantasy, PEN Awards finalists, and more.
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- [00:00]
Rebecca Schinsky
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- [00:15]
Vanessa Diaz
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- [00:46]
Rebecca Schinsky
This is the Book Riot Podcast. I'm Rebecca Schinsky. I am here this week with Vanessa Diaz. She is Book Riot's managing editor while Jeff is off in a bat cave with some empty spreadsheets doing product development and sending me increasingly interesting text messages.
- [01:03]
Jeff O'Neal
Unhinged, maybe.
- [01:04]
Rebecca Schinsky
Vanessa, welcome.
- [01:05]
Jeff O'Neal
Thank you. I'm happy to be Jeff's proxy while he hunkers down and also hopefully works on some things I said his way.
- [01:12]
Rebecca Schinsky
So yeah, yeah, I wouldn't say unhinged. They're pretty hinged. Hinged but interesting. He's taken some time to. Yeah, just go head down and it's. It's been fun to get some random missives of the like. Don't think about this. Here's I just want your knee jerk response.
- [01:30]
Jeff O'Neal
Just let it wash over you. Yes. Oh that's great.
- [01:34]
Rebecca Schinsky
So thank you for being, of course, with me, Vanessa. We've got a whole bunch of potpourri this week. There hasn't been one big story of the week, but that seems to be the mode that we're in right now. The wheels of publishing are just turning through the spring, but several things to cover and we will get into it. But first, we'll take our first sponsor break.
- [01:58]
Saeed M. Masoud
Today's episode is brought to you by 8th Note Press, publishers of the Last man in paradise by Saeed M. Masoud. A decade ago, Azan, a rebellious teenager with dreams of becoming an actor, was exiled from Redding, California to a religious academy in Egypt by his imam father. His crime, you might wonder, getting caught kissing the girlfriend he wasn't supposed to have. But Azan actually ditched the school to embark on an acting career. He never planned to return home and thought no one would ever know. Now, however, comma, Azan's grandfather has a dying wish. He wants to see his grandson one last time. In order to maintain the story he's told his family for years, Azan decides to become a fake imam. It'll be the most challenging role of his life. Now, this is obviously very messy. We stan a messy book with messy family dynamics. This is also from the critically acclaimed author of the Bad Muslim Discount. Make sure to check out the Last man in paradise by Saeed Ibn Massoud and thanks again to 8th Note Press for sponsoring this episode. Today's episode is brought to you by 8th Note Press, publishers of to have and have More by Sanibel Derry Moore Academy, circa 2007 is home to teenagers who have their eyebrows shaped and their sweet 16s tinted. It is here that Emory Hooper, adopted at birth into the country club set, thrives the one blight on her otherwise perfect life. Though Lila, changing the Chinese American student, is the embarrassing epitome of every Asian stereotype Emory despises. Lila and Emory develop a complicated friendship, and as they speed toward graduation and Ivy League applications, they circle around a truth that still irrevocably separates them. With enough money, actions don't have consequences. So to have and have More is a dark comedy about hyper privileged boarding school kids and toxic elitism. It examines the rarefied world of prep school through the eyes of a Korean girl who is adopted into a wealthy white family. It has sad rich girl trauma. It observes casual racism, complicity. Girl, it has everything. Make sure to check it out. And thanks again to 8th Note Press for sponsoring this episode.
- [04:14]
Marvel Studios
Marvel Studios Thunderbolts will take the world by storm.
- [04:18]
Vanessa Diaz
Yes, there's some big bread out there.
- [04:21]
Rebecca Schinsky
And you're gonna help me stop it.
- [04:22]
Jeff O'Neal
Us.
- [04:23]
Dan Souza
Why?
- [04:23]
Marvel Studios
You got some place to be on May 2nd?
- [04:25]
Jeff O'Neal
Avengers, you're gone.
- [04:27]
Saeed M. Masoud
No one's coming to save the day their time.
- [04:29]
Rebecca Schinsky
I think we could be the people.
- [04:30]
Marvel Studios
That are coming has being the hero. There is no higher calling.
- [04:35]
Unknown
Let's do this.
- [04:37]
Marvel Studios
Marvel Studios Thunderbolts only in theaters May 2nd. Get tickets now. Rated PG 13. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.
- [04:45]
Rebecca Schinsky
Okay, Vanessa, we've talked about the PEN America Awards here on the show before, but they are now into the finalist stage for the 2025 awards, which cover books that were released in 2024. Finalists were just announced and the PEN Awards come with some pretty they do. So that's exciting. I thought we would just hit some of the highlights here. We were talking offline about how neither of us has read a ton of the books that were nominated. And I know that it's true for Jeff as well. That pen seem tends to be a source of good discovery more than some of the other awards because they do tend to find titles that maybe have not hit the big mainstream or that have flown a little bit under the radar. We'll start with the PEN Jean Stein Book Award, because it's the biggie. It's $75,000. It is awarded to a book of any genre which has broken new ground by reshaping the boundaries of form and signaling strong potential for lasting influence. The finalists this year are Dead in Long Beach, California, by Vanita Blackburn, With My Back to the Poems by Victoria Chang, and On Freedom by Timothy Snyder, who also wrote On Tyranny, which for, you know, completely mysterious reasons has been having a resurgence.
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Jeff O'Neal
Oh, how many books I sold of that back in the day as a bookseller. So, yes, anyway.
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Rebecca Schinsky
Oh, I know. Yeah, I have not read On Freedom, but I did read On Tyranny earlier this year. I really appreciated Snyder's spin on that. But since I have not picked up the other two, I don't know who to root for here. But may all of your efforts succeed. $75,000 is a big purse for a book award. What else is interesting to you here? There's a lot of categories.
- [06:28]
Jeff O'Neal
There are. I love the Open Book Award just because it is very pointedly giving some, you know, shine to. Also, again, a work of any literary genre, but specifically by an author of color. And the books on that list, I think are interesting. I had a couple. Again, I haven't actually read any of these, but the Blueprint by Regiana Rashad is one that I've had on my list, Black Women Taught Us, which is a history of black feminism. Yeah, I. Again, I don't have anybody to specifically root for here. The other two titles are Vengeance Feminism by Kali Nicole Gross, and I think the other one was Dark Delight of Being Strange. Just Black Stories of Freedom by James B. Hale iii. All seem like books I should probably be reading. And I work for $10,000, which is still great. Yeah, another one of those mayor efforts succeed. And, yeah, for reasons that are probably obvious, just seems like we all need more of this kind of reading.
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Rebecca Schinsky
Yes, we do all need more of this kind of reading. The next two that I really am always happy to see are given for debuts. The Robert W. Bingham is for the debut short story collection. It's $25,000, which tells you something about how hard it is to get a debut short story collection out there in the world. Finalists for that are Softie by Megan Howell, I'll Give youe a Reason by Enel Lopez Joppa and Other Stories by Ihioma Nwakchukwu, the Man in the Banana Trees by Marguerite Scheffer and Sad Grownups by Amy Steuber. And then there's the PEN Hemingway Award for debut novel, and the prize for that is 10,000 dol. So I just, I like that relative difference between the 10k for the novel and the 25 for debut short stories. Dead in Long Beach, California by Vanita Blackburn shows up again here. Early Sobrieties by Michael Degler, Controlled Conversations by Carol Lugoschki, the Road to the Salt Sea by Samuel Kolawole and Catalina by Carla Conejo Villa Vincenzio. Catalina, of course, was finalist or winner for a big prize last year. These have all had quite a bit of buzz. And I guess the only thing that surprised me to see Martyr by Kamara show up on this debut novel award.
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Jeff O'Neal
Absolutely.
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Rebecca Schinsky
Let's see, there's also poetry, poetry in translation. Then a translation prize in and of itself. 15k for the Diamondstein Spielvogel Award for the Art of the essay, another challenging genre to break into. And then a house fave. Here is the pen E. O. Wilson Literary science Writing Award. This one, the finalists always end up on my reading list. The Burning A History by Sunil Amrith. Playing with Reality, How Games have Shaped Our World by Kelly Clancy. All in her the Truth and Lies Early Medicine Taught Us About Women's Bodies and why It Matters Today by Elizabeth Komen. The Age of Trouble and Kinship with Our Wild Neighbors by Erica Houseware and Every Living the Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life by Jason Roberts. I have read all in Her Head by Elizabeth Komen. A book about feminism and the history of medicine as it's applied to women's bodies is just total catnip for me. And I thought it was really wonderful. Anything else here for you?
- [09:39]
Jeff O'Neal
I mean, we have one more prize here that we which is the award for biography. And that one I was actually interested to see what was going to be covered here. There is a biography of Reagan, which I was like, eh, I mean, much love to the person who wrote the book, which is Max Boot, Candy Darling Dreamer, Icon Superstar by Cynthia Carr. Charlie Hussle. The Rise and Fall of Pete Rose, which is based, you know, the Pete Rose Legend of baseball by Keith O'Brien. We are free to change. The Hannah Arendt's lesson in love and Disobedience by Lindsay Stonebridge. And then this one I did have on my list and I'm very interested. I think I own it. The Swans of Harlem, five black ballerinas, 50 years of sisterhood and the Reclamation of a Groundbreaking History by Karen Valby. Yeah, I, I love a good biography and I haven't been reading as much of it lately and this is sort of a reminder to maybe go back.
- [10:25]
Rebecca Schinsky
That one looks really terrific. And they do also. Then break out an award for nonfiction that is not any of these other nonfiction categories. We'll have a link in the Show Notes. Just rattled off a ton of titles, listeners, but if any of those sound interesting to you, you'll be able to check them out there. Vanessa We've got like some clumps of things today. We can talk about libraries and book banning. We're going to talk a little bit about Romantasy. Then we can talk about some industry trends, ways the industry might be fixed or broken. Which of those buckets do you want to dip into first?
- [10:58]
Jeff O'Neal
Let's go ahead and go straight into, you know, libraries and stuff of that nature so we can have some other interesting discussions about that and other things that may have been previewed before Rebecca and I started recording.
- [11:13]
Rebecca Schinsky
Oh, speaking of unhinged. So we will, we'll get there. We'll go to Unhinged Corner a little bit later. The ALA released its annual State of Libraries report for 2024. It is a 20 page document, so we'll have a link to it in the Show Notes. We're going to hit a few of the highlights here. Of course, the big piece that everyone turns to first when this comes out each year is the top 10 most challenged books or most banned books of the year. And there's always slight differences between the alas and then Penn accumulates banning numbers and records as well. But for ALA, the top 10 are all boys Aren't Blue, Genderqueer, the Bluest Eye and the Perks of Being a Wallflower are tied for spots three and four. Tricks by Ellen Hopkins. Looking for Alaska Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. Crank, also by Ellen Hopkins, sold by Patricia McCormick and Flamer by Mike Curado. Pretty standard mix for banned books of things that address race and things that address LGBTQ issues.
- [12:17]
Jeff O'Neal
The list is unfortunately starting to be less and less surprising, which is a real bummer. But, you know, good to see the stuff covered. George M. Johnson, man, this just and my Ecobo just oh Every single time. It's such a bummer.
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Rebecca Schinsky
I know. Just they're very consistent, at least. And we're going to talk about a study in a little bit that looked at the top. Some trends related to the top 25 most banned books. And the academics who were working with that huge data set found that those top 25 most banned books appeared in 80, 85% of banning events. So they're definitely. The interest around certain titles is really clustered. I think one of the other big findings to point out here is that in 2024, almost 72% of censorship attempts were initiated by pressure groups and by decision makers who have been swayed by them. This is basically code for Moms with Liberty.
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Jeff O'Neal
Yeah, it was really pointed to see that they were like, this is actually not as many parents as you think it is. Very much like you said, private pressure groups. And yeah, the first thing I thought, mom's for Liberty. It was nice to see those statistics broken out for people for no other reason than to, like, give folks maybe a little bit of hope that there is still room for pushback because there is still power in being able to do that, to show up and make calls and write letters and take action. It's not to say that it's not an uphill battle, but the pressure groups sitting at that percentage was a real. Not that I didn't know, because Kelly covers this very routinely, but it's still just sort of gobsmacking to see it, you know, in a pretty high chart.
- [13:48]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah, 72%. And I think that. Note that that encompasses both the pressure groups and decision makers who have been swayed by them. I want to pause on that second part there, because decision makers can be swayed in a lot of directions. And of course, if they were elected, you know, along partisan lines or they got into office because they were aligning their messaging with Moms for Liberty and with conservative, you know, far right efforts, that probably makes them difficult to sway. But we can be annoying to our local elected officials, and we should be annoying to them because they work for us. And this is one place, as you were saying, that folks can really push back. 55% of challenges were in public libraries, 38% in school libraries, 5% in schools, which I think must mean like general school curricula, not things particularly in the library, and then only 2% in higher education. But as we know, they're coming from all sides and looking to diminish accessibility to this kind of literature all the way around. There's great detail about this in the band together documentary. Some of the creators were here on the show a couple weeks ago. So if you haven't had a chance to watch the documentary yet, you can find it on streaming and go back a few weeks in the episodes here to listen to them talk about the making of the show. Was there anything else here in this report that you want to call out for listeners before we discuss? Just, you know, let them go about their merry way with it.
- [15:17]
Jeff O'Neal
Just what it. I mean, you know, the ALIE doesn't necessarily get everything right. Neither does any organization. But a thing that I was struck by while reading this is them having to sort of strike that balance between going, hey, you know, we encourage the right to vote and are not really wanting to point anything at one specific party while also having to just constantly address issues that are very specifically, more often than not coming from one side of the political spectrum. It has to be a. A challenge, even if.
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Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah.
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Jeff O'Neal
It's one that, you know, I don't necessarily like to be too sidesy about. But in reading it, it was. It was just. Yeah. Seeing how every person chose to address the fact that there weren't trying to say it's specifically one side while also saying, hey, these are the ways we've had to gird our loins and prepare our people. Once we realize the administration we were heading into, I. I found myself getting angry at times in a way that maybe was a little unreasonable given the position these folks folks sit in. But.
- [16:09]
Rebecca Schinsky
Well, also, I think it's reasonable.
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Jeff O'Neal
Yeah. I was like, I'm trying to couch my words here in ways I probably don't need to. But. Yeah, when the whole first one of the, you know, put posts about. It's a nice section about, you know, freedom to read coming under fire and it's like they're not wanting to call it out, you know, like, this is literally the party that's trying to make it so the freedom to read is under fire. And that can get frustrating. But there is still a lot of good dealings.
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Rebecca Schinsky
Had their. Yeah, they've had their funding threatened. There was a moment, I believe, last year where they were threatening to like one of the states was trying to draw up a law that would punish like any public librarian or school librarian that was a member of the aa all just all sorts of really bad shenanigans and really bad plans and pressure attempts from that side. And the thing my loins are really girded for is what these numbers look like after this year.
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Jeff O'Neal
Because this was for last year. Yeah, exactly.
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Rebecca Schinsky
Right. Of the administration with Folks, you know, really feeling emboldened and empowered by how that election went. So let's jump into that study that I was referring to. This came across my desk this week. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon and George Mason University released this study about the impact of book bans on the consumption of banned books. Books. I read the whole, like 22 page academic study. It is linked in this Today in Books piece that we'll have in the show Notes. You can look through it as well. But we pulled out some of the highlights. So they used book circulation data from a large library content and service supplies. Services supplies company that serves major public and academic libraries in the US and they identified, as I was just saying, the top 25 most banned titles. They were curious about, like, what happens to circulation of banned books after the ban happens. So they actually found that book bans increase the circulation of banned titles by 12% compared to a control group. That means that books lead to a Streisand effect or bans lead to a Streisand effect, rather than having a chilling effect on readership, really. Interestingly, this happens in both red and blue states, and it happens in states that don't have book bans either. So if a title is banned in one state, it will still see increased readership, not quite as much, but it still sees increased readership in other states where the ban is not in effect. In red states, these, like, this was really interesting to me. The circulation of a banned book increases in the red state where the book is banned, but not in other red states. It increases in blue states whether that state has book bans or not. So I think the authors, you know, didn't collect, weren't able to collect like individual data about the people that this like, the people in this mass. This like just massive amount of data that they have about circulation. But my, my hypothesis there is that the blue state folks are going to, are paying attention to this stuff and are seeking out these titles, whether bands are happening in their states or not. And then in red states, I would guess that it's the liberal folks, it's the blue people in the red states who are like, seeking out those titles. But if they're not, if they live in other red states where they're not banned, I don't think they're seeing them. The increase in readership of these titles centers on books that are related to race, gender and LGBTQ issues. That's kind of circular because as we were just saying, most of of the titles that are banned are about race, gender and LGBTQ issues. But here's. I know, right? Here's the interesting one. The book bans are exposing new readers to inclusive content. So on average, kids read banned books 19% more than the control titles after a book banning event. And these are readers that were not previously reading books with inclusive content. So like, that's that Streisand effect. At work, kids are hearing that somebody doesn't want you to read, you know, this book is gay and they are going to seek it out when they might not have sought it out before. Really interesting stuff. The authors went into this with a like, does this cause a Streisand effect or is it a chilling effect on readership? You know, they, they were able to identify that these are causal relationship. It's. It's not just correlative. So like a book ban does cause increased readership among library circulation. They weren't looking at sales. So this feels like a good time to remind folks that as Kelly says in all of her coverage of book.
- [20:47]
Jeff O'Neal
Banning, I was getting ready.
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Rebecca Schinsky
Not good for authors. Yeah, take it away, Vanessa. Get on that horse.
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Jeff O'Neal
Yeah, I was. You, you really nailed it at the end. I knew you were going to bring it back here. But, you know, I do love a backfire. Like, great to hear it. And I'm glad that this is increasing interest, but they. Book bands are never, ever, ever, ever going to be good for authors because that is a thing that we still see circulated around the Internet from time to time. It is not good for authors. It is not good for creators in general. Like, yes, it may increase a little bit of interest and that's great. We're glad that young readers in particular are hopefully wanting to engage with new content. But it is ultimately still very. It's oppressive emotionally. It's a. It hurts the bottom line. It hurts discomfortability in some places. It's just never going to be a good thing. So while we will take this, you know, backfire and yes, to some degree, you know, it ends up being the whole like that all publicity is good publicity thing to a degree. It is ultimately not like a net positive in any shape or form for authors for their books to be banned.
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Rebecca Schinsky
Exactly. And there have been a couple of studies and surveys about this. Kelly. Our colleague Kelly Jensen conducted one for Book Riot last year where she surveyed authors whose books have been banned. And they reported like, sharp drops in their invitations to schools and libraries, sharp drops in their sales number numbers. So what we see with library circulation may not be reflected in sales. And of course, all of those things are connected to each other. So one of the ways that authors who are writing books for kids and young adults get new readers is by going and doing school visits. And if schools have this chilling effect because that book has been banned in their library so they can't bring the author in, you can like it's very obvious then how that the whole ecosystem is.
- [22:27]
Jeff O'Neal
Yeah. Put under stress there and that's never good.
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Rebecca Schinsky
Right. So this might make you wonder if book bans are driving kids to have increased engagement with the exact content that these far right activists claim they're trying to protect kids from. Why do they pursue book bans? Yeah. And my first and very ungenerous thought here is. Well, for they would have to be able to read a study to know that that's what's happening. Like sincerely doubt that they know this or would believe it that their bands are actually leading people to engage with this content more. As you said, we love a backfire. But the other piece here is Follow the Money because the researchers also looked at political messaging and donations and they found that Republican politicians in red states saw about a 30% increase in their donations under $500 after book banning events.
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Jeff O'Neal
Woof.
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Rebecca Schinsky
So mm. This is a messaging that is driving fundraising for them. And you know, as the Band together documentary really gets into, like this is about consolidating political power and it's not really about the books. So I do think there's very likely a kind of mercenary thing happening here where some of these folks I think do are genuinely concerned about the content in this book, these books. And however, however wrong headed that may be. I think it's a sincerely held belief but some of them may have just identified this is a strategic opportunity because it in ra it like enlivens people's fears about things their kids are being exposed to and it's a way to drive donations and kind of who cares if the kids end up reading the books because they raised more money on the back of these book banning.
- [24:20]
Jeff O'Neal
Which is unfortunately a replicatable pattern throughout history of like pick a thing to fear monger figure monger it all the live long day, wrap it around in the politics of, you know, protecting kids etc, and then you. Yeah. So the history may not repeat itself but it sure rhymes. And it's unfortunate. I mean 30, 30 and that, that's just. Yeah. My profound commentary being Wolf.
- [24:42]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yes. Yeah. And it's that it's Those donations under $500, it's small donations likely made from, you know, the individuals. That's one of the ways that the conservative movement has been able to gain power is, you know, small donors and they've seen that this works. So that's, I'm just grateful that these folks undertook this study and wanted to find out like really what is going on here. Of course, it would be wonderful if it happened that they were all like, oh my God, more kids are reading gay books because of our bands. Guess we'll shut up now.
- [25:18]
Jeff O'Neal
If only.
- [25:18]
Rebecca Schinsky
I know it's a beautiful dream. But we'll again have the link to this in the show notes if you want to check out the whole study for yourself. They do a really nice job. I mean, it's an academic paper. So they're going to lay out exactly where they got all of their data, how they checked it. They used Goodreads and Amazon rankings to double check some things about popularity and readership. But really fascinating. More like this please. Let's get more data about what's actually going on. And then our last stop in sadly book banning corner is that the ACLU this week is suing the Defense Department over schools that the Defense Department runs. I was this many weeks old when I learned that the Defense Department runs schools. So same that is the first thing there. It's schools for that are located on military bases both in the US and abroad, but that are for the children of folks who serve in the US military. And they have more than 67,000 students in preschool through high school on military bases. Because these schools are run by the government, they have been more subject to Trump's executive orders about government, you know, because they're government institutions than public schools that are run by their states and local municipalities have been. So when he started instructing people to pull things off of shelves that were related to dei, Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense has put them into action and a whole bunch of books have been removed from these schools. But now six families have come together with the ACLU to sue, saying first that this is a violation of their students First Amendment rights. Of course, these books also center on issues of race and gender and sexuality. And the other interesting piece of this is that the parents are also saying that in addition to depriving the students to learn about important things like depriving them of opportunities to learn about things like black history and the contributions of black Americans, they are concerned that these book bans are going to negatively impact their students performance on tests. So there's a piece that's like we're concerned that they won't have the information that they need to function when they go out into the world, but in a very concrete street sense. Students who take an AP Psychology class in one of these Department of Defense run schools are no longer being taught material about gender and sex that might appear on the AP exam. So there we go.
- [28:03]
Jeff O'Neal
This is giving me flashbacks.
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Rebecca Schinsky
Succeed.
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Jeff O'Neal
Yeah, I was just gonna say this was giving me flashbacks to like, it's different but just as far as like, what happens when you don't. I was educated by Tara Westover, like showing up to like her college course at Cambridge being like, what's the Holocaust?
- [28:15]
Rebecca Schinsky
And right.
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Jeff O'Neal
Again, it's not the same thing, but it is the brass tax of it being you. You need to be educated on things in order to be a functioning member of society. And that yeah. May their efforts succeed times 12. That's yeah.
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Rebecca Schinsky
And Sarah Mirvash, who wrote this piece for the Times, notes that military members give up certain rights. Rights while they're on the job, but their children are civilians, which, you know, those kids have not opted in to an education that is less robust and that prepares them less for their future education, for their work in the real world than any other kids. And it's a real, this is a real kick in the teeth. I think that you can be making the sacrifices that serving the country in the military requires.
- [29:02]
Jeff O'Neal
And yeah.
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Rebecca Schinsky
And one of the ways that you get repaid for that is that your children get a subpar education. It's just which it doesn't have to be that way. Like, one of the other interesting piece pieces of information in this article is that historically these schools are among the highest performers on standardized metrics of education. So typically kids of military parents who are going to these Department of Defense run schools get very good education. And that is being eroded now in the name of let's just not teach them about black people and gay people.
- [29:38]
Jeff O'Neal
Which I've never understood. Like, even things that I don't like. I mean, whatever, I'm preaching to the choir if you're listening to this podcast at this point. But it's like even if you don't agree with a thing, like, I am deeply invested in knowing about it. Like if for no other reason than to have a talking point. It just seems you're limiting these kids in these schools and like you said, for the grand sacrifice of potentially serving your country, now you just don't get to have a well rounded view of everything from the way your body functions to the crucial bits of American history. And that is just woof. Once again, my profound commentary.
- [30:13]
Rebecca Schinsky
It's appalling Yeah, I know it's, we're running out of, I think actually quite a long time ago, we ran out of new ways to respond to these.
- [30:21]
Jeff O'Neal
That is absolutely how I feel like, I feel like I am not coming up with, with the words that are in my lexicon to react to these things. But I just don't, I don't know what, I don't, I don't have it other than just rolling my eyes at this microphone.
- [30:35]
Rebecca Schinsky
Right. It's, and you know, it just continues to be important to note these things and to call them out. We hear from listeners that you do want us to continue to cover.
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Jeff O'Neal
Yeah, absolutely.
- [30:45]
Rebecca Schinsky
This stuff. So again, all the links are in the show notes. If you are connected to the military, if you are in the military, if your kids are going to one of these schools, like this is also an opportunity for you to push back and to take a stand and find out how you might be able to support this lawsuit or become a part of it or just, you know, express your concern about the quality of education that these kids are getting. So let's take another break and we'll come back and do some potpourri.
- [31:24]
Marvel Studios
24 chefs 24 culinary showdowns for 24 hours straight. Which chef will out cook outpace, outlast the competition?
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Rebecca Schinsky
No chef escapes the clock.
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Marvel Studios
Season premiere 24 and 24 Last Chef Standing Sunday, April 27 today see it first on Food Network stream next day on Max.
- [31:49]
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- [32:21]
Rebecca Schinsky
All right, Vanessa, do you want to talk about AI for a minute?
- [32:27]
Jeff O'Neal
Let's talk about AI Love it. Let's talk about worthless books. That is sarcasm. Oh my gosh. Vanity Fair, who I have come to rely on so much lately for just really good long form reporting in a way that captures my frenetic attention span, has written it's. Well, specifically, Kaziah Weir wrote a post called this is how meta. AI staffers deemed more than 7 million books to have no economic value. And so. Pause right for that sentence. But yeah, the as the headline says more than a dozen lawsuits are currently in the process and newly unsealed case files have revealed the company's stance is pretty clear at this point, which is that the pirated books that Meta used to train its AI, which includes. Includes books from Jacqueline Woodson, Andrew Sean Greer and Beverly Cleary, are deemed individually worthless. Cool.
- [33:19]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah, yeah. That is the real, like, Kafkaesque or maybe MC Escher twisty logic that you have to do here. Because what they have said is they have acknowledged that Books collective were essential to the creating and training of their LLMs, that they could not have done what they did on the scale that they did it, but so quickly without. Without a ton of books, and that they had to pirate them. Their defense is that they had to pirate them because they considered, you know, having licensing talks with some publishers, but it would have just been too time consuming to make deals with all the publishers or to make deals with thousands of individual authors. So we just YOLO'd it, basically. So they needed books. They couldn't have done it without books. But in a real, like, wow, that's lawyers for you kind of moment, their argument is that while books, plural, were necessary, any individual book's presence in or absence from the model makes a negligible change to how the model functions. Therefore, any individual book is essentially worthless in their process. And because those individual books are worthless, they should not have to pay for them. So it's like, well, as Kezi Aware says in this piece, this is like the members of a symphony board saying that they shouldn't have to pay the individual orchestra members because, like, the oboe player can't play all of the parts of the Rights of Spring by themselves. Yeah, or like, I made this pizza and I stole the cheese, but I shouldn't have to pay for it because other cheese is also out there and I could have used it.
- [35:09]
Jeff O'Neal
This is like Simone Biles levels of gymnastics in reading. Like, the cyclicality of these arguments in the way that it talks about, like, yeah, the value of each individual book is the whole. I forget where in the piece it is. I think it's further down, maybe, maybe three quarters of the way they get into, like, everything you just said from, like a nitty gritty value perspective, which is like, yes, we needed this stuff and like, yes, it helps train the AI and like, yes, it's going to be smarter because of that. But, like, individually, because we're not turning around and using it to, like, write a book about the thing your book is about, your individual book has no value to us because it's not like a direct value connection. Even though throughout the piece there's multiple examples of the case files that have been like, hey, this is probably illegal. Straight up. It's like, should we do crimes and people being like, it's fine. Like, what. What are we talking about here? It.
- [36:04]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah, yeah. And this is part of like their argument is that these books fall under fair use. Fair use because they weren't transforming them and that their use of them did not impact the value of the books. So in order to try to maintain this fair use argument, they have to say these books don't have any economic value. And the way to do that is to try to come up with some formula. Right. So I'm sure they did things like, you know, if we take Lauren Groff's novel that we used out of it, does it make any difference? By itself, no. But we all like. I mean this is a legal argument and certainly not an ethical argument. As I was writing about this, like, the courts are just, just our law is so far behind. I know technology and I can't even begin to guess about how judges are going to decide these cases under the law as it currently I don't exists. Like the laws that we have today were not written with an imagination for something like this.
- [37:05]
Jeff O'Neal
Yeah. I will say the ACLU kids on the streets trying to get us all to donate. Least important look downtrodden like. And I, I don't really don't spend much time talking to them because I'm already a dope, you know, a donor to the aclu. But I one of them and I struck up a recent conversation. It's just like if you only knew the number of lawsuits like, like our. The teams are like having to field on a daily basis. Which I knew that of course, but so there's that level period. And that has to do with everything from book banning, etc. But then when you think of people working on suits, which is not the ACLU in this case. Right. This is private, but still just like the things that lawyers are having to contend with because our laws are far, are so far behind the kinds of technology that people will weasel their way into to, you know, do something like this is just like, wow.
- [37:51]
Rebecca Schinsky
I mean, we have sitting congresspeople who. One referred to AI as A one last week in a hearing. So that's where we're at A one.
- [38:02]
Jeff O'Neal
It's fine.
- [38:02]
Rebecca Schinsky
As in the steak sauce. Yeah. Everything here is. It's all fine. Yeah. Great long piece. As you were saying by Kasiah Weir in Vanity Fair. If you want to get into more of the head spinning details, and if you happen to know things about copyright law and wish to be a little birdie for us, you can email us@podcastookriot.com Vanessa let's go to Book Boyfriends and Shadow Daddies.
- [38:30]
Jeff O'Neal
I would be happy to and here's where I reveal to the the bookish listenership of this podcast. I sat down to read all of the articles we had put together in this agenda and the little kind of subtitle to this or what have you is from Book Talk to IRL Balls. These performers embody beloved characters. And I was like, oh, that's saucy. Feels normal because we're talking about you know what. And then I scroll on down like, oh balls like dances. Got it, got it, got it. But I was not phased. I was like, oh, ready? I was more just like, oh, that will work. I didn't know there was a, you know, dearth of IRL balls to contend with. But it turns out what the beast is actually about, which is we were.
- [39:12]
Rebecca Schinsky
Still doing show titles. A dearth of balls would absolutely I.
- [39:15]
Jeff O'Neal
Would have been happy to contribute that. But my mini shout outs to Deca Muldowney at the Verge, who, yeah, talked about a thing that honestly I did not not know was happening, which is this huge kind of uptick in IRL balls of events that are basically as in parties, as in parties that are IRL meetups for fans of these huge properties. Like the one that gets thrown out here the most is from the Sarah J. Vos. Oh my gosh, Court of Thorn and Roses. Yeah.
- [39:44]
Rebecca Schinsky
Acotar.
- [39:45]
Jeff O'Neal
Yes, Acotar. That's what I was about to say. I was like a guitar. Wherein yeah folks like actors basically are finding jobs and being able to go to these balls because they are a giant celebration of the book but wherein they play the characters. So like the one of the Zach Harrison who's like the first one they mentioned is there to be Cassian, the lord of bloodshed from the book from that he's a part of the the army of the Night Court. And this is in general, I like to approach stuff as like a don't yuck people's yum. And I will still stand by that even here. But I did I think Rebecca and I both agree. I was like, oh, people do things like I I don't know that I've ever gotten to a point in my fandom where I wanted to pretend pretend like I would totally go to an event themed for the thing that I love in, like, a book. But I don't know that I need to, like, push up on a dude because he is like, the character from that. Like, I think I'm okay. But again, if this is bringing people joy, like, I'm not trying to condescend. I really promise I'm not. I was just like, oh, I didn't know that was a thing that was happening. And apparently it really is. Right.
- [40:45]
Rebecca Schinsky
Like, I remembered a couple years ago there were big Bridgerton parts in a couple of the big cities. And I get that. You know, people buy their Victorian ball gowns or Regency era ball gowns and they go cosplay and they.
- [40:58]
Jeff O'Neal
Yes, absolutely.
- [40:59]
Rebecca Schinsky
Right, yeah, the cosplay thing. But this, like, I mean, the subtitle of this piece, the men cashing in on romantasy, is great. Like, first of all, get that bag. But the, like, I think this. It's a little extreme for me. Like, I did text Jeff when he wrote about this and today in books and say, I find this to be a little bit alarming. And, like, I don't want wish to yuck people's yum. I think I might yuck it a little bit because, like, it is the step, like, yeah, the step for me too far is of the. Like, these guys are paid to dress up as these characters and, like, the chance to go dance with a guy pretending to be somebody. Like, I. Yeah, I have never understood LARPing. And so that is. Is probably where. That's where I'm coming from. But also, like, ladies, I get it. Because the real options out there are not great. Like, the men are not okay and 60 of them voted for Donald Trump.
- [41:52]
Jeff O'Neal
I was gonna say there is literally a line in here that says something. You know, when they asked one of the actors, like, what do you think the appeal behind it is? And I will say the person was like, well, really concerned with making sure that, like, everything felt like a safe space. Which is like, more than I can ask for. A lot of, like, the public and also just saying, hey, you, maybe you want. Maybe your escapism is being. To be getting to be in a place where, like, the male, you know, interest for you is somebody who is not only deeply concerned with, like, your safety, but with your consent. And for those reasons, I was like, okay, cool. I still don't know that I need to be out here being like fairy daddy, but I super am into the idea of, like, getting to do your escapist thing. So, like, that is. I really, really am trying.
- [42:32]
Rebecca Schinsky
Not as a person.
- [42:33]
Jeff O'Neal
Yeah, I know.
- [42:34]
Rebecca Schinsky
Can you imagine the idea of you.
- [42:36]
Jeff O'Neal
Running into that is when you need to do a wellness check to get to one of these. Maybe I'll do it for the plot.
- [42:44]
Rebecca Schinsky
We gotta explain. To explain to Clint.
- [42:47]
Jeff O'Neal
Oh, my God.
- [42:47]
Rebecca Schinsky
Line item and expensify called fairy Daddy.
- [42:50]
Jeff O'Neal
I would. I would work for free for an hour just to get. To submit that invoice and like, wait for its approval. Yeah, it's fine.
- [42:57]
Rebecca Schinsky
Oh, man. But like, this is as to pull it up a level as you were doing when you were first. First introducing the piece. Like, this is a huge industry. Like, TikTok has caused such a boom in romantasy titles and it has spun out into all kinds of things. Like, I know that you can't go on Etsy without, you know, being inundated with stuff related. If you want to find like romantasy related goodies, the Internet is full of them for you. Like, one of these guys says that he has personally spent fifty grand on coffee costumes.
- [43:31]
Jeff O'Neal
My reaction was, what is this Drag Race? Because that, you know, so many other contestants on there have to spend so much money to like, get that Luke down. And that's apparently what's happening here. And then to connect what you said about like, this stuff just getting that kind of popular. The sports connection of like the event of the. Was it the Red Sox that are literally doing a themed night for fourth wing? Oh, my gosh. What was that? It was like they're gonna have dragon riding baseball merch. And I was like, that. That's a. That's a one liner. I wanted to pull out like. Like that's where we're at.
- [44:00]
Rebecca Schinsky
It is a lot. It's infiltrated. I guess that is where we're at.
- [44:03]
Jeff O'Neal
Yeah.
- [44:04]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah. The. Or the sports people's girlfriend, you know, they're really trying to, like, find a way to hit all four quadrants. Like, the guy who said he had spent $15,000 on costumes, including custom boots for his role, though, sometimes gets $5,000 to attend an event. So, like, you're. That's pretty good, Roi.
- [44:23]
Jeff O'Neal
You just do a few and you've got your stuff. Yeah. No, for real.
- [44:28]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah. And like, everybody at the party is happy to see you. It's. This was just fascinating to me in a real people do things way. And as Jeff would say, like, everybody just have fun out there.
- [44:38]
Jeff O'Neal
Yes. Have fun at the adult version of inviting, like the girl to be a princess at the party. At the kids thing. Like, that's kind of what this feels like. And if, again, if no one's getting hurt, go, everyone, have fun. Be safe. Do the judge thing.
- [44:52]
Rebecca Schinsky
All right, let's venture into front list foyer, which is brought to us by Thriftbooks. With millions of titles, Thriftbooks has everything that you could want. Books, DVDs, Blu Ray Discs. They have a really excellent frequent shopper. Sort of like the more that you buy, you earn points that you can then trade in for discounts against your purchase and other great goodies. So childhood classics, undiscovered adventures, something for everybody and every budget. You can read more and spend less@thriftbooks.com and as always, you can go to thriftbooks.com BRpodcast to get a running list of the titles that we talk about on the show, including these. Vanessa, you have been reading a lot lately, and I see your note here that says you'll be brief, but just.
- [45:41]
Jeff O'Neal
Tell me how this looks.
- [45:43]
Rebecca Schinsky
It looks like you're on a street.
- [45:44]
Jeff O'Neal
Yeah. I had not been in one for reasons of gone on vacation, which was great, and then coming back with a sprained and broken limb, and I just was all over the place. And I finally kind of found just a trio of things that were very catnippy. So one is the Murder at Gull's Nest by Jess Kidd. And it is a story about a woman, she's a nun who has a correspondence with somebody that used to be a patient of hers at the, like, infirmary where she was, who lives on the coast now, but they have a, like, a pen pal relationship. And she just abruptly stops receiving letters from that person. And so she literally gives up the nun life. Just says, I'm rejecting my vows. I would like out of this. And then goes to that seaside town, to this little hotel by the sea where her friend was staying to figure it out, which is a concept I was already in for because I love me like a nun on the run or like nun solving mysteries book.
- [46:31]
Rebecca Schinsky
But love a nun on the run.
- [46:32]
Jeff O'Neal
Love it. But the audiobook, which is has a nun connection, believe it or not, is read by Siobhan McSweeney, who is my favorite, one of my favorite characters on television. She played the nun on Derry Girls. And it's just like the perfect audiobook narrator I didn't know I needed. I want her to read more things so that her delivery of the story is adding, like, at least 20% to the appeal of what was already a fun time.
- [46:55]
Rebecca Schinsky
Amazing. It sounds like a murder she wrote, but yes, exactly.
- [46:59]
Jeff O'Neal
And it's. It's a Great time. The characters are really fun. And then the other one that is probably surprising, nobody if you know me, is called Murder by Cheesecake. It's by Rachel Ekstrom Courage. And this is. I don't know why I didn't beat somebody to this punch. I'm kind of mad I didn't. But somebody has. Rachel Xtrom Courage being that somebody has done a cozy mystery series featuring the Golden Girls.
- [47:21]
Rebecca Schinsky
It's just amazing.
- [47:23]
Jeff O'Neal
It's set at like a. At a St. Olaf themed wedding. And Dorothy's like a new partner ends up dead. It's like, who did it? And I'm like, I. I want to put this, this in my brain cells. Like, I cannot wait.
- [47:36]
Rebecca Schinsky
When is this coming to streaming?
- [47:38]
Jeff O'Neal
Correct. And like, can I be a part of it? Can I, can I come just watch. I just. This is every. Like, I am so jazzed that this is out in the world. Like, I've been eagerly waiting.
- [47:47]
Rebecca Schinsky
That's incredible stuff.
- [47:48]
Jeff O'Neal
Yeah. And then my last one is just one that I've been meaning to read for a bit. So it's. It's okay. It actually might have been out for a couple weeks now, so I don't know how much it count or even a month. But it's one that Erica as a fetty, who is one of our editors here at Book Riot, talked about in a piece that she wrote, says, I think I've already read like the best historical fiction book club book of the year. And I have been spending a lot of time in the last two years reading books like this, which I should say the title is Harlem Rhapsody by Victoria Christopher Murray about just books that do either fictionalizing or in nonfiction cases just to tell bits of under discovered or under under talked about. I guess black history. And this is about a woman who I definitely did not know about, but who essentially single handedly started off the Harlem Renaissance. And it's apparently like a page turner on top of just teaching you a lot about a woman that deserves to be known by name. So yeah, those are my three that I'm in the middle of.
- [48:40]
Rebecca Schinsky
Awesome. That sounds great. I saw Murder by Cheesecake and I was like, whatever that is, it's gonna be fun. But the news that it is about the Golden Girl, I just.
- [48:50]
Jeff O'Neal
So good. I'm having a great time.
- [48:52]
Rebecca Schinsky
I would wonder what kind of licensing shenanigans have to go through to make that happen.
- [48:58]
Jeff O'Neal
I would love to talk to her.
- [48:59]
Rebecca Schinsky
I'm glad she did it. No kidding. I had been on a little bit of a slump also. In fact, like I texted Jeff over the weekend about a book I was looking at that I knew he had read and was like, okay, I. I need something to break the curse, because I've, like, picked up half a dozen things and put them down. I ended up picking up searches. Selfhood in the Digital Age by Vahini Vara. And man, it is the real deal. This is the book that I didn't know I had been waiting to read about, like, AI and our relationship to everything being searchable and customizable and following us around the Internet. She was. She's about, like, almost exactly my age. So all of her references for, like, being in college when Facebook started, I think our personal evolutions with technology really aligned, which certainly helps. But this is a terrific book. No matter, like, where you. What generation you're a member of that. She was a Wall Street Journal tech reporter for a long time. She covered Facebook for a while. She covered Apple, and then she was like, let me go get an MFA in creative writing. Like, think about things from a wider lens. So this is her contemplation, like, kind of part memoir, like, contemplation of her personal relationship to. To the Internet as it has evolved, including, you know, what it is like now that. That our ads do follow us all over the Internet and that algorithms can predict a thing that you might want to buy before you know you want to buy it. And she's got these chapters of the book that then she feeds into an AI and she prints the a. The conversations that she has with the AI about her book in the book. Wow. Yeah. And the, like, the AI, she doesn't say which one it is. The AI is giving her feedback. We don't ever see her, like, modify her writing based on it. But she's. She is having a conversation with artificial intelligence about the book that she's writing that is critical in some ways of these technologies and expresses the ways that they're scary. She's also got her entire, like, Google search history. She's got. Never cleared that cache. She has her entire Amazon purchase history going back 20 years. And she looks at and she shows us pieces of that, like things that she has searched for organized alphabetically and by who, what, when, where, why. The different categories that Twitter thinks she's interested in organized alphabetically. She made this rule for herself a couple of years ago that she was going to try not to shop on Amazon, but that if she did buy something on Amazon, she had to write a review of the product, like, just to add friction and sort of de. Incentivize herself from doing it. So she prints a bunch of those reviews that are like, you know, I had to buy this thing for my kids classroom because his teacher has an Amazon wish list. And of course, if I bought it somewhere else, then it wouldn't come off the Amazon wish list and someone else might buy it. And I try not to purchase from Amazon, but, like, this box of trinkets looks like a good box of trinkets. Or I needed this in too short of a time to run out and get it somewhere else. And so I ordered it from Amazon and here it is. But like, something about the. Just like the minutia of the things we look for online and the things that we shop for and her own. Like, it felt like shaking out the junk drawer. Like, her own willingness to kind of look at her brain and her life in this way is so interesting. Like, it just made my whole. It made my whole brain feel, like, alive and tingly to be like, oh, this is what we're gonna do. Like, what the hell have I searched for over the last 20 years? And I definitely would not be brave enough to go back and look at what I was googling 20 years ago.
- [52:42]
Jeff O'Neal
Wow.
- [52:43]
Rebecca Schinsky
Or like, if I were, I would not be brave enough to publish it and share is. It is fascinating. And I'm gonna, like, make some guesses about seeing her get nominated. Like, I would not be surprised to see this get nominated for the National Book Award for nonfiction at the end of the year. It's really. It's really terrific. It's kind of hard to figure out how to talk about it, but watching her talk to herself and then talk to artificial intelligence about these things and then reckon with the impact and the potential impact of all of it. It's. It's really excellent. I've never read anything like it. And that's about the highest praise I can give. Something.
- [53:23]
Jeff O'Neal
Oh, yeah, I saw the premise of that. I was like, that is a deeply Rebecca book. And then I read more about it. I was like, ooh, I think we should probably all read this book. And you have absolutely just sold me on that.
- [53:33]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah, it's great. It's like an interrogation of big systems, but also an interrogation of herself inside the system with a side of like. Like, but we exist in these systems, and they're almost impossible to get out of. So, like, a little grace for herself. But what are we really doing here? It is like, it's so tangly, and there's, like. There's so many layers to it. It's wonderful.
- [53:53]
Jeff O'Neal
Yeah, that sounds excellent.
- [53:54]
Rebecca Schinsky
So those are front list foyer again. You can find these and everything we've talked about in frontless foyer for the last several months@thriftbooks.com BRpodcast that's our show this week. Vanessa, thank you as always for sitting in, riding in my sidecar and teaching me about Shadow Daddy.
- [54:13]
Jeff O'Neal
You're welcome. Jeff wants to come back and rehash it. I can totally do that for him too. As he crawls out of his skin, Jeff has.
- [54:21]
Rebecca Schinsky
He's developed a talent for finding links on weeks that he manages to be off the show.
- [54:27]
Jeff O'Neal
He's like, oh no, I must be gone.
- [54:31]
Rebecca Schinsky
Spicier things. The show notes will be at bookriot.com listen you can join us on the patreon@patreon.com bookriotpodcast get early ad free listening to our episodes and access to a bunch of bonus content and we will see you back here on Wednesday.
- [54:56]
Dan Souza
Hey everyone, it's Dan Souza from America's Test Kitchen. I'm super excited to let you all know that we're launching a new video podcast that takes you behind the scenes into the messy, imperfect, but riveting day to day life right here in our Test kitchen. Not only do I get to talk to my colleagues about the latest taste.
- [55:11]
Jeff O'Neal
Test they attended, I just came from a tasting of salted caramel apple pie bars and then roasted garlic. So I apologize.
- [55:19]
Dan Souza
Or about a recipe they're developing.
- [55:20]
Jeff O'Neal
The thing about this recipe is it's a secret. The restaurateur refuses to tell people what her secret ingredients are.
- [55:27]
Dan Souza
We also also chat with amazing guests from the culinary world and beyond. The lamest joke I've ever said. I said to Marie Manberg.
- [55:32]
Saeed M. Masoud
It's great.
- [55:34]
Rebecca Schinsky
Definitely sweet jokes.
- [55:35]
Dan Souza
Thanks. Make sure to subscribe to in the Test Kitchen so you don't miss an episode. You can watch in the Test Kitchen on YouTube and Spotify and listen to it wherever you get your podcasts. Can't wait to see you in the Test Kitchen.