Talking Audiobooks with Spotify & FLASHLIGHT by Susan Choi

Summary

Podcast Summary: Book Riot - The Podcast

Episode Title: Talking Audiobooks with Spotify & FLASHLIGHT by Susan Choi
Release Date: June 2, 2025
Hosts: Jeff O’Neill and Rebecca Shinsky
Guests: Katie Del Rosario (Associate Director of Audiobook Editorial, Spotify) and Sharifah Williams

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Introduction

In this episode of Book Riot - The Podcast, hosts Jeff O’Neill and Rebecca Shinsky delve into the expanding world of audiobooks with a special focus on Spotify's audiobook offerings. The episode is split into two main segments: an insightful interview with Katie Del Rosario from Spotify and a thoughtful discussion with Sharifah Williams about the highly anticipated novel Flashlight by Susan Choi.

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Segment 1: Exploring Spotify's Audiobook Landscape with Katie Del Rosario

Timestamp: [00:56] – [30:28]

Overview:
Jeff and Rebecca welcomed Katie Del Rosario, Spotify's Associate Director of Audiobook Editorial, to discuss Spotify's growing audiobook catalog, editorial strategies, and future prospects in the audiobook industry.

Key Points:

1. Spotify's Audiobook Catalog Expansion
   Katie highlighted Spotify's extensive collection of over 400,000 audiobooks available across multiple English-speaking territories, including recent expansions to France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland.

   "We have more than 400,000 audiobooks available. It's a mind-boggling number in our catalog..." ([03:06])

2. Listening Benefits for Premium Subscribers
   Spotify offers 15 hours of audiobook listening per month to its premium users in English-speaking regions and 12 hours in other territories.

   "Clients can enjoy 15 hours of audiobook listening with premium every month." ([04:42])

3. Growth and User Engagement
   Katie shared impressive growth statistics, noting a 35% year-over-year increase in listening hours. She emphasized Spotify's aim to attract casual listeners to audiobooks.

   "We've seen over 35% growth in listening hours year over year, which is super exciting." ([04:46])

4. Curating Backlist Titles
   Spotify successfully reintroduced interest in backlist and niche titles, with seven of the top ten audiobooks being backlist entries, five of which are over five years old.

   "We've really been able to breathe new life into the backlist and niche titles." ([06:12])

5. Human and Algorithmic Curation
   The platform employs a blend of human editors and algorithmic recommendations to personalize audiobook suggestions, ensuring a curated and engaging user experience.

   "It's a great blend of human efforts and algorithmic efforts." ([10:24])

6. Original Audiobooks and Innovative Features
   Spotify is venturing into original audiobook content, integrating innovative features like Follow Along, which synchronizes audiobook narration with relevant music tracks.

   "Follow Along is an immersive experience that connects audiobook narration to the music itself." ([13:08])

7. Popular Genres and Trends
   The most popular genres include spicy romance, music memoirs, and book-to-screen adaptations. Notably, spicy romance appeals to a broader audience, including an increase in male listeners.

   "Spicy romance was the third most popular genre, with male listenership growing from 9% to 15% as the content got spicier." ([15:11])

8. Editorial Goals and Future Plans
   Katie expressed hopes for the continued growth of the audiobook industry and outlined Spotify's upcoming initiatives, including the launch of the Editor’s Picks program to highlight top titles each month.

   "We're focused on building out our editorial brand and launching our new Editor's Picks program in July." ([28:55])

Notable Quotes:

• "Our goal is really to introduce audiobook listening to a super casual audience." – Katie Del Rosario ([04:46])

• "We're able to find new audiences for these titles and create new revenue streams for publishers and authors." – Katie Del Rosario ([06:26])

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Segment 2: Book Review - Flashlight by Susan Choi with Sharifah Williams

Timestamp: [30:28] – [56:55]

Overview:
Sharifah Williams shares her first impressions of Susan Choi's Flashlight, discussing the book's narrative structure, character development, and thematic elements. Jeff and Sharifah provide a candid review, highlighting both strengths and challenges encountered during their reading experience.

Key Points:

1. Initial Impressions and Narrative Structure
   Flashlight begins with a vignette of a young girl, Louisa, and her father on the coast of Japan in the late 70s, introducing a complex, non-linear narrative that oscillates between different timelines and perspectives.

   "There's a lot of moving back and forth across time and location. It's disorienting." – Jeff O’Neill ([31:02])

2. Character Development and Emotional Depth
   The book delves deep into the internal lives of its characters, particularly focusing on Louisa and her strained relationship with her mother, Anne.

   "Choi writes a beautiful sentence, but the blocks of paragraphs made it feel like I was getting through a lot more of the book than I actually was." – Sharifah Williams ([32:04])

3. Themes of Trauma and Isolation
   Central to the story is the mysterious disappearance of Louisa’s father and the ensuing emotional toll on the family, exploring themes of trauma, identity, and belonging.

   "The family dynamic is really toxic and overused, but it's not that." – Jeff O’Neill ([40:06])

4. Plot Progression and Pacing
   Both reviewers found the early portion of the book challenging due to its dense writing and fragmented storytelling but appreciated the narrative momentum as the story progressed.

   "The back half I found fairly interesting. It comes together pretty quickly at the end." – Jeff O’Neill ([44:46])

5. Cultural and Historical Context
   The novel touches upon historical events, specifically the abductions by North Korea, adding a layer of geopolitical complexity to the personal narrative.

   "We find out that the abductions were part of a historical event where people were held hostage and served as translators." – Jeff O’Neill ([46:20])

6. Emotional Impact and Conclusion
   The book culminates in a poignant and bittersweet reunion between Louisa and her father, leaving readers with a mix of closure and lingering emotional resonance.

   "It's a pretty moving and also terribly sad reunification between Louisa and her father on her deathbed." – Jeff O’Neill ([47:38])

Notable Quotes:

• "Choi has a penchant for really long paragraphs, which made it a little hard to get through." – Jeff O’Neill ([31:02])

• "Louisa's internal monologue and the dense description made the reading experience feel a bit overwhelming at times." – Sharifah Williams ([32:51])

• "It's a heavy book, and the combination of moving around a lot and these characters being isolated emotionally really made it feel like a lonely narrative." – Jeff O’Neill ([41:58])

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Conclusion

This episode of Book Riot - The Podcast offers a comprehensive look into Spotify's burgeoning role in the audiobook market through Katie Del Rosario's expert insights. Additionally, the candid review of Susan Choi's Flashlight provides potential readers with a nuanced perspective on tackling dense and emotionally complex literary works. Whether you're an audiobook enthusiast or a literary aficionado, this episode delivers valuable information and thoughtful analysis to enrich your reading and listening experiences.

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For More Information:

• Spotify Audiobooks: Explore Spotify’s extensive audiobook catalog and discover personalized recommendations by visiting bookriot.com.

• Upcoming Events: Join Jeff and Rebecca on July 9th at PALS for a discussion on the best books of the year so far. Event Link

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Note: This summary excludes all advertisement segments and non-content sections as per the episode guidelines.

Transcript

[Jeff O'Neill]

This episode is brought to you by State Farm.

[Katie Del Rosario]

Knowing you could be saving money for.

[Rebecca]

The things you really want is a great feeling.

[Katie Del Rosario]

Talk to a State Farm agent today.

[Jeff O'Neill]

To learn how you can choose to bundle and save with the personal price plan.

[Katie Del Rosario]

Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer.

[Rebecca]

Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state.

[Sharifah Williams]

On WhatsApp, no one can see or hear your personal messages.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Whether it's a voice call message or.

[Rebecca]

Sending a password to WhatsApp, it's all just this.

[Sharifah Williams]

So whether you're sharing the streaming password.

[Jeff O'Neill]

In the family chat or trading those.

[Sharifah Williams]

Late night voice messages that could basically.

[Rebecca]

Become a podcast, your personal messages stay.

[Sharifah Williams]

Between you, your friends and your family.

[Jeff O'Neill]

No one else, not even us.

[Sharifah Williams]

WhatsApp message privately with everyone welcome to.

[Jeff O'Neill]

The Book Riot Podcast. I'm Jeff o' Neill. We have two segments today. Up first, Rebecca and I talked to Katie Del Rosario who is the associate director of Audiobook editorial for Spotify, which means she works on the audiobooks that are presented, curated, listed, recommended, listened to on the Spotify platform for their listeners. Really interesting conversation there. Also in the second half of the show, Sharifah is back. She joins me to talk about one of the marquee releases of June, the summer of the year, really Flashlight by Susan Choi. Susan Choi, who of course won the National Book Award for Trust Exercise. And this is a really anticipated book. We talk about our reading experience with that book, who we think was going to like it and get into it a little bit. There's some pre spoiler discussion for those of you who don't want that, and then some spoiler discussion where we talk about what happens in the book. They're also available now and there'll be a link in the show notes bookriot.com Listen our next event at Pals, Rebecca's coming back out July 9th. We're going to be talking about the best books of the year so far over there. We have some people from PALS join us as well. You're going to hear more about that link in the show Notes. Tickets are available. Had a good time. Hope you can come out. If you made it last time, come again if you couldn't make it last time come out. That's July 9th. We'll talk more about that of course, and without further ado, let's get into the show. All right, Rebecca, who do we have today?

[Unknown]

We're joined by Katie Del Rosario. She is the associate director of Audiobooks editorial at Spotify. Katie, thanks for being with us.

[Katie Del Rosario]

Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I've heard the title twice now, Rebecca, and I still can't remember what it is. But Katie, what is your title again and what the hell do you do at Spotify?

[Katie Del Rosario]

Yeah, I'm the associate director of Audiobooks editorial at Spotify and really, you know, I lead a team of amazing editors who spend their day curating playlists. We craft thematic collections, work really closely with book publishers, and ultimately spend a lot of time reading and listening to hundreds of books a year in order to bring the best possible recommendations to Spotify's listeners and fans.

[Jeff O'Neill]

So we've been covering Spotify's audiobook forays really since the very beginning where there was listen to 15 hours as part of your premium subscription. And we've had people talk to us. Civilians in our lives are like, I can do this now. What should I listen to? And I'll be honest with you, Katie, that's kind of the extent of my knowledge of the Spotify audiobook experience. And listen, I know I'm an unusual listener because I kind of know what I'm looking for. So I go to Spotify, I got some other places I go. What else is there? What are the, what are the what, what have been the post launch things that are exciting and interesting that have gotten some traction or that, you know, you guys find really interesting for people to know about?

[Katie Del Rosario]

Yeah, sure. I mean, I think I'll start with just some high level stats if that's okay. Yes, we love, don't know, start there.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Continue there and in there. That's fine with us.

[Katie Del Rosario]

Awesome. So I mean, I think first and foremost I want to share. Our catalog is huge. We have more than 400,000 audiobooks available. It's the mind boggling number in our catalog and that's particularly for English language markets. So that's us, uk, Canada, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand. And then last fall we expanded to France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, and then just this spring to Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein and Switzerland. So we're live in a lot of territories, which is super exciting. And every time we launch a new territory, our editorial team grows, which is thrilling for me. In our English language territories, listeners can enjoy 15 hours of audiobook listening with premium, premium every month. And in France, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein and Switzerland, they can enjoy 12 hours every month, which is great.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I'm sure there's an interesting reason for that that we can't get into, but that's that's fascinating.

[Katie Del Rosario]

Correct. You know, and then I think, you know, your question of what has been most interesting and surprising about making audiobooks part of premium. I think there's a couple things. Like one, I will say, you know, our goal is really to introduce audiobook listening to a super casual audience, right. Customers who, people who aren't necessari really deep in the books world already or deep into the format already. And the goal overall is to, you know, increase listening overall. And you know, what we're showing is we're kind of, we're starting to do that, which is really exciting. So, you know, a, we've seen really strong signals that our audiobook's offering is a value add that our premium listeners want and care about. And in English language markets, We've seen over 35% growth in listening hours year over year, which is super exciting. And then I think, you know, from a content perspective, I think that one of the things that's most exciting to me is just how successful backlist listening has been. You know, I think as somebody who, I mean, I've been in the industry since 2004, so 21 years now, I think it's really rare that you have an opportunity to, you know, everyone's interested in new releases. That's what's trending on TikTok. It's, you know, very timely. But we've been able to, you know, because of our discovery driven model, we've really been able to breathe new life into the backlist and niche titles there. I mean, there's so many gems in the backlist catalog. And if you look at Wrapped last year, for example, seven of our top 10 audiobooks were backlist, which is really interesting.

[Unknown]

We're by Sarah J. Maas.

[Katie Del Rosario]

Exactly. And five of them are over five years old. So we're really able to, you know, find new audiences for this for these titles and create new revenue streams for publishers and authors.

[Rebecca]

Today's episode is brought to you by Splash Tide Publishing llc, Publisher of Bleeding Roses by April Savage. The Romans are slaughtered while trying to colonize Dacian territory. This thrusts the elite Axius and famed hero Nestor into a painful reckoning that their fallen were not killed by humans. They embark on a journey to save their beloved commander Titus and the army who undertake a mission to avenge their fallen. Axius believes the Dacian queen Vasiliki holds the key to uncovering the truth about the killers as a plot seeking to undermine Rome from within is discovered. As they confront their worst fears, they realize this bloody war is already spilling into the streets of Rome. But the beasts in Dacia want more than Rome. They want the world. So Dacia has this hidden ancient power that is able to turn humans into pure blood werewolves, and it's had this for centuries. And the Dacian Queen Vasiliki struggles to keep this power from the evil werewolf king Fenrir. So there's ancient Rome, there are werewolves. Go ahead and pick up Bleeding Roses by April Savage for all of that goodness and thanks again to splashtide Publishing LLC for sponsoring this episode. Today's episode is brought to you by 8th Note Press, publishers of Learning to Fall by Peach Morris 18 year old Casey feels stuck. Her friends are off to school, she's stuck at home caring for her mother and her trifling raggedy boyfriend cheats on her. But then the unknowing other girl, Imogen, offers an apology, friendship and introduction to the world of Roller derby. And Casey's world finally starts to look a little brighter. Casey soon joins a group of fearless teammates who aren't afraid to speak. Their minds and body slam each other, which I guess is a good quality to have in friends. Plus, she's nursing a serious crush on her magnetic new friend. The question is, will Roller Derby be a brand new start or a place to break her heart and her bones in one go? We're gonna find out. We're gonna read it. Debut author Peach Morris is a queer, non binary disabled author who, like their main character Casey, found solace in the roller derby community. I'm excited for this one y' all. Make sure to pick up Learning to Fall by Peach Morris. And thanks again to 8th Note Press for sponsoring this episode.

[Unknown]

This episode is sponsored by Life Is a Lazy Susan of Shit Sandwiches by Jennifer Welch and Angie Pumps Sullivan. Stick around after the show to hear an excerpt audiobook provided by Hanover Square Press from the hosts of the hit podcast I've had it comes a bold, hilarious guide to navigating life's challenges with humor, resilience and hope through raw honesty and sharp wit. Jennifer Welch and Angie Pumps Sullivan share the lessons they've learned tackling addiction, heartbreak and self doubt together. Part memoir, part survival guide, their book is packed with wisdom and laughs to help you find joy and connection no matter what life throws at you. This is about how friendship is a lifeline. Jennifer Welch and Angie Sullivan share how their decades long friendship helps them navigate life's toughest challenges. The book blends candid personal stories with sharp wit and offers a refreshing and relatable take on overcoming chaos in the day to Day again. Stick around after the show to hear an excerpt from the audiobook edition of Life Is a Lazy Susan of Shit Sandwiches by Jennifer Welch and Angie Pumps Sullivan. That's been one of the most interesting things to me as a Spotify user for all of my things is pulling up my Spotify app and getting the audiobook recommendations and seeing like, either Spotify really, really knows me, which I think Spotify really does, or they're making some targeted efforts to highlight certain titles. Are you all finding backlist titles that you're pulling forward, or is that more of a passive Users are going towards some of those. You got the bump from ACOTAR being big everywhere, so it was big on your bestseller list. Like, how's that working in terms of curation?

[Katie Del Rosario]

Yeah, I mean, I think it's a little bit of both, to be honest. You know, I mean, I think when. When we think about algorithm, we think, you know, we really have a great blend of kind of human efforts and algorithmic efforts. Right. I mean, obviously we do leverage the power of algorithms to personalize recommendations based on your listening history and preferences. But it's so important for Spotify to have the human touch of editors. And you see that across all content types, music, podcasts and audiobooks. And we, you know, our expert editors are constantly curating playlists, crafting those collections and finding hidden gems. And I mean, all of us, you know, many, I would say most of us come from the industry. And so we're really keen to share the books that we love and that we think our customers are going to love. So we're constantly, you know, digging through our whole catalog and trying to make it shine.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Do you hear from listen, like, so you see all the data on the back end, who's listening to what, you know, what's trending, listen through rates, all that kind of stuff. Do you have other avenues for listeners to give you feedback for Spotify audiobooks? Like, how do you know what you should be working on next? Or how do you know what is awesome? Or maybe what could be some tweaks in terms of the listener experience?

[Katie Del Rosario]

I mean, I think for us, it's that magic combination of, like, paying attention to industry trends and publishers and the data. Right. I mean, it's really. I, you know, we call ourselves editors, but my team, we often think of ourselves as booksellers. Right. And so I think it's that we bring kind of that same magic that I think great booksellers have into the equation. Right. And we're really, you know, what's trending on TikTok. What are our publishers talking about? What are they excited about? Everyone's, you know, reading and listening to kind of industry news and trends and bringing those together in a great way to kind of figure out where we should pay attention.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I think, too. Another thing that's interesting is that Spotify has some of its own original audiobooks and original sort of things that go on. How do you navigate that? Do you see that those perform? I mean, you know, use qualitative rather than quantitative. Rebecca and I will say quantitative, but we also understand that can be dicey. But talk about how. I don't know if your team chooses and how you source those, but that whole process of becoming a de facto audio publisher as well for some time, that's fascinating.

[Katie Del Rosario]

Yeah, I mean, you know, that work does sit on a different team. Spotify Audiobooks is kind of its own embedded kind of little mini publishing company within our broader Audiobooks team. We're really excited about that content. I think it. You. It gives us a lot of. A lot of chances to take a chance on something editorially. Right. In a really exciting way. I think one of the great examples recently, just last week, that in house audiobook imprint released 51 titles from Bloomsbury's iconic 33 and a third series. It's a collection of short books, which is an awesome.

[Jeff O'Neill]

It's an awesome series. Can you say what that is? Because it's really good for this kind of listener that listens to podcasts. Podcast, frankly. It's like podcasts.

[Katie Del Rosario]

Yeah. It's this amazing series of books that really take a deep dive. Not so much on the artist, but on a particular album, you know, so for example, you might really deep dive for a couple hours into Jagged Little Pill. And so it's just a really great way to bridge that gap between music listening and audiobook listening. And this series is so cool. First of all, the beautifully designed covers is just released last week. You can find it on our. On our audiobook storefront. I think that's really cool is that we've kind of infused it with some new product experiences that we're trying out. So in this case, these to some select titles from that series include a feature called Follow Along. It's this immersive experience that we've been testing that now connects audiobook narration to the music itself. So as listeners are listening, that track or album actually appears in the now play.

[Jeff O'Neill]

It's sort of magic.

[Katie Del Rosario]

Listeners can easily save it.

[Unknown]

That's wonderful. We were just on the show we recorded yesterday talking about some new book. Oh, I think it Was Time about Deep Cuts by Holly Brickley, which has a ton of music built into it. And like, I wish that I could listen to this on audio and get snippets of the book or snippets of those songs that the characters are talking about pulled in. That's so exciting. And I'll just plug for listeners, if you are not familiar with the 33 and a third series, you might have seen them like in Little Spinners at your independent bookstore, but they are so much fun. And Jeff, they do have one about Garth Brooks in the Life of Chris Gaines.

[Jeff O'Neill]

How many do you have? Do you have? Do you buy them just to keep them around the house or what do you do? I'm.

[Unknown]

I'm probably responsible for most of the sales.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Also. Sidebar within the sidebar, awesome Father's Day gifts. If you, if you have a music lover, dad, uncle sort of situation, you can go pick out. I'm sure you know something that's there.

[Unknown]

That's so cool. Katie, you were talking about finding some of the hidden gems that, especially in Backlist, like we all have seen, that Romantasy's recent backlist has been really popped. What are some of the other hidden gems that you've seen, you know, be discovered by listeners or that you all have found and put in front of your listeners lately?

[Katie Del Rosario]

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, the biggest story for us right now is spicy romance. You may have seen. We ran a beautiful spicy audiobook campaign back in February that was the third most popular genre across Spotify audiobooks last year. And I think, you know, the thing that's really fascinating about the performance of Spicee books to me is that while women may be 80% of that listenership, the spicier it gets kind of male listenership grows. What we're seeing is, you know, men make up about 9% of regular romance listenership, but kind of when it gets spicy, it's closer to 15, which has been really interesting and a really fun opportunity to think about merchandising and a.

[Unknown]

Sociology thesis that someone should write.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Can I throw a hypo? Can I throw a hypothesis at you, too, and see what you think about that? Just a quick one. This is my I haven't thought about this, but for 10 seconds I wonder, because if 4th Wing and the Moss counts as spicy romance. And Katie, you can tell me if it does, that men are picking that up because it's just trending. Like my brother picked up Fourth wing because everyone's Talking about it now, was it because it's spicier or spicier sort of has broken through to a more general audience, which was going to pick up a few more dudes. That's my theory. Katie, what do you think about that?

[Katie Del Rosario]

I think it's that, but I also, I also think there's that through line with fantasy. Right. I mean, at the end of the day it's spicy, but it's also some, some just great fantasy writing and world building. And I think that gets people excited to kind of bring together those two facets into one great series. And I mean, Sarah, that acotar is just incredibly bingeable, which I think helps too. I think.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, you've got 5,000 hours of audio ahead of you. If you get, get cracking on. On one of those. Rebecca, we were talking. Oh, go ahead, you. I had another.

[Unknown]

I was just saying. So you said spicy romance was the third most popular. Popular category. I'm wondering about the first couple.

[Katie Del Rosario]

You know, I don't have that answer in front of me, but I can, I can share a couple other areas that are really popping. One, of course, is music memoirs, which I think is, you know, with everything we've been talking about and our, and our music kind of listenership, that's no surprise. You know, when we look at like we're promoting like Vano Surrender or the Autobiography of Gucci Mane, if we can kind of link that to people who are listening to that artist's music, we can see upwards of like 400% plus average consumption. And we've seen music memoirs like, like mark Hoppus's Fahrenheit 182, which just came out. It really resonates with younger audiences, which is really nice. And male audiences. Right. Like that listenership on that title is something, something like 89% millennial and predominantly male. And then of course, book to screen, any kind of book to screen adaptation.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Is that right? Is that still working? I wondered about that recently because in the print sales I don't see it pop as often, but sometimes it's a different ISBN. It's a little hard to see, but you're seeing it on that on your side.

[Katie Del Rosario]

Yeah, I mean, again, going back to wrapped last year, something, I think 66% of our top 100 audiobooks just in the US either have been greenlit or already adapted for TV or movie. And then recently, you know, when the, when the new trailer for the Summer I Turned Pretty just dropped, which we're super excited about that final season, we saw a 380p.6% uptick in listenership for that book that week, which is amazing.

[Unknown]

That's super interesting. That's much higher than I would have expected. That's really great.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, yeah, we don't see those, Rebecca, because a. We don't have a circana. We should talk to the. Our management about that.

[Unknown]

We're not plugged into the matrix.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. But also since they're not front list backlist, you know, that doesn't show up on a lot of the bestselling charts because it's ineligible. So that can be difficult to see on that side too.

[Unknown]

You know, it kind of takes me to one of the questions that I had. I was at the Publisher's Weekly book show last spring when there was a rep from Spotify who gave a really interesting presentation about what was going on with audiobooks. The premium offering was still relatively new, and so it was really fun to get stats about how that was looking at the early parts. But he was talking about the crossover recommendation potential and being able to look at music and podcasts and then recommend audiobooks in to listeners for those kinds of things. I imagine editorial is doing some of that as well. So, like, do you have particular, like, music to book recs that y' all are thinking about or podcast to book recommendations that you're making?

[Katie Del Rosario]

Yeah, I mean, I would say it's something that's constantly on our mind and every feature that we're creating, we're thinking about making those connections. I think, obviously, as we mentioned, 33 and a third has been the big recent example of that. The thing that I thought was so cool is that we actually engaged with Spotify's music editorial team to introduce videos of those experts talking about the significance of the album featured in a particular book. So it was really fun to engage with that team really closely, to kind of draw in those connections between music and audiobooks. But again, recently, we were just, just last week celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Pride and Prejudice film. We put together a beautiful collection that featured the film soundtrack and the book and some podcast opportunities. So, you know, if we work really closely together, we have a biweekly, I think, leadership meeting with, with all of the leads editors from each of the team. So I think all of us are really keen to. To work together and draw those parallels for our listeners because we know kind of it's all about, you know, if we can draw those connections between disparate pieces of content, I think it's something really special that Spotify is able to do.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Fun fact that audio, that album, the 2005 Pride and Prejudice soundtrack is my number one rap from last year because we put it on all the time when we're working and listening and reading. And it's our kind of our stimulating but ignorable no Shade soundtrack that we put on. My daughter listens to it. We put it on all the time. So that's an interesting one there.

[Unknown]

No, I'm super interested in also, you know, like, you're talking about music, memoirs being successful, but I wonder about like, do you have specific, like people who really like this popular podcast? We've given them this book recommendation. Are you, are you doing matchmaking like that?

[Katie Del Rosario]

Typically, we're not, we're not being that granular. We're kind of trying to find the wider trends and trying to kind of provide those topical paths to, so to speak, for, you know, if people are interested in this kind of bucket of information, how to kind of like navigate them deeper into the catalog. I think especially because our customer base is so casual and we're still relatively new and finding those new listeners, often it's, you know, we're trying to go for that broad awareness as much as.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Possible, I guess I have a related question which is in terms of, I don't, I'm sure you have your internal KPIs and that's, that's for you guys. But like, in terms of what you're trying to do, is it to get people who aren't listening to audiobooks to listen to it at all? Is it to try to get people who are listening to some to listen to more? Is it all of that? Because I'd imagine those are sort of different tactics and strategies you'd employ. How does that mix work out in terms of converting a music only or podcast only listener to audiobooks versus getting an audiobooks person to continue or buy more, do something else on the platform?

[Katie Del Rosario]

Yeah, I mean, I would say our absolute primary goal is to introduce audiobook listening to a new audience.

[Jeff O'Neill]

So zero to one. Just to get someone to try.

[Katie Del Rosario]

Zero to one.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. Okay.

[Katie Del Rosario]

Yeah, but, but I mean, of course we want people to all, you know, it's healthiest if those customers come back.

[Rebecca]

Right.

[Katie Del Rosario]

And continue to listen to audiobooks with us. So I think, you know, that's something that we're thinking about a lot is what is that? Right. Balance. Especially when you think about you kind of running a digital storefront, right. Where you are merchandising to that wide group of listeners. You want to make sure that you're, you're going after that broad awareness content enough that you're drawing in those first time customers, making sure that they're regularly seeing those touchpoint books they're hearing about on TikTok, on social media or in the news, but then also making sure that it feels like a bookish space. Right. That that's run by people who understand the industry and know what's hot and, and know what everyone's talking about. So it definitely is a constant balance, particularly for a team of heavy readers.

[Unknown]

I bet. Yeah, that was going to be. My question is if you've seen particular titles or particular genres that have been better for converting folks from that zero to one place.

[Katie Del Rosario]

I don't know if I have that information right in front of me. I may, I may again tap in Caitlin. I don't know if she has that. I think, you know, when it comes to conversion, I think it's the same trends that we've been talking about. It's a lot of what we've seen, right. I mean, media, those media tie ins, those are popping because they are of interest to that broad audience. It's something that is great for a first time listener, particularly if there's a, if there's a celebrity narrator involved.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Right.

[Katie Del Rosario]

I mean, that's a question we get asked a lot is if I've never listened to an audiobook, where's a great place to start? And often I will suggest, you know, a celebrity narrator is often a great. Yeah, I don't know, Caitlin, if you have.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I've said for a long time that a memoir narrated by that writer is like the canonical experience of that, you know, and if you find it, I think that it's hard too, because Rebecca and I have talked about this in the past, that the sort of general nonfiction category is not something you read in school. Right. You don't get. We used to use Born a Crime by Trevor Noah as the prime example. Like that's a kind of a book a lot of people would like and fantastic on audio. And that's the main thing. It's, it's unbelievable on audio free wreck for all of you out there. But you have to sort of discover that on your own later. Right? It's not on the syllabus. You don't, what is this? What am I supposed to do with this? And if you have an audio example like that, you're gonna find more like Memoirs by comedians is one of my favorite genres. And I only do an audio because that's the best way to do it. But I think that's part of the conversion process as well. Not just the audiobook exists that like, there's a special magic to some kinds of audiobooks. Right. They have their own pleasures. And I'd imagine you're trying to think not just is this a genre or a trending thing, but is this a good audio experience? Like, how much are you distinguishing between a trend versus, like, actually this, this audiobook itself is awesome.

[Katie Del Rosario]

That's such a good question and a really great point and I think is absolutely at the heart of what my team is doing. Because like I said, you know, we, we are paying attention to the wider industry. We're talking to our publishing partners. Obviously, we want to make sure that if a customer comes to the store looking for a book club pick or something, for example. Right. That everyone's talking about that they find that. But what is really exciting to us are those really, really special moments. Right. Is there music? Are there sound effects? What is it about this audio experience that really, really makes it sing? The one that I think about, the book that I think about a lot is the Water Dancer, narrated by Joe Morton. And you know, that was an Oprah's Book Club pick.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. The Coates for people listening. That's Taniasi Coates book.

[Katie Del Rosario]

Exactly. And Joe Morton sings during that book. And nobody really talked about it, even though it was a book club pick. But that, you know, everyone was talking about the story rightfully so. It's an amazing story. But Joe Morton's performance is just so beautiful. And it was such this unexpected gem. And I look for moments like that a lot. What is it that really makes the audiobook in particular shine and be a really special product?

[Jeff O'Neill]

So are publishers feeding those tips to you? Like how? I mean, because just I'm going to use one example here. I was interviewing Amal Al Mohtar about her new book, the River Has Roots, and she and her sister sing in it because it's about sisters who sing. And I wouldn't have known that unless I was just freaking talk into like that's kind of a hard moment of discovery, Katie. Like, how do you find out about that stuff?

[Katie Del Rosario]

A lot I will say. I mean, our publishing reps are great. I mean, and I most.

[Jeff O'Neill]

You're getting some publishers are feeding you. Okay, cool. Cool.

[Katie Del Rosario]

Yes. I mean, our sales reps, you know, particularly in the audiobook space, they're so passionate about what they do. Right. And having worked with them for a while now when, when audiobooks were still kind of like up and coming. Right. And they were the Underdogs a little bit. They're so passionate about the format and they want the format to be special and to shine. But a lot of it is just deep listening to the honest. I mean, my team, we block out hours of our week for dedicated listening time, Right. And it's something that we're encouraged to do. It's something that, you know, you can, you can actually dig up similar articles with interviews from the music team where they block out time to listen to music tracks as well. So we do something very similar on our side, Fridays are really blocked out for listening, and our team is, I mean, deep in the weeds listening to hundreds of hundreds of hours of audiobooks every month.

[Jeff O'Neill]

JEFFREY R. Rebecca, I have 10 questions about that. But before you do that, do what else did you have in the chamber?

[Unknown]

Well, I was just going to ask about other, you know, big recommendations, personal favorites of yours. Like in that space where the audiobook is a really special experience, like one that Jeff and I share is Heartbreak by Florence Williams, Right. Where folks, if you haven't heard us talk about the this before, she's like, coming out of a surprise divorce from a long marriage and trying to process the science of heartbreak, but also incorporates her own audio journals and puts her phone on the table and records conversations with friends at dinner, conversations with her therapist or talking to herself as she's kayaking through the Grand Canyon. And you get to hear all of that in the audiobook in a way that is a totally singular and different experience from what reading it in print would be like. And that's just one of our signal examples.

[Katie Del Rosario]

I agree that audiobook is incredible. Yeah. And I that's one that I personally do recommend a lot. You know, some of a couple of my favorites. One is as actually Stephen King's Pet Sematary, which is read by Michael C. Hall, obviously, like Michael C. Voice, but. Right. So if you enjoy Dexter, I think, like, this is a great way in for either a casual listener if you've never listened to audiobook, because if you like Dexter, I mean, it's classic Stephen King and his performance is masterful. It's such a joy. And then on the nonfiction side, I would say Clanlands, which is written and read by Sam Heugan and Graham McTavish of Outlander fame, among many other things. And it's just this travel account of them bashing around Scotland. Their banter between the two of them is amazing and it's just a lot of fun. It's relatively short listen and just a.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Great joy will get you out in this direction. Katie, what are. If you could make anything, if you could do anything, if you could tell people anything, like what's next, what are your hopes and dreams for the audiobook space, whether or not it's sort of Spotify centric or not?

[Katie Del Rosario]

Oh, that's such a good question. I mean, first and foremost, I want the audiobook industry to continue to grow and thrive. I think we're in such a special time for audiobooks right now. I love that. You know, it's. I don't. I'm hesitant to call it a moment because it feels more than a moment.

[Jeff O'Neill]

It's been a decade. I mean, it's really been a decade. IPhone plus Audible. I mean, sorry for a competitor, but they got the train going.

[Katie Del Rosario]

And personally, I've spent my career focused on books for reluctant readers. And so I really naturally see audiobooks as a progressive through line for that work. And it's something that I'm really excited about for our team. You know, we are really focused in this next year about building out our editorial brand. We want to be more visible kind of within the books industry and just within the wider kind of cultural conversation. We are getting ready to launch our new Editor's Picks program, which I couldn't be more excited about, that's coming in July. It's really just kind of a program meant, you know, to look at the collective passion and knowledge of our team. We're going to select a handful, you know, 10 to 15 titles a month that we just think are going to be really relevant and interesting to our readers. So I'm really excited about that. And we're looking for, you know, what other programs can we continue to kind of look at and expand upon to really drive awareness of our team and the work that we're doing here at Spotify.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Thanks, Katie. That's a pretty great spot to end. Thank you for joining us. And maybe we'll have to get you back on sometime to give us some recs because now I'm going to go check out this Outlander thing. This. This is my disease now. I have to go listen to that. Thank you so much, Katie.

[Unknown]

Thanks, Katie.

[Katie Del Rosario]

Thank you so much for having me. This was great. It was so nice to meet you.

[Jeff O'Neill]

All right, Sharifah Williams is here with me to discuss Flashlight by Susan Choi, one of the most anticipated books of June for sure of the summer and really the year, I think, coming off trust exercise and the National Book Award win. Srifa, I know you were looking forward to Flashlight. What was your previous Susan Choi reading Experience.

[Sharifah Williams]

This was my first Susan Choi reading experience. Yeah, I had heard a lot about Trust Exercise and it was one of those books that was forever on my list of tbr, but I never got around to it. So I was really excited to find out what she was all about.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, I read Trust Exercise after it won the National Book Award. And I think I've said on the show it wasn't for me. I didn't particularly care for it. There were some dynamics at it, but there was also something about the writing. I don't even know style, but writing decisions. And I think this is actually at play a little bit in Flashlight. I'll speak for myself and you can chime in here. The first third of the book I found kind of hard to get through, to be perfect. Perfectly honest. A combination of factors. And tell me if you know which if any of these resonated with you. One is it moves around quite a bit and there are no chapter heading signposts about what character is speaking where you are in space and time. And there's a lot of moving back and forth across time and location. So it's disorienting. And Choi has a penchant for really long paragraphs, really long, dense paragraphs. And I think it's the combination of those two things that frankly made it a little hard to get through. Is it was that. How was your. I know you had a harder time. I know you had a hard time too. So I'm stacking the deck a little bit.

[Sharifah Williams]

Yeah. Yeah. I did have some difficulty and it was some of the denseness. Like I love the internal lives of characters, but I think that it would. It was a touch more than I needed here. And some of that dental feeling of the book. The writing was about that internal world monologuing description. I love the writing style. I will say I was. I think that Choi writes a beautiful sentence, but I agree the paragraph, the blocks and blocks of paragraphs perhaps made it feel like I was getting through a lot more of the book than I actually was.

[Rebecca]

Today's episode is brought to you by Caitlin Rosakis, the New York Times bestselling author of Dreadful and the newer the Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association. Now, when Vivian's kindergartner aria gets bitten by a werewolf. Yes, a werewolf. She is rapidly inducted into the hidden community of magical schools. Reeling from their sudden move, Vivian finds herself having to pick the right sacrificial dagger for area keep stocked up on chew toys and play PT politics with sirens and chthonic nymphs. And people who literally can set her hair on fire. As Vivian careens from hellhounds in the school corridors to demons at the talent show, as one does, she races to keep up with all the arcane secrets of her new society and the eternal inferno that is the parents WhatsApp group. Now this sounds like a super fun time. Last year, Caitlyn's debut high fantasy farce, Dreadful was a New York Times bestseller and it was selected as Barnes and Noble's speculative fiction pick of the month. So get in on this fun. Pick up the Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher association and thanks again to Caitlin Rosakis for sponsoring this episode. Today's episode is brought to you by Sony Pictures Classics. Presenting Jane Austen Wrecked My Life so Jane Austen Wreck My Life is starring Camille Rutherford. It's a new romantic comedy about a Parisian woman who dreams of becoming a successful writer and experiencing true love while attending a Jane Austen writer's residency in England. It is all types of like cozy, bookish, rom com y goodness and I think I feel like we need that right now. Jane Austen Wrecked My Life is now playing in select cities and opens nationwide May 30th. For more information and tickets, visit janeaustin wrecked my life.com Again, that's jane austenwreckedmylife.com thanks again to Sony Pictures Classics for sponsoring this episode.

[Jeff O'Neill]

So maybe we should back up for a second, see what the book's actually about. So it starts out the titular flashlight. There is a and I talked to Susan Choi on First Edition and I think that will be coming out right around the same time this comes out because this is June 3rd. And so if you're just there, the sort of beginning vignette did start out as a short story of this young girl and her father walking on the coast and he disappears on the coast of Japan in the late 70s. They are visiting from back from the US so it's a cross generational immigration story of Japan, Korea and the US and we move back and forth in time. We're not going to get to all the many layers of it, but this is the opening sequence and this young woman, this girl really, I think she's 10 or something at the time. Luisa is not our point of view character, but she is the hub of the wheel and there's spokes kind of shooting out here, a father being a main one. And then this opening sequence is actually, I thought, pretty great where it's this character who has had this traumatic experience. She's overseas and then back home in the US and she's not having a good time and she's talking to this court appointed or school board appointed counselor about her acting out. And we get Choi doing something which is very difficult to do, which is to write an interesting, complicated and accurate child's pov. And I think she does a pretty good job of that in the beginning.

[Sharifah Williams]

Yeah, I agree. I really loved the way Louisa in particular was depicted in childhood. And this whole scene with the therapist was just so cringe. Like, you feel for the therapist who has this really precocious, intelligent, and he's trying his best.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Right. I kind of admired his efforts. Right. Like, he was trying the tricks and he knows what it's. There's a bit of. I know that you know that. I know that you know that this is sort of a dumb show, but I also have to do the thing, you know.

[Sharifah Williams]

Exactly. And then there's this, like, you know, of course, Louise has been through this terrible traumatic experience. So you also feel for her because you're like, why would she want to talk to this person? Like, what is she going to get out of this? She's already been through so much. She's been moved from this place she was just starting to learn to call home. And it's just like such a great. Like, that was one of. I think that was a standout scene. I think so too, in the book for me.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And, you know, and she's dealing with this horrible loss and there's nothing to do really for her but therapy. But you also know in those moments that, like, this isn't going to help. Like, it doesn't seem like there's any possibility of this helping. And I guess I'm not. I thought we might just follow Louisa through her life. I'm trying to remember what I was feeling at this moment. We're gonna follow her, grow up. We're gonna stick there. Because it is marketed as a literary mystery. Choice says it's a literary mystery, but it's a literary mystery. Not, not, not a mystery that happens to be literary. And that meaning it doesn't have the. Rebecca and I talked about this, I think on the IT Books episode where I said it doesn't have the promise necessarily that you're going to figure out what happened to this guy, her dad. That is a central. It is a mystery in the book. And it. We're going to do a little spoiler talk in a minute. So I don't give anything away, but it does promise more of the mystery elements being central than some other kind of literary books where Something happens. You never know. Or you're like, you and I reading this book and having read a lot of literary novels before, we are not expecting necessarily get an answer, what happened to her dad. Maybe we will, maybe we won't, but we're not expecting that. And then from there, I think the thing that's a little disorienting and I got my feet. I got my feet under me about halfway through, to be honest with you, is we follow the characters. We follow, you know, how we know where Louisa came from. We know her dad came from, we know her mom came from. There's a secret half brother situation going. I mean, it. I don't want to get too much of the plot details, but. But part of it is. I think the central part is, is Choi following these characters through their lives. And some of it is in the backlash or the after effects of this disappearance. But a lot of it actually isn't about that. Sharif. And I think that's one of the other things I was having a hard time figuring out is like, is this about this guy's disappearance or isn't it? And I think the answer is kind of yes to both of it's like, it is, and it isn't about that. Which is interesting, but maybe a little more difficult to parse than I was expecting.

[Sharifah Williams]

Yeah, I think it's a really interesting. The piece about this being marketed as a mystery really stood out for me because I think what I expected, and this is not the fault of the book, but I was anticipating more of the mystery element interspersed in the book. But when it started to feel more like a character study or character studies of sorts, like, I think my expectations were a little bit confounded and I found myself uncertain of what I was reading and moving toward. And between that and the pacing being a little bit slower than I expected, I think that's where I sort of had some tension with my reading experience.

[Jeff O'Neill]

That's a euphemism for just tough sledding for a little while. I think that's true. And I said to Rebecca, and I'll say it here again, I think there's a version of this book that I myself find considerably more entertaining, compelling, page turner y. If it's 90 pages shorter, it's a big book. It's 464 pages. It's clocking at 350. And maybe some of these chapters are a little bit shorter. Maybe some of the. Again, I don't want to be anyone's editor, but from a reading experience, it doesn't read Like a God of the woods or a Rebecca Mackay or something like that. It's a little more on rails again. Again, those are more mysteries with a literary quality. This is the other way around. And Choi says that the mystery itself came a little bit later because she was interested in writing about this time. She herself, as a young person spent a couple years outside of the country. And I'm not going to spoil kind of who is where, but this was an interesting experience for her and then coming back. And the other thing that affects the book and it becomes a part of the book, is how isolated these characters are from each other. Like the fam. The central family system here is estranged even before the dad disappears. And he and Anne, I believe, is Louise's mom. And Louise, louisa, well, she's 10. So like 10 year olds, you can't. They're 10. There's not much expecting, but as she and her mom grow up and go through their lives, they. They grow apart in a way that's pretty toxic, is overused. I don't think it's that, but it's not not that. And a lot of the book is about that. And so the combination of it moving around a lot and these characters being isolated emotionally and physically and temporally from different sections, it felt kind of like a lonely ass book, I'll say, for a lot of it. And that being. And it being long, I found myself feeling that. And I'm not sure that wasn't intended, frankly, but it was definitely one of my experiences.

[Sharifah Williams]

Yeah, I mean, we're not getting into spoilers, but there's one character, Tobias, who is kind of was the only sort of relief from a lot of miserable characters. Like they were the situation between. I mean, as a mom myself, like the situation between Luisa and Anne was so hard. Like reading about that relationship and feeling like there's no end to the sort of animosity they have toward each other. First Luisa and then Anne sort of develops this over time. But then there's Tobias, who's almost like the extreme other side of it, where he's almost like. I don't want to say gormless, but.

[Jeff O'Neill]

A little bit like he's like shockingly well adjusted considering his situation. I mean, on the whole, you keep expecting to be a creep and he's not.

[Sharifah Williams]

Yeah, yeah, he is. It was so funny because I did expect something to be revealed.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yes.

[Sharifah Williams]

But he is just this character who's, you know, living his life the way he chooses to, even though it is completely unconventional, perhaps not healthy, but also like Trying to toe this line between being a foreigner in a different country and not like overstepping. He's a really interesting character, but he was kind of my only respite from these characters who seemed really unhappy with their lives. And that was also really. It was heavy. It was heavy.

[Jeff O'Neill]

It's a heavy book. I mean, we haven't talked about it, but it is a heavy book. There's no doubt about it. I did find myself, when we got a Tobias section, feeling some relief. I think you put it well there. And I wonder, in different choices that could be made about this particular story, is there a version of the story where he's the POV character that has some of the weight and complication and pain, but told through sort of, because he's an outsider? I mean, again, we're four minutes away from getting to a more spoiler filled discussion. But he comes to it with a different sensibility. He doesn't have all the, as my parents who say, old pizza, like this old pizza in these people's relationships, like it's in the fridge, it's no good anymore, but you can't throw it out, right, that old pizza. And so he can come with a. A refreshing sort of dynamic that I think both Louisa and her mom appreciate in their own ways. And they come to think of him as quite, well, just qualitative evaluations ago. By the end, I quite like the book. I'd say I like the book pretty well. I find it a little bit difficult to recommend just knowing that I found the first 120 pages to be difficult to get through. I understand it's not difficult in terms of understanding, but, you know, it's the thing I always say there's two kinds of reading experience. Ones where you think about turning the pages and one, you don't. And the ones where you don't think about turning pages you're just going through. And this one I had to think about how many pages did I read like you said, like, boy, I thought I made through that. But the back half I found fairly interesting. It comes together pretty quickly at the end and I found that pretty cool. Do you want to say anything before we spoiler about the totality of your reading experience?

[Sharifah Williams]

Yeah, I actually pointedly noted, like, there was a specific moment in the book where I was like, okay, this is picking up.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Okay, we'll get to that. Spoilers. But okay, so there was a moment. Interesting. I wonder what that was.

[Sharifah Williams]

And it was like, like 76% of the way.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Oh, yeah. I mean, that's about Right. I feel the same way. Kind of the last third to a quarter. Yeah, definitely.

[Sharifah Williams]

And it's one of those experiences where I'm like, well, normally I probably would have DNF'd this book. And now I'm like, oh, my goodness, what other books did I miss out on?

[Katie Del Rosario]

Like the last.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Because you're on the hook to talk about with me for 25 minutes. Like all the hours that you are on the hook for. Yeah. So there's our review. I'd say mixed to positive from both of us or with a caveat, maybe positive with the caveat of that first section. Okay. If you don't want to know what happens at the end of Flashlight by Susan Choi, thank you so much for listening. You can find all the show notes in the place you're used to. All right, here we go. So we do find out what happened to Louise's father. And it's part of this actual historical event, a series of abductions by North Korea of who they thought were South Koreans. I'd say off the coast or in the water in boats in the late 70s. And these people got captured and were held hostage and served as translators and sort of in intelligence assets. Just sort of regular ass people, which is wild. And. And Tobias. I think another reason we find some more warmness towards Tobias is he sort of gets together. Like he starts connecting some dots. He hears some stories about other people that have disappeared. Tobias is Louise's half brother. And they find out that Tobias was born before Louisa was born and Louisa's parents were together. So not related to the person who disappeared. But he's interested and he sort of has a empathy for them. And once he's also looking for something to care about himself and then he starts a mini investigation. It turns out that Louise's father is still alive, has been. We end the book where Louise is in her 40s, so 35 plus years in North Korea, and then spend some time in South Korea, kind of knocking around, not knowing how to get out or where to find anybody. And it culminates in a pretty moving and also terribly sad reunification between Loser and her father on her deathbed, in which she gets. Was it a few weeks to visit him before he.

[Sharifah Williams]

Yeah, it's a very short time. I think it was like a couple weeks.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. And. And that's how it ends up. So we find out what happens, though. I'm not sure it's more. It's not happy. I wouldn't say. Is it better than not knowing what happens? Maybe. But a real I don't know. A real bittersweet. Bittersweet doesn't capture it, but I'm struggling for a better word to how this book. Book ends up.

[Sharifah Williams]

Yeah, it is a very. It's moving and it's also one of those. Those, I would say, I guess, bittersweet moments where so much of the closure you would hope would be found in a reunion of this sort just never happens. That felt real. Like this, this sort of reunion. It didn't have like a whole lot of. Of saccharine sweetness, which I did not expect after reading the fullness of this book. But you know, it didn't have that. But it was just this moment of, well, one thread has been, you know, closed or whatnot. It's. We have discovered what's happened. Louisa has been reunited and never gets to have that reunion. Who knows if she would have wanted it. Probably not.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Probably not. Not.

[Sharifah Williams]

And yeah, it's. That ending really got me in the field.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Oh yeah. It's a gut punch too because he, he recognizes her, but sort of just barely. Like he, he has been under duress for a long time and I think suffering some, some kind of dementia. Just what happens to you after 35 years of constant stress and worry and trauma. That's a little, it's frankly beyond the scope of representation. Rit all let alone in, you know, 100 pages. The other thing that's strange about the reading curse is we don't know that he's alive for a long ass time. Right. It's not that we know and are waiting for someone to find him. We get through. Is it that. Was that the 76 point where you figure out he's alive, was that you were talking about? Yeah.

[Sharifah Williams]

Oh yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Because we switched to his point of. Yeah, the Tobias chapter and then we do a flashback to his initial abduction and then we follow him for the next, I don't know, 50 or 70 pages where we get him up to the current day for all practical purpose. And that part's on rails because you're like, okay, what's going to. Is he going to. What is the information gap closure going to look like? Is he going to die in prison? No one ever knows. Is he going to escape and have a tearful reunion in multiple decades as Grandpa or whatever or some other thing and we got this some other thing. But yeah, once we got to that and I don't know, I think too, I'd be curious to know if one of the tensions of the book is as soon as you know he is alive, any Chapter that's not about him seems like filler till you get to another chapter of figuring out what his story is going to be. So I can kind of understand why it came later. Because if we found it out in, like, the 28% mark, we're both reading digital copies, I think here. So we're using those marks. Works then a lot of the family dynamic stuff. We might be kind of. Let's get moving. Let's keep moving. No, I'm serious. Like we told this escape narrative. I don't know.

[Sharifah Williams]

I.

[Jeff O'Neill]

That's.

[Sharifah Williams]

That's funny because I was feeling like I would have enjoyed it.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Could. It's possible. Yeah.

[Sharifah Williams]

The Cirque backstory or what was going on with him. Interesting verse throughout the book to kind of break it up. And. And because we were getting it so late, there was a part of me that was ready to be upset that he was just gonna sort of die.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Sharifah Williams]

I was like, is this why? Because it's just like, they're never gonna find out what happened to him. But once I got to the ending, I was like, you know, I think I could have done with more of that stuff in the earlier chapters. Even, like, maybe a little bit before the midway point. I don't know when the exact right time for it would have been, but in my mind it would have been earlier. And then I would have felt like there was more propulsiveness. There was something that was making me really want to move ahead in the story to see how all of these different storylines were coming together. In a way.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. Because Louisa lies to him about his wife having passed away because she realizes that he's not going to make it. And why. It would have offered different dramatic tension if we knew he was alive and sort of slowly making his way out of the worst places. And she dies not ever knowing. Right.

[Sharifah Williams]

Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

That those kinds of dramatic tensions would have been interesting. I'm sure Susan Choi and her editors considered all these things, so I should have. We were trying to have a conversation that was spoiler free with her. So it was really difficult to talk about.

[Sharifah Williams]

I don't know how you do that.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. We ended up talking about some of the other sort of bigger picture things, but, you know, sort of sliding those tiles around would have had different ramifications. Is pretty interesting, too. So I'm not sure anything else to say, Characters or moments or. I think that pretty much cover covers it there. It's funny. We watched and my family and I watched andor season two, and then I had to watch Rogue One. Because I needed to see them get the plans. And then I had to fast forward the end of A New Hope to see the Death Star get blown up, because that's what I need to do. And there's a moment in Rogue One where it's a similar dynamic insofar as a young girl lost her father when she was young. Galen Jyn Erso and Galen Erso. And they're reunited for like 90 seconds, like, two decades after they've been separated. It's a very. Again, the. The circumstances are different, but the dynamic is the same of, like, you get one moment after these years of not knowing what happened happened. And I guess it's better, but it's almost. It brings its own pain and complication. And, yeah, that part was pretty fast. I don't think there was a version of this story in which he sort of walks into the room one day and picks up the kids from fourth grade and like, boy, that was a. That was tough, wasn't it, dad? Like, yeah, sure was, Louisa.

[Sharifah Williams]

You know, that would have been a very different reading experience. Very different. But no, I. I think that. I mean, one of the most interesting things about this. I didn't know a lot about the history of these abductions, to be honest. And so reading about them was both harrowing and enlightening. And the whole. The exploration of Sir's identity in general was one of the most fascinating pieces of the story for me, as somebody who is Korean, but sees himself from a Japanese perspective and what that does and how it has an impact on not just him, but his whole family and the way he navigates the world, Even in the U.S. like, I thought that that was really excellently explored and the complications and the nuances of that, that was one of the elements of the character study and the deep internal world stuff that I really did enjoy.

[Jeff O'Neill]

His early days in the US in which he's building a career and building a family, was pretty compelling as this.

[Katie Del Rosario]

Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

As this moment. And, you know, I know a little bit more than I used to about this sort of Japan, us, Korea, triangulation because of pachinko, because of Hong Kong. So I know a little bit more about those dynamics. I did. But it is a. It is a thorny mess. And, you know, his eventual position. It's similar with characters in those other books as well, is there? You're an exile, but you also don't have a home to go. It's like you're exiled from a place you've never been to or your parents are from. And those multiple layers of leavings and exile and homecomings and decantment make for pretty shaky characters can feel pretty shaky about who they are and where they should be and what they want to do. And you get that throughout as well. In terms of the rest of the year, I again, I think if our reading experience is indicative, and I think it might be, I don't think it's going to have the kind of the same pickup that, say, Trust Exercise does. I think it's just going to be a tougher. There's going to be more people that fall off earlier in this book than you need for it to be that kind of a hit. Maybe the critics will like it. I don't know. Maybe they'll find the difficulty and complication, as we did towards the end, to be worth the hanging in some of those moments. But I'm not sure. I'm very curious to see how it goes.

[Sharifah Williams]

I think that people who are more inclined to read Big Doorstoppers will be into it, but I do think that it has a higher level of entry for most readers, perhaps even people who read Trust Exercise. We'll see. I mean, it was on. It was still very anticipated by a lot of people.

[Jeff O'Neill]

So for Susan Choi fans whose first book was Trust Exercise, getting through this at least the first quarter will be a trust exercise. Like I trust that this is gonna be. This is gonna be worth it here. Sharifa, thanks so much for reading along and talking with me for a few minutes. Appreciate it.

[Sharifah Williams]

Sure thing.

[Unknown]

Thanks so much for listening today. We hope you'll enjoy this excerpt from the audiobook edition of Life Is a Lazy Susan Shifra of Sandwiches by Jennifer Welch and Angie Pumps Sullivan, provided by our sponsors at Hanover Square Press.

When things go apeshit bananas, Pumps is my phone call, my partner in crime, my rudder in the storm. If there's one thing I've learned from my years on this planet. American culture has unrealistic expectations about happiness and balance. We live in a fractured society in which social media filters and AI create a false front. Everyone looks happy, perfect, smooth and forever young with something the Internet calls glass skin. The messages we internalize that we should be hotter, richer, more fulfilled only increase our feelings of inadequacy. The relentless drive toward wellness counterproductively serves to make us feel unwell. The search for total happiness leads to unhappiness. The quest for total balance leads to imbalance. You know that game people play when everyone goes around the table saying what they would do if they won Powerball for a gazillion dollars. I hate to break this to you, but even if you won the lottery and paid off all of your student loans, your car and your mortgage, then went on an all expenses paid vacation to the Maldives, you might only be happy for a nanosecond before a whole host of other problems cropped up. You'd be in one of those thatched huts over the turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean thinking, I want to be on a yacht in Bora Bora. As soon as you attained that one thing you thought you had to have or die trying, your mind would create a new void with other unattainable wants and desires. Because that's how the human mind functions. It wants more, more, more. The latest designer handbag, a bigger house, and the latest iPhone. Hotter sex. New clothes. Different spouse, different lips, different face. But so many things in life are out of our control. We get crow's feet. Our parents get old and die. Our children grow from sweet, sweet babies who hide behind our shins and call out for us at night to teenagers who answer K when we text I love you. Adulthood is the ultimate bait and switch. Our dream jobs turn out to be staring at spreadsheets and answering endless passive aggressive emails or attending zoom meetings that could have been emails. The bills, disappointments and crushed expectations rain down on us like a monsoon. When I was growing up in South Oklahoma City, my mother had a Lazy Susan, a rotating circular device that holds food, spices, and condiments in the kitchen cabinet. Lazy Susans are famously prevalent in Chinese restaurants, where food is set on a turntable and served family style. Some people think Thomas Jefferson brought the concept of the Lazy Susan to America from France, or invented it for his daughter Susan, who complained that she was always last at the dinner table to get her chicken and gravy. Some say the name comes from the 18th century moniker for servants called Susans. I used to picture adult life as a Lazy Susan, a rotating smorgasbord of options and choices. Nothing fancy, just something fun and easier to handle and digest. I don't know why I thought this My parents never modeled a perfect marriage. My dad, like many men of his generation, most likely had untreated PTSD from his tour in Vietnam. He could be angry and withdrawn, and my mother never found her footing in an intellectually fulfilling career. But they seemed happy enough. My mom read voraciously, and my dad raised racing pigeons in the backyard. On tv, I saw a lot of mothers who smiled as they joyfully slid pot roasts in and out of the oven. Every show seemed to depict couples who modeled breezy conjugal contentment. I don't know what I thought marriage was supposed to be. Was it Mike and Carol Brady? The kooky antics of Lucy and Ricky? My parents rarely drank. Yet somehow Angie and I both married lawyers who turned out to be married to drugs and alcohol. And in Angie's case, sex workers. No matter how I spun it, my life became a lazy Susan of shit sandwiches. The wheel turned and turned, and I always got a grilled turd.