The Booker Prize Finalists, Judge Shades Trump's Lawsuit Against PRH, and More Book News

Summary

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Book Riot – The Podcast

Episode: The Booker Prize Finalists, Judge Shades Trump's Lawsuit Against PRH, and More Book News
Hosts: Jeff O’Neal & Rebecca Schinsky
Date: September 29, 2025

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Episode Overview

This week, Jeff and Rebecca dive into the newly announced Booker Prize shortlist, discuss the latest publishing and industry news—including a judge’s cutting takedown of Trump’s lawsuit against Penguin Random House—and reflect on trends in Romantasy sales, book-to-film adaptations, and what’s hot (and cooling off) in book culture. The episode is bookended by their trademark mix of sharp literary insight and humorous banter, making it both informative and fun for book lovers.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Sensing the End of Year & Zero to Well Read Updates

• The hosts reflect, somewhat ruefully, on hurtling toward year's end ("Christmas is three months from today." (01:25)), new flagship projects (notably their "Zero to Well Read" series), and the current literary zeitgeist.
• Notable tangent: Discussion about viewing Hamlet for their reading project, tying in classic literature and adaptations.

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2. "One Battle After Another" Film Hype (Based on Pynchon’s Vineland)

• Both hosts discuss the unprecedented "off the charts" excitement around the new Paul Thomas Anderson film adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland.
• The cultural moment: America is, per early reviewers, "catching up to the kind of place Pynchon predicted for decades."
• Rebecca: “The Pynchon synergy...Shadow Ticket is coming out in this weird moment where America has caught up to the kind of place that Pynchon predicted for decades it would be. So to read him in this moment is even more disorienting and trippy than it might have previously been.” (03:51)
• Discussion about the challenges and inherent impossibility of "translating" Pynchon’s wild, language-driven work to film, while praising Anderson’s likely “inspired by, not strictly adapted/translated” approach.
• Jeff: “I don't know that you can be faithful to Pynchon on film because he is a creature of language… It sounds like it's done in the same spirit and with a significant budget.” (06:30)

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3. Reminders of Free Speech & The First Amendment

• Bell hooks’ birthday and the anniversary of the Bill of Rights serve as a springboard to current events: the pulling of Jimmy Kimmel’s show from certain affiliates due to presidential censorship.
• Ethical activism: Rebecca’s household streams Kimmel on YouTube as “grassroots activism”—a nod to the importance of free expression in all media.
• Rebecca: “A complaint is not a public forum for vituperation and invective and that it's not a protected platform to rage against an adversary.” (Truly, dialogue from the judge in Trump’s case later, but tone here is similar.)
• Perspective: The path from Kimmel’s Man Show days to “free speech warrior,” and how quickly culture can shift.

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4. The 2025 Booker Prize Shortlist: Analysis & Favorites

• The Booker Prize shortlist announcement is the episode’s central news, with the hosts excited and candid about what they’ve read and loved.
• Shortlist titles highlighted:
  • Audition by Katie Kitamura
  • The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai (“our collective favorite work of literary fiction of the year so far, probably of the year.” (16:32))
  • Flashlight by Susan Choi
  • The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller
  • Flesh by David Sazole (“great comic book” – Rebecca (16:03))
  • The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovitz
• Honest admission of what they've missed and intent to catch up, with particular affection for Kitamura (“aesthetically” riding on Audition).
• Longer discussion about trends in the shortlist: commercial vs. literary, old-fashioned multi-generational sagas, and the ongoing legacy of past Booker winners (Inheritance of Loss by Desai).
• Rebecca: “A good old fashioned epic family saga that is wonderfully written—no complaints if that’s the kind of book we’re going to elevate to the Booker Prize...” (18:33)

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5. Judge Shades Trump’s Lawsuit Against PRH & NYT

• The judge’s ruling is recounted with relish. Trump's suit against Penguin Random House and The NYT is dismissed for being rants "full of vituperation and invective" (20:26–21:22).
• Rebecca recounts: “A complaint is not a public forum for vituperation and invective and that it's not a protected platform to rage against an adversary. Gave the Trump camp 28 days to come back with a revised complaint that can be no more than 40 pages.”
• The hosts revel in the judge’s vocabulary, and Jeff launches a tangential but fun discussion about onomatopoeia and words that “sound like what they mean” in the English language.

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6. Romantasy Sales: Are We Peaking or Plateauing? (23:00–29:30)

• Jeff proclaims “the time for Romantasy would not be what it is because nothing is forever… we are the quintessence of dust.”
• Publishing sales overall are down (1.7% YTD), with the steepest drop in adult fiction (down 5%, previously up over 11% last year).
• TikTok’s role in amplifying the Romantasy boom, and comparison to past trends (Twilight, dystopias, coloring books).
• Rebecca: “This feels like a different experience, different in degree that publishers have gone, have invested so heavily in Romantasy and in this trend... This looks like the biggest risk that I've seen publishers take on a trend.”
• Discussion on trend cycles vs. fads: will Romantasy retract like “Beanie Babies” (to zero), or stabilize like children’s/YA/romance? (29:16)
  • Noting unflagging fourth-wing coloring book sales, but with skepticism.

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7. Fall Book Sales Preview & Memoirs

• The hosts note the lack of surefire blockbusters or hype-stoking celebrity memoirs this year.
• Quick discussion of Poems and Prayers by Matthew McConaughey: speculation on its audience and authorial intent.
  • Rebecca: “No one is better at the Matthew McConaughey business than Matthew McConaughey is.” (31:28)
  • Both express real curiosity about who will buy it ("If you're a Woo Woo mushroom person buying this, email us… We need to study your DNA" – Jeff (32:00))

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8. Book Adaptations: "Fourth Wing" and the Big-Budget Gamble (33:58–36:32)

• Now with a showrunner (Meredith Averill), Amazon’s adaptation of Fourth Wing crawls forward—but is it too late? Both hosts skeptical of gambling big budget (couldn’t go cheap without becoming “campy”), especially with the timeline for TV showing a significant lag behind book popularity.
• “Are we going to care in 2027?” is the underlying, unanswered question.

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9. "Jeff-Shenary": Etymology & New Words (36:57–39:24)

• Jeff introduces:
  • Missoniism: "Hatred, fear, or intolerance of innovation or change—a word object discussed in Pynchon’s Vineland" (37:08)
  • Brevet: “A commission giving a military officer higher nominal rank than for which pay is received… commonly British.”
• This segment is a podcast fan favorite; light, nerdy, and a warm-up for next week’s expected avalanche of Shakespearean coinages.

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10. Frontlist Foyer & What We’re Reading (39:24–48:44)

• Noteworthy new books:
  • 107 Days by Kamala Harris. Rebecca: “I would be surprised if she's expecting something in this book to set her up for a future political run. But it's more like everybody else got to do their thing and CNN got to spin it...” (40:58)
  • Will There Ever Be Another You? by Patricia Lockwood: described as “a fever dream… feels as fuzzy-headed as [Lockwood] felt… hallucinatory… trippy and postmodern.” (44:37)
  • Baldwin: A Love Story by Nicholas Boggs — Jeff calls this “a landmark book,” praised for its fresh structure (exploring Baldwin through relationships), depth of research, and lasting legacy to literary history.
• Discussions include expectations for awards, why big biographies matter, and how both hosts manage their massive to-be-read lists.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Book-to-Film Adaptation:

  • Rebecca on Pynchon: “To be faithful to that story would be absolutely bananas on screen. And it wouldn’t work. It would not be a cohesive experience on film the way that it works on the page. So you have to edit and reshape to make it work for the medium.” (07:15)
  • Jeff: “I don't know that you can be faithful to Pynchon on film because he is a creature of language.” (06:30)

• On Reading Life:

  • Jeff: "You don't have to be well read. You don't have to be anything. But there are riches waiting just... they're just laying around for you, Rebecca." (13:03)

• On Literary Trends:

  • Rebecca: “Trends are impermanent and cyclical. And we did have to know that Romantasy wasn't going to last forever.” (24:23)
  • Jeff: "Some things go away forever that were super popular. Right. Sometimes Beanie Babies go to zero. It just happens.” (29:07)

• On the Booker Shortlist:

  • Rebecca: “A good old fashioned epic family saga that is wonderfully written—no complaints if that’s the kind of book that we’re going to elevate to the Booker Prize and kind of the dream that something that could hit the book club crowd is also of high literary quality.” (18:33)

• On the Industry:

  • Rebecca (on the Trump suit): “A complaint is not a public forum for vituperation and invective and that it's not a protected platform to rage against an adversary.” (20:26)
  • Jeff (on industry cycles): “We are the quintessence of dust. I guess I'm going to, we're going to return to...” (23:39)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:05] Holiday/time reflections, Zero to Well Read update
• [02:16] "One Battle After Another" (Pynchon/Paul Thomas Anderson) film adaptation discourse
• [10:56] Free speech, Kimmel, Bill of Rights
• [14:21] Book culture cross-references: Ethan Hawke, Robert Redford, Shakespeare
• [16:03] Announcing the Booker Prize shortlist
• [20:06] Judge dismisses Trump lawsuit against PRH & NYT
• [23:00] Romantasy trend/sales discussion
• [29:35] Fall book sales preview, the puzzle of Poems and Prayers
• [33:58] Fourth Wing adaptation news
• [36:57] Jeff-shenary: new/rare words
• [39:24] Frontlist picks: Kamala Harris, Patricia Lockwood, Nicholas Boggs
• [48:44] Show wrap-up, other media by Book Riot

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Tone, Style & Structure

The episode maintains Book Riot’s signature mix of erudition, lively humor, and candor. Both hosts are clearly passionate, occasionally nerdy, and unafraid to celebrate the weirdness and joy of book culture. Show discussions are brisk but thorough, and plenty of space is given to both serious industry analysis and playful digressions.

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Useful Links & Further Listening:

• [Zero to Well Read Podcast]
• [Book Riot Newsletter]
• [Booker Prize Shortlist]
• [Nicholas Boggs Interview on First Edition (coming soon)]

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This Book Riot episode is a must-listen for bookish insiders and literary trend-trackers—offering the latest on prize season, publishing news, adaptations, and amusing asides on everything from Pynchon’s unfilmable novels to McConaughey’s poetic ambitions.

Transcript

[Rebecca Schinsky]

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[Jeff O'Neill]

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[Jeff O'Neill]

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[Rebecca Schinsky]

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[Jeff O'Neill]

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

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And I'm Rebecca Schinsky.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And today Booker prize finalists. I think that's the lead story of the week. I guess we have to admit now, Rebecca, here at the end of September, we're already looking at the end of the year.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

We are.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And like in a real way, like for real, we're looking at the individual for reals.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Christmas is three months from today.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

So New Year's is one week after that. We are, man, we are closing here on 2025. And yeah, I think it's just going to keep going by faster. I mean that's how time works. But also, we are deep in this new flagship newsletter that we're writing. We've got zero to well ready going. We are alive in 2025. I'm trying to get a new governor elected in the state of Virginia and you're holding up Hamlet, which is what we are recording this week for zero to well read. But not what is going up next week. As you are listening to this, I.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Have no idea when these things are coming out. So I'm sorry if that's a spoiler surprise.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

We're doing Hamlet at some point as you are hearing the show. If you're in the main feed on Monday, our episode about the Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison will be coming out in zero to well read on Tuesday.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And Vineland is out. And let's talk about this maybe real quick. The one battle after another hype is like kind of literally off the charts. Like I've never seen anything like this. For a movie like this.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I just over lunch was reading a piece from Vanity Fair that was comparing Leonardo DiCaprio's later stage career to Jeff Bridges and being like, Leo is in his the dude era. It is time to lean in. I think that's an interesting one. I've got my ticket for Saturday to go see one battle after another. I'm ready. But yeah, the hype is everywhere and it. I know that it is everywhere because it has reached the people in my life who are not movie nerds and who like couldn't name you another Paul Thomas Anderson film.

[Jeff O'Neill]

There's a 70 millimeter print playing at the Hollywood here that I would love to go see. But I think all the nerds have beat me to it because I'm a second order movie nerd. I'm a first order book nerd, but I'm a second order movie nerd. And I didn't have like my ticket nine months ago. Maybe I get. I wonder if they have Nolan tickets available for Hot Greek summer next summer. I should go see if I can.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Get those winners at some of the IMAX places already several months ago. Richmond does not yet have a theater that can do the big fancy, you know, good old fashioned stuff. But when I went on I think Wednesday morning I was just looking at showtimes and this I'm going like to a matinee on Saturday and it was almost all sold out.

[Jeff O'Neill]

So the tracking has it as a 50 million dollar opening possibly, which for a movie like this is truly insane. I hope Thomas Pynchon is somewh eating his locks and not giving interviews and just tickled pink.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

The Pynchon synergy, which I think he would be very entertained by, is also really kicking up because Shadow Ticket comes out in a few weeks and the criticism about that, like early reviews are coming out, they're talking about, you know, a Pynchon book in a moment where his sort of prescient writings. We talked in the Vineland 0 to well read episode which if you're not up to speed on it, One Battle after another is based on Pynchon's 1990 novel Vineland. But that's very prescient. The book feels like it could be contemporary today. And I've been seeing headlines like Shadow Ticket is coming out in this weird moment where America has caught up to the kind of place that Pynchon predicted for decades it would be. So to read him in this moment is even more disorienting and trippy than it might have previously been and it's already pretty disorienting and trippy.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I mean, and that's going to come up because also coming next week, as is always for the first week of the month, we've got the IT books of the month and that's a very compelling case, that Shadow ticket. We'll talk about that in more detail when actually doing that recording here in a little while. They're coming out next week. But hot pinch and fall, certainly I wasn't that old for the Reagan administration, so I cannot compare. But the Trump administration is like Reagan plus mushrooms. And that's a very pinch in vibe.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It really, really is. I was describing some of the stuff in Vineland to Bob the other night. He was like, yeah, it does. That sounds a lot like 2025.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And from what you can tell, this is something we were kicking around a little bit when we were recording. The zero to well read is that most of the reviews weren't out and I read a few reviews of one battle after another and they've changed.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

They.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I don't. I think PTA and someone else gets a screen credit on this. I'm sorry to the other person. But the names are different. But it sounds like it's about the same thing. Like the bones are quite, quite intact.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It sounds pretty close. You know, most of Vineland, Zoid and his daughter are not together and that's Bob in the movie that Leo is playing. But it sounds like they've brought the main characters together so that Bob and his daughter are on the journey together to find the girl's mother, his former partner that works for making a film. So you have your main people on screen together, but it seems like the DNA of the story is there and that they've made the names more accessible. And like I would guess that some of the weird multi genre stuff that Pynchon does were. I'm like, will there be ninjas also in one battle after another? Probably not, but I think the spirit of it will be true. We can talk about it next week.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, it's going to be. Defanged isn't quite the right word I'm looking for because I think that undersells what Paul Thomas Anderson trying to do, but it's trying to make it more legible on film for something like a mainstream audience because this movie is for a more mainstream moviegoer than Pynchon is for a mainstream reader to use the law of transference. So that makes sense to me and I don't criticize anyone for that now. What I like the. I don't know that you can be faithful to Pynchon on film because he is a creature of language. So I don't know you can do that. But I'm happy that we're getting whatever this is. And it sounds like it's done in the same spirit and with a significant budget. And the edges may be more legible, but it doesn't feel like they're sanded down in terms of the heart of what the message and meaning of the film.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. And it made me think about Ishiguro's Nobel Prize speech where he talks about trying to write in a way like he had written some things that became screenplays. And then he wanted to write a book that did something that only books can do. And Pynchon is one of those writers whose books are the kinds of products that they can only be. It can only be a book. To be faithful to that story would be absolutely bananas on screen. And it wouldn't work. It would not be a cohesive experience on film the way that it works on the page. So you have to edit and reshape to make it work for the medium. And I think if anybody can do it, Paul Thomas Anderson can. But yeah, defanged is not the right word, as you were saying. But it will be reshaped and edited and collected and maybe more of an inspired by than an adapt translated film.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I often like to think of that as an adaptation, as a translation for the across medium rather than across language, though sometimes across language as well. Okay. Well, that was fun. I didn't know we were gonna do that for 10 minutes, but we're in the. We're in the thick of it now. Let's do our first sponsor break and come back.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

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[Jeff O'Neill]

This episode is brought to you by 20th Century Studios New Film Springsteen Deliver Me From Nowhere Starring Golden Globe winner Jeremy Allen White and Academy Award nominee Jeremy Strom. Scott Cooper, the director of the Academy Award winning movie Crazy Heart brings you the story of the most pivotal chapter in the life of an icon. Springsteen Deliver Me From Nowhere Only in theaters October 24th it was Bell it's bell hooks birthday today. But there's another birthday. It's another anniversary. 236 years of the bill of Rights. Rebecca, this does not germane to anything.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Oh no, not at all. Just you know. On September 25, 1789 Congress signed passed the Bill of Rights which includes the first amendment which of course includes protections for the freedom of speech, freedom of expression. Included in that is the freedom to read and to have access to books and written intellectual materials. Can't imagine why we're talking about this one week after Jimmy Kimmel was taken off the air. Because the President is a giant weenie.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And I don't you. You still can't get him in Richmond. Right? I was looking at the number of stations where it's a nextar one of those affiliate groups but you. You can't see Kimmel right now.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

You cannot. Yeah, we are personally contributing to Jimmy Kimmel's YouTube ratings in my household right now trying to show support and of course there are ways to reach out to both the studios and to folks who advertise on our local affiliates and point out that, you know, we would like to support your businesses, but you are currently advertising on an affiliate that is censoring a comedian. So there's a lot of interesting grassroots activism happening around here, I imagine, happening in most communities where that is still taking place, where the affiliates are still not showing him.

[Jeff O'Neill]

You know, no one knows better than students of literature that no one knows where a hero may emerge. And if you would have told me in 2007 that one of the co hosts of the man show would be my idol this week, I would have said, what's gone wrong? And it would have to have been something like this. There's a lot of things that have to happen for Kimmel to be where he is, in my estimation.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I don't think anybody is more surprised by Jimmy Kimmel's evolution than Jimmy Kimmel is, and it's delightful. I'm sure he has to be proud of the work that he's done to go from the man show to Free Speech Warrior.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I will text it to you. I meant to do it earlier today, but I'll mention it here as people can go Google it. Last night Ethan Hawke was on because I guess he was one one of the. Because he's. He's promoting, he's out for the lowdown, very excited about. But he comes on and says, you know, thank you, Jimmy, we're all proud of you, and then proceeds to give an homage to Robert Redford in the story about an anecdote of auditioning for A River Runs Through It. So all of my neurons fired simultaneously. They just kind of like. It was like a white flash of.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Light went off and I can't believe your cells got themselves put back together to do this podcast today.

[Jeff O'Neill]

You can't see my lower body. Who knows if I have feet? They're just gone. They got blown out. But a really wonderful and charming anecdote there. So I did rewatch everyone through it after Redford passed away. And I think I said this, but I wrote for the newsletter about my favorite adaptations. But my favorite single Redford thing on screen is his narration of A River Runs Through It. And I watched it again, actually, I put it on while I was working because I just wanted the language flowing around me. And not for nothing, it made me think again about how Norman Maclean himself was a Shakespeare scholar. Then it just all comes floating around, you know, Tale of Ophelia or Tales of Ophelia, I guess, is going to be the first track that Taylor Swift is using to promote her. So you got to be. If you're you don't have to be well read. You don't have to be anything. But there are riches waiting just they're just laying around for you, Rebecca.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

They Hamlet is full of references to the Aeneid and other classical texts. All of the the great works are in conversation with each other and you want to be part of the conversation.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I found that fascinating that Jimmy Kimmel being canceled temporarily and unspottily to Ethan Hawke, to Robert Redford, to A River Run through it, to Shakespeare. It just, it's like Six Degrees of the Greats. It's. You don't have to go that far in art. So anyway, there's that Happy birthday to the Bill of Rights. Still, still fighting the good fight and still as fresh and revolutionary in many ways as it was more than 250 years ago. The big story for us directly related to books and reading, the shortlist for the Booker Prize in fiction was announced this week. I think the most prestigious shortlist in the world for books in English, even if it's not the most prestigious in America by itself, because I think that's probably the Pulitzer list. But there are English speakers all over the world, and if you wrote in English and were published in one of the not totally arbitrary but somewhat arbitrary jurisdictions, the booker recognizes you're available here. And most importantly for me, Audition by Katie Kimura is here, which is delightful to me on many levels. But that's I think for me, that's the headline. The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai has been overlooked by me, so I will also take one for Honesty and Truth in podcasting to admit that, though I'm trying to make up for it in many different ways. Flashlight by Susan Choi, which Sharif and I were talked that was certainly on our radar. Thought it was good, but didn't rise to the level of one of my favorites of the year. And then a few I haven't encountered the Land in Winter by Andrew Miller Flesh by David Sazole, which is getting press all over the place and has come a latecomer.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

One of the great comic books.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Do you know anything about this book? I haven't even read a synopsis of this.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I don't. I've been trying to avoid knowing anything about it because if it wins, I want to go in cold.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I think it's reached the point where I'm going to get to it by the end of the year because I've seen a lot of press for it and I have no idea what it's about. And the last one is the Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovitz. So once you get to the short list level, it literally is everyone's game. I have a light a lot writing personally on audition, but I think I have a lot writing aesthetically on Addition by Katie Kudor.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, I would love to see audience Audition win as well because it's terrific, but also because it did not get nominated for the National Book Award this year and we've both been really pulling for it. Our the Collective Book Riot podcast Favorite work of literary fiction of the year so far, probably of the year. Total loneliness of Sonia and Sunny. I also missed like I had seen that there was a Kieran Desai novel coming up and it has just been so long since Inheritance of Loss and that did have a nice long life on Barnes and Noble Paperback Favorites tables. But I really, really underestimated the continued interest and affection and listeners let us know when we missed that one in the September It Books episode. I want to get to it. It's getting the reviews of like a good old fashioned novel. It is almost 700 pages long and I just don't know when and how that's going to happen for me. But if it wins, I will get there.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I think it from what I've read and I think I read inheritance of lost 20 years ago. I honestly don't remember. I will admit that I think I read it and I've read enough about it that I have a sense memory of it. I feel like but it could be stolen Valor of just having read about books for 20 years. I think this scratches a lot of the itch that we get from one of these big sort of generation spanning things. It feels a little bit old fashioned. Unlike Kitamura, which is experimenting with tone and narrative cohesion. Frankly, where this feels a little bit like it's going to scratch maybe a covenant water itch like a big juicy people feelings over time a lot's going on but old not like middle March Old fashioned though. Middle March is underrated. We'll get to that in zero to well read. But I also don't think I also I think this is one for the I mean listen, I'll put it this way. There's a there's a reason Inherited Lots was on paperback favorites for 20 years. I don't think Audition by Katie Kitamura will be on Paperback Favorites.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It's a different kind of a book. But I would love to live in that universe oh yeah, I do too.

[Jeff O'Neill]

But you know, we know what's going on.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

We do. Yeah. And I mean like a good old fashioned epic family saga that is wonderfully written. No complaints if that's the kind of book that we're going to elevate to the Booker Prize and kind of the dream that something that could hit the book club crowd is also of high literary quality. Fascinating profiles of Kira and Desai coming out right now. Just I'm delighted and surprised that there's that much audience still. And actually I'm curious like is this just new buzz building or how much of the excitement about loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is actually attached to the inheritance of loss Two decades past, it.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Was interesting to see that from the long list most of the lesser known titles fell away Universality, the South Love Forms Endling by Maria Reva, which I liked quite a bit though that's a bit of a one for the real heads but like probably the the highest profile in terms of I don't be more commercial, more crossovery, more of a track record is Kitamura is Susan Choi is Kirin Desai. So if you're going along that parameter, if that trend continues, I think you're looking at Sony and Sunny or Flashlight, if that works.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Susan Choi has a National Book Award under her belt already has can come, you know, she can hit at that level that this is anybody's game. The award will be given out in November, so we have about six weeks left to find out.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Have a little time there. It feels like this happened since we it feels like this has happened longer ago than it did. But it's worth talking about as a judge has dismissed Trump's lawsuit against the New York Times and PRH and basically saying this ain't it, I think is the legal doctrine that was cited here.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

The actual legal doctrine that was cited really made me happy. The original complaint was 85 pages long. Trump's attorneys waited until the 80th page to even lodge a formal complaint of defamation. And the judge, Stephen D. Mary Day, who is a U.S. district Court judge in Florida who was appointed by George H.W. bush, lest you think that anything partisan is happening here, basically did a revise and resubmit. He described the 85 page document as florid and innervating. He said that a complaint is not a public forum for vituperation and invective and that it's not a protected platform to rage against an adversary. Gave the Trump camp 28 days to come back with a revised complaint that can be no more than 40 pages. So a real try again, fellas.

[Jeff O'Neill]

My only complaint is, I believe, of vituperation and invective. That's redundant. But that's my only, that's my only note for the judge. But I, I, I enjoy getting out the old thesaurus and looking for insults and seeing what goes on there. This is completely off anything.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Great.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I had the thought the other day. Onomatopoeia is for words that sound like the thing they are, right? Like zing or bash or something. Is there a word for words that sound like. Then it sounds like the thing they mean because like redundant, like that double the D U n D in the middle. Feels like it's redundant.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It does.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Is there a word like crazy? That's a crazy word. That, that Z a Y. That's crazy. Crazy sounds crazy. It's not an animal Pa. It must be something else.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I don't know.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I'm sure the philologists have something for that.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And if you, if we don't have a real term for it, I would be really open to crowdsourcing one.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yes, absolutely. So I don't know why that was particularly interesting for me to talk about because those are the things that I also, I guess here's what happens when you carry around Hamlet in this mask in your pocket for a week. I think your brain just gets re. You just think differently.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It's like a caffeinated. Are you right now?

[Jeff O'Neill]

I got eight hours of sleep last night and the night before. I'm not sure what's happening. Is this how people feel?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I had the same experience. I was reading Hamlet on a plane this week and I was just like, wow, this is, this is where we're at now. Sitting on a plane with a Hamlet. The guy across the aisle from me pulled out a Dennis Johnson book and I wanted to be like, okay, talk to me about that. Tell me what you're doing over there.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Anyway, we'll get into it. But like, yeah, Shakespeare, turns out, is real good at what he does. Really amazing shit. He's throwing hot takes. Shakespeare, hot Shakespeare. Good. Okay. Speaking of things that may be losing steam. Trump attacks on PRH in the Times Romantasy sales. Look, this has nothing to do with our interest or not interest in Romantasy, but there is a time for all things. We learned this the Bible. Turn, turn. And at some point, Romantasy would not be what it is because nothing is forever. We are the quintessence of dust. I guess I'm going to, we're going to return to.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

We're Getting very deep right now.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And eventually this thing was going to ebb. Like I maybe I called adaptation peak adaptation too many times. But directionally I was. It could not go like this. And Romantic's dominance in sales like Colleen Hoover, like coloring books like Dystopia, the time for it would come to an end. Where it is the signal thing that everyone is doing and every house, and I'm not kidding was opening a Romantasy imprint or acquiring Romantic titles and putting spreads and special edition into subscription boxes. So now I think a big open question is how long and then what level it settles at. Those are very open to me. But that we were going to come down from where we were, that was never an issue. Right. I'm not, I'm not nuts to say that it's. Everyone sort of knew this. Or do you think I'm.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I need to believe that everyone knew this, that we understand that this is how trends work. You know, right now the Internet is full of stuff in remembrance of the last. The 20 year anniversary of Twilight. And in the big heyday of Twilight, everyone was doing teen romance and vampires and then werewolves and like all sorts of supernatural creatures because that was the thing that was hot. And you know that at some point that's going to die and then it's teen dystopias and that's gonna fall off. Like Trins are impermanent and cyclical. And we did have to know that Romantasy wasn't going to last forever. I think this one looked different because it's the first really big one that we've had since TikTok where the stakes are very.

[Jeff O'Neill]

The whole trend, not just a single author.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Right.

[Jeff O'Neill]

You're right. A whole trend.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. And. And the stakes are super high if you win that lottery ticket. So everybody felt like they had to play just for the very small chance that you would be the next fourth wing or the next Sarah J. Maas. And the reality is that there has not a next Rebecca Garros or a next Sarah J. Maas. There have been some other Romantasy series that have gotten a little heat. But like last year, three of the top 10 selling books of the year were Sarah J. Maas titles. We, I don't think are going to be in that situation this year and we are not seeing other Romantasy books emerging that will replace them. This isn't the whole story of the dip, but like the headline here is that publishing sales are down 1.7% in the first year, six months of this year relative to last. Year. And the biggest drop came in adult fiction, which was up 11.3% in the same period last year and is down 5% this year. So it swung by more than 16 points. That's a really significant change. And Romantasy is the key thing there. That also happened in a year that began with Onyx Storm, like, Onyx Storm came out in January and sold 2.7 million titles in the first week. It was record breaking. So you can have record breaking sales of one really big title in Romantasy and still not continue to carry the industry the way that it had been.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, I mean it's possible like. So this is a piece in, sorry, Publishers Weekly, using Circana data and it notes, it sort of implies that romanticity is weaker because adult fiction is weaker and romantic is a huge part of that. I guess it's technically possible that romantic could still be growing and everything else was just even weaker still. But what I've heard anecdotally is that it that Romantasy sales are softening that we just aren't seeing. Now I have also talked to publishers where their imprint that holds Romanticity is sort of carrying the P and L for the full house for a couple quarters. But that, that also means that the total could be lower on the whole side. I mean, because adult nonfiction is down even more than adult fiction in sort of total sales.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Right. And the tricky thing about getting so invested in Romantasy and I, you know, I haven't seen the balance sheets for this trend against what teenage vampires were 20 years ago or for what BDSM romance was 10 years ago with 50 Shades of Gray. But it feels different. This feels like a different experience, different in degree that publishers have gone, have invested so heavily in Romantasy and in this trend they invested in previous ones. But this looks like the biggest risk that I've seen publishers take on a trend. And the really tough thing about trends is we're not going to know what the next one is until it's here and when the next one makes itself apparent. Publishers are still going to be pumping out Romantasy books that they made deals on six months a year, two years ago and having to worry about where that money is going to come back to them or if it's going to come back to them. So I'm, I don't know, I'm going to be curious, like next time we do deals, deals for the Patreon. How many Romantasy deals are actually being made now that the numbers look like.

[Jeff O'Neill]

They'Re dipping or the advances may be lower. They could be doing the same number of deals and spending less.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Sure.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Per die, per title. And here's the other thing about some trends, especially when it comes to cultural trends. And this is where you, you bleed from a trend over to a fad. When something like this happens is when it goes away, it's gone. A trend that can be part of at some point. Children's books weren't a thing that existed. Right. That's. That's a weird thing to say. But now they do and they're part of it. So that became a trend, that became part of normal business operations like blue jeans. Right. This is. Sounds very reductive. What I'm about to say is this, but some things go away forever that were super popular. Right. Sometimes Beanie Babies go to zero. It just happens. And I'll be very curious to see where this one lands because adult coloring books haven't gone to zero, but to a first approximation, they have from where they were at their peak.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

The fourth wing coloring book was in the top 10 best selling books of the week last week.

[Jeff O'Neill]

That's grim. That's grim. That's. That's all I've got to say about that. Anything else with the sales data you want to say here?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

No, just I'm really going to have an eye on those adult fiction sales and romantasy as a proxy for what that's looking like at the end of the day.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I don't see anything saving us in the fall. We don't have. I mean, we've, we have a hat atmosphere. We've had our katabases. We had our Emily Henry. I guess there's the Ali Hazelwood book. There's not a big nonfiction. The let them theory sells well. But I think last year we had the anxious generation. I think we had more celebrity. We haven't had a big celebrity memoir this year. We had a. We had the Streisand last year with Pacino. I think there was a couple others that don't come to mind. This McConaughey book, my kids are making fun of me because I was in Pals the other day and I picked it up and I immediately put it down and I think I physically recoiled from some of the horrors in that I saw therein. Green seems like a.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It's sold for years.

[Jeff O'Neill]

The first one I know it seems like a person whose heart is in the right place and he's. I don't know, he wants to be the most, the most, the most enlightened person whose Shirt is buttoned all the way up, as far as I can tell is the goal he's going for. But that book is going to sell. I'll be very curious to see how well it sells. And that can be some nonfiction.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

He is on the press tour. I've seen Matthew McConaughey all over the place. This weepy. Yeah. Greenlights sold. The audiobook of it sold. I remember listening to part of it and being like, yeah, Matthew McConaughey can deliver an audiobook. And if you want that sort of pseudo philosophical. Halfway over the mushroom meridian.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Is it halfway. I think I need to look behind him.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I don't know. I mean, I just read that Elizabeth Gilbert book, and I. I don't know. It's hard to compete with her.

[Jeff O'Neill]

So you think if they're in the same room together, McConaughey's the one going, oh, honestly?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yes.

[Jeff O'Neill]

The gall of naming your book Poems and Prayers. Like, the confidence is either so intense or the obliviousness so severe. I can't decide which one it is because that's like, I don't know. There's something there.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I think he's a smart guy who knows what will sell. No one is better at the Matthew McConaughey business than Matthew McConaughey is.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. Yeah. So you think he's self. Aware.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I think he's like, we're gonna call this Poems and Prayers, and the people from Texas are gonna buy it, and some of the Woo Woo mushroom people are gonna buy it, and it's.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Are the Woo mushroom people buying this? If you're. I consider yourself a Woo Woo mushroom person, please email us@podcastbookriot. I'm not kidding.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

The Texas Woo Woo mushroom people, like, do not underestimate Texas.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Listen, we got a pitch for an occult cheese board while we were a book about. About making occult witchy cheese boards. If you're a target demo for that book and for McConaughey, I really need to hear from you. And we need to study your DNA. We need you to donate your body to science. We need to understand. I don't really understand who Poems and Prayers is for. I was trying to imagine someone I need to set up, maybe can set up like, a webcam. Will pals let me surreptitiously video every person to see who buys that book. I really need to understand this. I'm really at a loss.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It is fascinating.

[Jeff O'Neill]

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Mmm, that's so hot.

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[Jeff O'Neill]

Okay. Fourth Wing adaptation as a showrunner. So this is one of those. I think we were in the is this gonna happen Zone for a little while when this fell apart. Knowing what the budget is gonna be. So you think this is gonna happen now?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I. I'm more confident that it's gonna happen now that they've identified.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Better to have a showrunner than not, I guess, right?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

A showrunner. Meredith. Yeah, Meredith Avril. Who and Key is going to be showrunning Amazon's adaptation of 4th Wing. But like having just identified a showrunner means they don't have like there's no casting, there is no timeline. It's been in development since 2023, since the book first came out. It has fallen apart at least once. We know that the Acotar adaptation is dead in the water. Yep, this would be very expensive. There is no date yet for the fourth Empyrean series book. We don't know when.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Rebecca Yaros has a bigger part of it than maybe is gonna make another appearance. They don't wanna get Martin. No one wants to get Martin. Yarros is out there talking about how this one almost killed her.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Are you really gonna ride the dragon of approving the budget for a show like this when the third book is almost a year old? Now the TV show has to Be at least a year and a half away. Like, there's not a script there's been.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Filmed, hasn't been ordered to series. Hasn't been ordered series.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

So we're probably talking 2027, if not 2028, before this thing could be on screens. That's a big bet. Like just a very big gamble that fourth wing will still be hot by then or that enough people will still care about it. Even the most rabid fans will still care about it. Five years out from when the first.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Book came out, Amazon axed the Wheel of Time series. No, there's no more of that happening. I think the combination of not knowing I would be very nervous about the series again. You've got two. You got three books head start. But you know what? Game of Thrones had four books head start. And there hasn't been a. There hasn't been a Ice and fire book in 15 years. Like, it can also collapse as well. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know, man. It. We talked about this before. This is not where I'd spend $250 million.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

No.

[Jeff O'Neill]

On a season of TV. If I were them. I don't think I would do this right now. I just don't think that I would. And there's not a low. There's not a low budget version of this. That's not laughable. There just isn't.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, it's either all pull all the stops out and go big or you're looking at like a campy like Sci Fi Channel situation. And nobody wants that Sci Fi sy fy. Remember that one?

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. Alien Earth, I guess in terms of the expensive property seems to have done pretty well. But that's not as expensive as this book would be. It's just.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

No.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Are we ready for the Jeff Shenary? I've got two entries.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

We are. I'm. I don't know these words. I'm excited.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Well, you saw them in pinching, so you didn't look them up. Oh, listen.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Do you know how many words I saw in Bench?

[Jeff O'Neill]

I know, I know. It's. It's an avalanche. It's an assault on your lexical mind. There's no doubt about it. So this, the first one is called Missoniism. M I S O N E I S M. What's interesting about this one is it's brought up by itself as a word, an idea some one of the characters is interested in. So it's like talked about as itself. It's a word object, and it means a hatred, fear, or intolerance of innovation or change. No reason Pynchon or anyone should be thinking about that particular or idea. So that's. That's one. I didn't really have a word for that before. It's like. It seems a little abstruse, but I was like, what would a synonym for that be?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Right. Otherwise you just have to be like, oh, they're really averse to change and scared of stuff.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And conservative doesn't quite capture the hatred or fear. I mean, it's like a preference for what it already exists. But this is really an anti. It's an antipathy for something rather than affinity for something, which I thought was interesting. And that's at this. One of the central ideas of Vineland especially is that the Reagan. The 80s were a reaction to the 60s. Right. It's like it was really a pendulum swing of a certain element of American society that didn't like. Didn't like the 60s being a thing. So they. They went the other way and went at it a little too hard. So that's more of an intellectual. This is just one. I didn't know brevet as a noun and a verb, but it's. The noun is a commission giving a military officer higher nominal rate than that for which pay is received. So if, like, you're an acting admiral, but you haven't actually been moved up. So it could be a battlefield commission, could be something else happened. So brevet, B, R E. All right. V, E, T. Chiefly British because they had all these words for the. The military. So those are my.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I really respect that you had time in the middle of. Of all of Pynchon's walls of words to look up a few.

[Jeff O'Neill]

You know. You know, the truth of the matter is I circled stuff as I went, and then for the Jeff scenery, I just picked a couple. Like, I could have done 15 more. Yeah, the Hamlet Jeff scenery next week will be 17 hours long, and I'll have an accompanying PDF.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I mean, half of Shakespeare is words you don't know at this point.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, that didn't exist maybe till that moment.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Right.

[Jeff O'Neill]

It's a real trip. Anyway, there's that. Okay. Frontless foyer brought to you by Thriftbook, folks. Listen, the number of Hamlet editions, which I'll talk about there, are really intense. This is a fascinating data point. So, on the Patreon this week, we just put up our final roster moves from the fantasy draft, Laura and Sharifah, and you and I rejoined us. And one of the Patreon commenters, I don't know if you Saw this, Rebecca, today I did. You're talking how Katabasis was under maybe underperforming expectations. And this person gave us a fascinating data point, which is Thriftbooks is not buying Kitabas back right now. And this person says that usually means that it's not selling, which makes sense. Like, if they're not buying it back, they don't see as much interest in the book being bought back. So that's just one of the things you can find Thriftbooks because you can find used editions of brand new books there now, maybe it's gonna be at a premium for a special thing, but new used more than 19 million billion. That would be a lot. 19 billion. I mean, when it comes to how many books are a billion minus be a million. Because I'm going to read what, 5,000 books in my life if I do very well, maybe 10 if I'm like insane. But it might as well be infinity to get to 19 million. Use new free shipping on orders over 15 bucks in the US and every book purchase gets you closer to a free book. And if you're reading along with us on zero to real well read read. They've got a lot of those that are eligible for those free redemptions. Go check out Thriftbooks for thanks for them for sponsoring the show. Did you make it all the way through 107 days? I saw that you were just.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

No, I just.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Okay. All right.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay. So I started 107 days by Kamala Harris, her document of last year's historic presidential campaign. I was messaging with Laura McGrath and who suggested this looks like a rebranding exercise. And I think that is correct. And also that Heritage Cyrus has a big story to tell here. And it was told by everyone but her last year, wherever you are, on her politics. What happened last year was historic in several ways. And she took copious notes. And she is telling her this is just her moment to tell her side of it. You get the details that, like here are the hundred people that she called in the first day after Joe Biden stepped out, and here's how they responded. You get some. I mean, I was mad on her behalf on like the third page about things that the Biden camp had suggested and had originally planned to do in making the changeover. I as a document. I want to know from her perspective how that all went down. I think there are things to be learned about contemporary politics. I'm only like 50 pages in it so far, to me, does not read like it is intended to be a campaign document. I would be surprised if, if she's expecting something in this book to set her up for a future political run. But it's more like everybody else got to do their thing and CNN got to spin it and the Trump campaign spun it their way and she was attacked from all sides and from within her own party. She's. I think I totally understand a person just wanting to say this is how I experienced it and put it down on paper. So I'm reading that.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I think that's an underrated part of a lot of nonfiction, frankly, from people who I don't know her personal finances, I have no idea. But like get. Entering it into the public record is an important part of why these books exist.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. And from someone with the, like the personality that she has, at least from what we know of her publicly, she seems concerned with justice and with the right story being told and. And that scans for me. So I'm. I'm just curious about what is there, especially as we are thinking about what midterms look like and what the future of the Democratic Party looks like and getting ourselves out of the current hellscape. But I came off of Pynchon and then I read Patricia Lockwood, which like, is the closest to mushrooms I have ever felt. I read Will There Ever be Another you? Which just. The whole Patricia Lockwood project is fascinating, but this is. It's a novel, but it is very heavily informed by her experience. Basically about her. It's about a woman, a writer who has long. Covid is one of the first people she. She gets Covid early on in the pandemic and has terrible symptoms and they hang on forever. And she has just kind of a hallucinatory, out of body experience of it even when she's recovered from the main symptoms and the care. This character is a well known writer who has to go on photo shoots, but is also, you know, having really strange thoughts and really strange urges that are stranger than the thoughts and urges I think Patricia Lockwood has on a normal day. It's like it is trippy and feels kind of postmodern in the like. You feel about as fuzzy headed as I think Patricia Lockwood felt while she was having all of this happen to her. Having read it, I am less surprised than I was before I read it that she wasn't like on the National Book Awards longlist. I think it's going to be kind of divisive just because it's not. There's not a linear through line. It's hard to really know what the point is. Other than just art itself. Patricia Lockwood Patricia Lockwooding, which is something I'm always down for. Priest Daddy remains my favorite experience of her. But this one is it feels like it is a fever dream. It feels like a fever dream. She said that she wrote it insane and edited it sane. And you can feel that unhingedness really come through.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I'm looking forward to reading it. But once I started started seeing the early reviews as a sales prize literary crossover event like no one is talking about this or Priest Daddy. It seemed less of a candidate.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It sounds like that's it feels more.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Like one for her and one for us. Like us is different than everybody else. So I might be more personally pleased by something stranger from Lockwood. My fantasy draft selection of the book is maybe looking a little worse but I could not jettison. I will go down with the ship if it comes to that and sticking to my literary bona fides there on my side. I spent most of last week reading Baldwin A love Story by Nicholas Boggs. Not just because it's very good because it's extraordinary long. It's a big one Interviewed him that's coming that interview is coming coming to first edition next week. But a piece of that interview where he talks about where to start with James Baldwin is in the book Riot newsletter that went this week. I'll put a link in the show notes there. Go check that out. I think you'll find that newsletter interesting in that piece with Boggs. Fascinating. Yeah. A landmark book in a lot of ways. Baldwin I really like the conceit it's not a really conceit a structuring an organizing principle was to tell Baldwin's life story and investigate his artistic project through the major relationships in his life. Some of them romantic, some of them almost romantic or near romantic and how that you know where he was in his life how those relationships unfolded and then when in talking to Boggs about it how they do to some degree mimic some of his large mimic is not quite right but they do inform or they have a certain homology with with his artistic process of needing some friction, needing some distance always searching, always wandering, getting close and then pulling away from those experience. I really enjoyed talking to Boggs in quite a work of scholarship and discovering things that had gone undiscovered and people who maybe thought were dead. There's this one anecdote he tells of going to Italy when he doesn't speak Italian to talk to his one of Baldwin's lovers widows and she uncovers for him this rustily stapled 45 page document written about the relationship that she had never seen before having having her read it to him in Italian and translating it on the fly. Kind of an amazing story there. So I mean listen, if you have to be really want to know and this is also like 107 days but different. This is a document for all time. This is something that will live on shelves and libraries and be available for people who care about Baldwin and care about American literary history. Is it more popular if it's 400 pages? I don't know. I'm not sure. I think maybe the people who are going to read it are going to be in. If they're in for a penny, they'll be in for a pound.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, I'm not sure that the 900 pages is a bug so much as a feature for the folks who really want to know.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Been very well reviewed. Laura snagged it. I'm now stepping all over our Patreon episode. But that's she snagged it and I think rightly so to switch out for one of her nonfiction picks because I think it will be an a lot of year Endless. It could win Pulitzer for biography. Seems very possible to me. I don't read a lot of biography and it's been a while since I read a pretty a weighty biography and the the amount of work that goes into books like this. I had forgotten. I just had forgotten. Just I just forgotten what it takes to write a big landmark book about a mutual major figure there. I think that's it, Rebecca. Anything else?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It's our show. You can of course always find us over in the zero to well Read feed. Please tell your friends the show is starting to grow. It's catching on. We're really excited about it.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Leave a review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts if you have a free moment. If you've enjoyed it and you think to yourself boy, how could I help? That's the best way you can help right now. Also the Book Riot newsletter. Rebecca and I are cranking away on that in the in the send that went out today. One of the great quotes of all time about a aspirational reading life I put in there.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Seriously. So bell hooks really the good we'll.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Call that a tease. You can go to bookriot.com listen to find those show notes. As always, you can shoot us an email podcastookriot.com again that's podcast.bookrat.com thanks to ThriftBooks for sponsoring Frontless Foyer and the Book Riot podcast is a proud member of the Airway Podcast Network. Rebecca will talk to you later.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Thank you for listening today. We hope you'll now stick around to hear an excerpt from the audiobook edition of My Name Is Emilia del Valle by Isabel Allende, Translated by Frances Riddle, read by Coral Pena, with an epilogue read by Jonathan MacLean. Penguin Random House Audio presents My Name Is Amelia del Valle a Novel by Isabel Allende, Translated from the Spanish by Francis Riddle, Read for you by Coral Pena, with the epilogue read by Jonathan McLean the day I turned seven years old, April 14, 1873, my mother, Molly Walsh, dressed me in my Sunday best and brought me to Union Square to have my portrait taken. The only existing photograph of my childhood depicts me standing beside a harp with the terrified expression of a man on the gallows, a result of the long minute spent staring into the black box of the camera holding my breath, followed by the startle of the flashbulb. I should clarify that I do not know how to play any instrument. The harp was merely one of the dusty theatrical props crowded into the photography studio alongside cardboard columns, Chinese vases, and a stuffed horse. The photographer was a small, mustachioed Dutchman who had made a good living at his trade since the times of the Gold Rush, when the miners came down from the mountains to deposit their nuggets in the banks and have their portraits taken to send home to their all but forgotten families. Gold fever soon died down, but San Francisco's upper class patrons still frequented the studio to pose for posterity. My family didn't fall into that category, but my mother had her own reasons for wanting a photo of her daughter. She haggled on the price of the portrait, more on principle than out of real necessity. I've never known her to purchase anything without attempting to obtain a discount when Javi dumped Mari By Mia Sosa Read for you. By Gisela Chippe and Andre Santana the guy's in love with you, alex says matter of factly. I've been wondering when Alex was going to share his take on Javi. It's been a couple of hours since dinner and he hasn't said a peep. I stop wiping the makeup off my face and meet his gaze in the mirror. Javi's a good friend, that's all. I assure you. He's not in love with me. There is nothing to worry about. I glance at the tubes and jars in Alex's arsenal, a regimen of serums and creams that keeps his skin baby soft. It used to bother me that Alex is more high maintenance than most people. But then we traveled together to San Antonio for a weekend getaway. And let me just say, there's no better feeling than realizing you can borrow your man's hyaluronic acid when you've forgotten your own. I'm not worried, he says, watching me carefully as he works through his multi step nighttime routine, a pair of striped pajama pants hanging off his hips and his firm chest bare, just stating the obvious. The Possession of Albadillas by Isabel Ca Read for you by Carolina Hoyos and Anthony Ray Perez not long ago, and.

[Jeff O'Neill]

A land far from here, Elias Monterruvio found a book of spells. Or perhaps it found him in a shadowed corner of a book bazaar before a stall stacked with manuscripts. He paused. The air around him swam with foreign tongues and the cries of bosphorous gulls.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And the harsh slant of noon and the smells of men who had traveled.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Far under summer's sun. But at once all went still. Softness fell around him. Leather bound and unassuming as these texts always are, el libro de San Cipriano seemed to reach for him more than.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

He reached for it now.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Elias's studies of alchemy had taken him from the familiar spires of Seville and the chop of Gibraltar to this far side of the Mediterranean. He was a learned man. He had come across the name before, before he forswore his black craft and turned to God. San Cipriano was a sorcerer, omnipotent, the greatest enchanter to ever light a candle and pray.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

My Train leaves at Three, A novel by Nathalie Guerrero Read for you by Ray Devine it's the first of the month today, so all the ants in my blood are congealing together, clotting, making it hard for me to breathe. We give him what we have. Mommy says she's concerned and awake today, like the ants have gotten to her too. We tell Juan Carlos we give the rest in next month. I want to shake her until she hears me say that this is not how it works. We don't have until next month. I have to go to Ellen's tonight, I say, not caring enough about her opinion today to hide my whereabouts. I can tell Mommy is holding in her anger by the way she sighs and taps her nails on the counter. Don't open the door if he comes, I add. The ants are turning into hornets, getting ready to sting me, so I go into anaphylactic shock. Don't open the door. I double down. She makes a hand gesture like she's zipping her mouth and throwing away the key. When I leave, I check the bolt on our door twice. In the hallway, I'm looking over my shoulder. There's this sense that something is behind me, waiting to shake me until hundred dollar bills finally fall out of my veins. Outside, I'm doing the same, turning my head every which way to make sure that Juan Carlos isn't chasing me down the street with an eviction notice. By the time I get to Ellen's, I am exhausted, completely wound up from the rollercoaster of my morning.