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Book Riot - The Podcast
UPDATED - Our Favorite Books of 2025
01:49:27
Jeff and Rebecca list their favorite books of the year, and then are joined by a series of Book Riot editors to share their picks: Kelly Jensen, Danika Ellis, Erica Ezefedi, Sharifah Williams, and Vanessa Diaz.
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- [00:01]
Rebecca Schinsky
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Sharifah Williams
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Rebecca Schinsky
And extend every single lash from root.
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Sharifah Williams
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Rebecca Schinsky
Formula makes lashes feel weightless.
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Sharifah Williams
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Rebecca Schinsky
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- [00:21]
Sharifah Williams
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- [00:28]
Rebecca Schinsky
Ford BlueCruise Hands Free highway driving takes the work out of being behind the wheel, allowing you to relax and reconnect while also staying in control. Enjoy the drive in Bluecruise enabled vehicles like the F150 Explorer and Mustang Mach E available feature on equipped vehicles terms apply does not replace safe driving. See Ford.com BlueCruise for more details.
- [00:54]
Danica Ellis
Foreign.
- [00:57]
Jeff O'Neill
This is the Book Riot Podcast. I'm Jeff o'. Neill.
- [00:59]
Rebecca Schinsky
And I'm Rebecca Schinsky.
- [01:01]
Jeff O'Neill
Today Rebecca, it's time. It is time for our favorite books of 2025. I'd kind of put the favorite books of the year stuff to bed because I'm kind of done with year end list for books. Like there's still some trickling out like Vox had one today, but I'm just kind of done. But we haven't talked about our own list. I don't think anything we're going to mention between the two of us today will be great surprises to Book Riot podcast listeners because we've been talking about it through frontless foyer through the whole year. But it's helpful to recap. And as a special treat really for us and for the listener, we have talked to a bunch of our full time editors here at Book Rite about their favorite books of the year. We've got Sharifah Williams, we got Kelly Jensen, we've got Danica Ellis, Erica as a fetty. They're all going to join us. We already did the recording so you hear them stitched together at the back half of the show. Speaking of other things to listen to. Go listen to us talk about A Christmas Carol on the zero to well read feed. A really fascinating book. If you think you know, you don't know it changed the world. I did. I did a short form video today of you and I talking, mostly you, speaking eloquently, passionately and informedly about how this book really changed the world. It did in a way that is kind of hard to understand.
- [02:15]
Rebecca Schinsky
I had no idea.
- [02:17]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, everyone knows the story of Scrooge, but no one really knows the story of A Christmas Carol. If you say Merry Christmas, not everyone does. Not every celebrates. And that's fine. If you do, it's probably because of Charles Dickens. If you think of a Christmas as time to give to charity, that's because of Charles Dickens. If you think of it as a time of convivial sort of time and games and food with your family and friends, it's because of Charles Dickens. So we had a really good time.
- [02:40]
Rebecca Schinsky
Getting into an author tour where they read to promote their work. That is because of Charles Dickens. Dude invented the modern book tour.
- [02:47]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, the first celebrity. Anyway, the whole bunch over there at zero. Well read. We had a really good time. Thanks everyone for listening. If you got a chance to rate and review the show, really just rate. I know. Review. You got to think of something nice to say. You can keep that to yourself.
- [02:58]
Rebecca Schinsky
Just hit the five stars, baby.
- [03:00]
Jeff O'Neill
That's easy to do over there. We're sort of winding down a little bit the year on the br Pod. We still have some things to do. We're going to start looking ahead, though, you know, we're going to have the winter preview draft around the first of the year for the Patreon members. Everything is firing up. I linked today and today in books to Goodreads most anticipated books of 2026.
- [03:21]
Rebecca Schinsky
It's happening.
- [03:21]
Jeff O'Neill
I had to. I had to hold me Jesus moment for some of the books. I'm like, September 2026, there's a new Emily St. John Mandel. I'm like, oh, my God. Excited, but still long way. Can I do a quick rant?
- [03:34]
Rebecca Schinsky
Always. This episode is sponsored by Quince. When it comes to holiday gifting, I want to give things people will actually love. Beautiful, timeless pieces they'll wear for years. And I can say this with confidence because I've been a Quint's customer for years myself. Their Mongolian cashmere V neck sweater has basically become my cold weather uniform. I have it in multiple colors. It's soft, it's structured, it doesn't pill, and it looks like something I should have spent a couple hundred bucks on, except it was $50. I reach for one almost every morning and you know, that's the real test. Quince has something for everyone. These Mongolian cashmere sweaters for $50 that look and feel. Designer silk tops and skirts for dressing up. Perfectly cut denim for everyday wear and outerwear that actually keeps you warm. Every piece is made with premium materials from ethical, trusted factories and priced far below what other luxury brands charge. You can see the craftsmanship in the stitching, the drape, the fit. It's elevated, timeless, and made to wear on repeat and their gifting lineup goes beyond clothing too. You can get home, bath, kitchen and travel gifts and everything is thoughtfully made. Find gifts so good you'll want to keep them with quince. Go to quince.com for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. It's now available in Canada too. That's Q U I n c e.com BookRiot to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com BookRiot.
- [05:02]
Jeff O'Neill
This episode is brought to.
- [05:04]
Kelly Jensen
You by State Farm. Listening to this podcast Smart move Being financially savvy Smart move.
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Sharifah Williams
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Jeff O'Neill
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Kelly Jensen
Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer.
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Sharifah Williams
Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state.
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Rebecca Schinsky
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Jeff O'Neill
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Rebecca Schinsky
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- [06:03]
Jeff O'Neill
If you read today in Books Today, you probably saw this and I'm sorry to repeat myself, I don't know if Rebecca, you saw it yet, but I I was looking at that Goodreads list and the short version of this is we need to bring literary fiction back as a category because they have George Saunders in historical fiction and fiction. That's the number one category. And then Emily St. John Mandel down in fantasy. George Saunders and Emily St. John should be in the same category. Maybe we come up with a different term, but they should be in the same category. Rebecca Right.
- [06:29]
Rebecca Schinsky
I totally agree. We have all of these categories to sell books to people and to help people find their way to the books that are going to be a good fit for for them. And the category sci Fi reader who wants like straight up swords and spaceships kind of stuff and is recommended a George Saunders book or an Emily St. John Mandel book like might have a great time. There were a lot of robots in that last George Saunders short collection. But that's not what you're that's not.
- [06:57]
Jeff O'Neill
Murderbot by Martha Wells. It's a different book.
- [06:59]
Rebecca Schinsky
It's like what it says on the tin. Needs to match the Contents and we've just seen strayed too far from like, use the utility of literary fiction. It does serve a useful purpose, especially on a list like this. Like, I understand bookstores don't typically have a literary fiction section, but that's all the literary fiction lives there. You wouldn't put Emily St. John Mandel, I hope, in the sci fi section.
- [07:24]
Jeff O'Neill
No, you shouldn't.
- [07:25]
Rebecca Schinsky
Like, that tells us something too about like, you're coming for an artistic quality of writing. And that's not to say that there are not category sci fi novels, for example, that also have. Have beautiful elevated artistic writing. But literary fiction is useful as a descriptor, just as sci fi, romance, thriller is useful, can be helpful for finding our way. Yeah, I think we. We need it back. I've been on this train since the Underground Railroad was classified as historical fiction in the Goodreads best of the year because they just didn't know where else to put it. Like, just give us a literary category. Come on.
- [08:00]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, and it would help everyone. And again, one of the reasons literary fiction doesn't sell as much because it's not easy to categorize. And I understand that, but that to me is good. I want to read the stuff that's not easy to categorize. And I think there's a place for. There's a. The junk drawer in anyone's kitchen is where the most interesting stuff is. We need the junk drawer of literary fiction. You don't. We know it's not a fork. We know it's not a spoon, but what is that special thing you use to open the special thing or the, you know, like, that's what I want. I want to read the weirdo kitchen gadgets that people are putting out there and tour. Okay, enough of that. I told you I had six selections. I don't think I saw your response about how many you wanted.
- [08:34]
Rebecca Schinsky
I was just like, yeah, I can get on board for six. That's fine.
- [08:36]
Jeff O'Neill
Okay. We did not talk about these beforehand. I do not have them ranked in any order. I can play this game. I'm wondering if we have any of the same ones.
- [08:44]
Rebecca Schinsky
I think two.
- [08:45]
Jeff O'Neill
I think we have two, but I don't think maybe more than two.
- [08:47]
Rebecca Schinsky
Okay, should let me guess about the two?
- [08:50]
Jeff O'Neill
Yes.
- [08:51]
Rebecca Schinsky
Audition and Dead and Alive.
- [08:53]
Erica Ezzafedi
Okay.
- [08:54]
Jeff O'Neill
I did not have Dead and Alive, though. I thought about it. We can talk about that. We can talk about that. I have audition. Let's start there. Oh, I have another rant for me.
- [09:03]
Rebecca Schinsky
Audition by Katie Kitamura.
- [09:05]
Jeff O'Neill
Yes, but it's related to this, you let me say this about Audition by Katie Kitamura. People who comment on our or other people's Instagrams or Facebooks of a roundup of the best books of the year and say, I did not like X book. And a lot of people saying, I don't like Audition. I'm happy for you, but no one cares.
- [09:24]
Rebecca Schinsky
Nobody.
- [09:24]
Jeff O'Neill
This is not the kind of book where you say, also, if you say, I really didn't like the audition, I can't take you seriously because the name of the book is Audition. Responding to anyone with I didn't like that thing. Literally nobody cares. Now, if you've got two more sentences about what didn't work for you but you liking something, maybe it's zero to well read. Maybe I'm a cranky old man, maybe it's been a long day for me. All those things are true. But someone just sort of saying thumbs up or thumb down to something. I literally couldn't care about where your thumbs are pointed. So that's my first thing. But beyond that, this book, I am actually kind of thrilled to have a lot of people not like this book because it's doing something weird.
- [10:03]
Rebecca Schinsky
It is doing something.
- [10:04]
Jeff O'Neill
It is. It is literary. Would you call this a relationship novel? A family drama? No, it's literary fiction.
- [10:11]
Rebecca Schinsky
It's literary fiction and it is. There's something experimental about it. It is. You read it before me and what you told me was a thing happens like halfway through that sort of turns everything on its head. But I didn't. That can mean so many different things and I didn't even want to try to gu one of those things. It was. It starts with a woman who's like middle aged. She is a stage actress. She's had a somewhat renowned career, been with her husband for quite a while and she's meeting a young fella for lunch at a restaurant and worried, she's worried about being seen with him and what people are going to assume about the nature of their relationship. That's kind of all you can say about it, about it. Because where it goes from there, like it's called Audition. So we know that we're doing something with acting. Like it becomes this not quite meditation, but consideration of the roles that we play, of identity, of what it is to be seen by other people and to be like, constructing the ways that we are perceived. And this woman as an actress is aware of her appearance and she's aware of how she's perceived. She's aware of how she wants to be perceived. And what she wants and what these, like, multiple pathways in her life would have been. But it's all very not obtuse. We don't look at anything head on. Like, no, she doesn't look at anything head on. Kitamura doesn't look at anything head on. So it's not like we get scenes where she's like, sitting around thinking about her career or something. Like, there's.
- [11:45]
Jeff O'Neill
It's more quotidian than that. It's the kind of thinking you do about your life just sort of in passing. It's not a grand unified theory.
- [11:52]
Rebecca Schinsky
It's hard to. It's hard to talk about. Which I think is also a sign that if we were going to do a, like, is this literary fiction checklist? It's hard to give an elevator pitch for. It is not a, like, necessary condition. But it's a frequent one, I think, for literary fiction of, like, how do you try to explain? Because it's about the experience of reading it and being, like, inside of Kitamura's language. Because the whole thing is very taut and like, it's short, which you love to see. Like, what, under 200 pages, probably one.
- [12:24]
Jeff O'Neill
Control taught is a great word. The control, that's something I respect more and more as I get older. I've read more and more when you feel like the. On the level of phrase, sentence, paragraph, chapter half of a book, especially here, there's a real sense of control. And often that's a time that's vision plus craft. You know, the master of it to me is Issue Girl. But I don't think Kitamura is far behind in terms of that level of control over pacing, tone and voice. And then it does something in the second half, the book that I really have never encountered and I still find myself thinking about and someone asked me about it, I kind of reconsidered it. Again, I think it has multiple possibilities that if you can hold them all in your head at one time, you actually have sort of three or four book reading experiences that you can bring out of it too. It's like a reversible jacket. Like this way, it's one thing and you turn it inside out, it's something else.
- [13:11]
Rebecca Schinsky
That ambiguity is a hallmark for Kitamura, but also of a lot of, like, the stuff that we love and a lot of literary fiction in general that, like, the author is not about the answers, they're about the questions. And so if you're listening to this and you're trying to decide, should I check out audition or will I Be one of those people on Instagram who's like, I did not like this. If you need to close a book with a clear and have a clear sense when you close it of like, this is what happened in this book and this is what it was about. And here's where the characters ended up. Audition is not for you. Like, everything is left for the reader to say, sit with. And like you like, this is one of the first books that we both read this year. I've continued to think about it all year long and I don't like, I don't need an answer. An answer feels beside the point.
- [13:59]
Jeff O'Neill
No. And some of it is about not having an answer. Anyway. That's a whole different discussion there. Yeah, that's one rubric we've kind of come up with on zero to, well, read about. There hasn't been many, but there are books that answer questions and books that ask them. There are years that ask and years that answer. Paraphrase that Zora. And this is definitely one that not only does it ask a question, it takes an ax to the idea of a question. And then, like, whatever weird squiggly candies fall out is what we get to chew and enjoy. One I thought you might have is Life in Three Dimensions. Oh, Shigeru Oishi.
- [14:31]
Rebecca Schinsky
I put it in my honorable mentions.
- [14:33]
Jeff O'Neill
Okay, let's take did you have Dead and Alive?
- [14:37]
Rebecca Schinsky
I did have dead and alive this 80s.
- [14:38]
Jeff O'Neill
I'll just say why I didn't. And that's only because I'd read a bunch of that stuff before.
- [14:41]
Rebecca Schinsky
Oh, okay.
- [14:42]
Jeff O'Neill
Like in outside of the collection. So I, I. It certainly wouldn't if I had to, like, I don't know, actually pick the books. But I guess I was thinking things were new to me in 2025.
- [14:51]
Rebecca Schinsky
That makes sense. I loved the essays in Dead and Alive. Our friend Greg Zimmerman at the New Dork Review reviewed it recently and he was like, this is instructions for living a life. Like, just buy this and use Zadie Smith's writing as your manual. And I think that's a, that's not bad advice. You could do a whole lot worse. I had read a few of the pieces, but to see them all together and just to get to spend like 400 pages with Zadie Smith's mind was such a pleasure. The conversation that we had about it was also a real treat this year. We've talked about a lot of books together this year, more than any other year because of new projects, and that conversation still stands out to me as one that was particularly Alive, which I think is right for her. Why don't you talk about life in three dimensions?
- [15:36]
Jeff O'Neill
I mean, I got. Of the books I read this year, I got one sort of life idea and that was the idea of psychological richness. Now again, was it completely new or was it articulating something I already felt? Which one of those is more valuable? Who can say? But the idea of psychological richness is this third thing between meaning and happiness and certainly above contentment, where you look for interesting experiences and what that looks like. This may go back frankly a little bit to the discussion slash rant tirade we just had about the idea of literary fiction. What we want from, from our reading, or what you and I, at the highest version, the rarest, maybe, maybe the highest, make it about scarcity rather than hierarchy. Is that thing that feels like it did something super new for us.
- [16:20]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah.
- [16:21]
Jeff O'Neill
One of the hallmarks of genre fiction. Genre, genre is that it gives you something a little bit new, but it's also pretty familiar. Right. It's not going to be as challenging. You will probably not hate it. I think any book that falls into the realm of something potentially yielding psychological richness has a higher than usual probability of having a negative experience. And as Professor Oishi says, and we, I talked to him and we both have talked about this book, negative experiences are interesting for those of us who think and feel and maybe gauge along the term of psychological richness. A negative experience isn't not necessary. You don't want to do like, you don't seek them out. But it's also not a disaster. Right. You know, you don't want someone to die or something like that. But you know, you, you get a delay and you have to, you have to fly through lovely, the Midwest, Malibu of the Midwest. Sheboygan. You have to fly through Sheboygan. Not a disaster. You get to learn about things, you get to have an experience, you get to talk about it later. And I just find that so useful as a way of under my understanding myself and understanding other people. And then, you know, as a life organizing principle, it's clarifying for me. So I had to put it here.
- [17:28]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah, I did also really love it. I didn't put it into my top six precisely because for me it did feel like it was articulating something that was already in my operating system. But I did really value that. He lays out like there are these three legs on the stool of how you build a life. There's happiness, there's meaning, and there's a lot of research around Happiness and meaning. But then adding the complicating factor of psychological richness. And it like more than understanding myself because I, I felt like I knew I'm here for the weird interesting stuff. I don't mind getting lost in a city as long as it's an interesting story. Like big Sagittarius energy for our listeners there. It was helpful in framing other people that I haven't understood as much like, like my father in law who would rather eat the same things for dinner that his mom cooked him when he was a kid than try something new and, and not like it like that feels terribly risky to him. And I've had judgmental responses to that about like, well come just like eat the new thing. What's the problem? But the way that Oishi explores it of like some people are just wired in a way where they like the happiness of predictability and not having their boats rocked and not having something uncomfortable is just the thing that they're solving for more. And you over here are solving for this other thing and you're going to eat the weird stuff. And like that evenness of we all need some of these ingredients but everybody has a different calibration on each one, a different balance. Was. That was really helpful. It was. It would have been my seventh place pick if we had gone to seven.
- [18:57]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah. Okay, so then here I think we're a little bit off script. Let's just take turns. That was mine. So let's go back to yours.
- [19:04]
Rebecca Schinsky
All right, Mine, I guess this is my third. Is Stonyard Devotional by Charlotte Wood, my second favorite novel of the year. And I've also just continued to think about this one. Set in kind of the outback of Australia, this early middle age woman has left what we understand to be a successful life. First she's gone on retreat at this monastery populated by a bunch of basically nuns. And then later we know that she packs up her whole life and she moves there. She doesn't become a nun, she doesn't take the vows, but she is living her life there. And the book basically reads as her journals. And it is meditative. There is this rhythm to her days. There's rhythm to life in a place like that. You get up and you go to the morning prayer service and then you participate in doing the chores that you're assigned and maybe then you write in your journal and then you do some more chores and then you cook a meal. And all through it they're like dealing with a mouse problem that become like one of those quotidian things that's just everywhere and also like someone is coming that is coming to visit them at this place. That it's disruptive that this person is coming and what are this person's connections? What does it mean to our main character? But also like to go back to the ambiguity thing. We never know why she has given up her life and moved there. We don't know how long she'll stay there or what happens after. I was just like, this was literary writing of the highest order. She was, I think, shortlisted for the Booker last year. Like it came out in the UK before it came out in the us. She has a new book coming out next year. I cannot wait. I'm like fully on the Charlotte Wood train now. I really loved Stonyard Devotional.
- [20:51]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, I liked it too. Didn't make my short list here, but I really enjoyed that book.
- [20:55]
Rebecca Schinsky
It's really shinsky core.
- [20:57]
Jeff O'Neill
My second favorite reading experience of the year. And again, I get biased like everyone else if I talk to someone. And I had such a good time talking to Marie Khalid Bertino about her life in books. And we even said, I think Exit 0, which is her short story collection that came out in April, is a wonderful place to start that. It's one of my second favorite fiction readings. Something for. I don't know, there's something from everyone, but several different ways of understanding Bertino levels of strangeness. Right. Spec fiction. Because usually I think maybe there's no. I think there's a supernatural, divine, speculative element in each one of them. But some of them are like immortal vampires and some of the. Just. There's like too many balloons. Like that's. That's kind of the range.
- [21:38]
Danica Ellis
Right.
- [21:39]
Rebecca Schinsky
Occupied with the spirits of ghosts or.
- [21:41]
Jeff O'Neill
Just like we did a ranking of how. How. How strange they are. But each one of them is so interesting. They have such a clean, clear perspective. They can be a little bit like koans, where you don't really know if the meaning is intelligible or logical or felt. Are these questions. Are they. I feel like they're. There's some way they're. They're answers to questions that we don't even know what the question is. Like 42 and the galaxy. But I've recommended a whole bunch and I think it's a really good place for people to start with Portino. Really excited to see what she. She does next. So that's exit 0.2.
- [22:17]
Rebecca Schinsky
I loved that one. There's. There are images in some of those stories that will just be with me for a long time.
- [22:23]
Jeff O'Neill
Your dad who leaves you the unicorn. I mean, I feel like for people our age, there's a lot there. Yeah, there's a lot.
- [22:30]
Rebecca Schinsky
It's a rich text. My next one won't be a surprise to listeners of the show. Searches by Vahini Vara about the the subtitle is Something about, like Humanity in the Age of Digital Intelligence or something like that. She went viral in 2021 when she wrote a story about using an early version, like a beta version of Chat G collaborate with her on an essay that she was writing about her sister who had died. And then she's. She just got more interested, like, what. What does this technology mean for us? What does it mean to be a person who is creating things when artificial intelligence can ostensibly create things? What does it mean to be human when we've thought of the ability to create and to make art as uniquely human? But now artificial intelligence can make some kinds of art. And it starts pretty simply. She's like feeding her manuscript into Chat GPT and asking it for edits and then showing us what happens as she revises. But then it goes into some strange places and then we get some side by sides of like, her telling Chat GPT what the next chapter is going to be and we see what ChatGPT wrote and what she wrote. And that is the most compelling argument for this. Technology cannot at least yet replace humans. It's so much more compelling to see the side by side of what a human does with creative language and with the ways that your mind can just be recursive and reach for strange associations that only exist in your memory that ChatGPT or any other kind of AI cannot do because it doesn't have access to consciousness. And she's careful not to make an argument about it. But the work itself makes an argument and also just invites a lot of consideration for like, what are we talking about when we talk about art and creativity? Raised more questions, I think, than answers. I don't think she was setting out for answers at all, but I appreciated the. The approach of like, let me. She's genuinely curious. It's not a performative, like, let me just put my stuff in and prove that ChatGPT can't write as well as I can. It felt to me like she walked into it with genuine curiosity about what will happen when I try to use this tool to do something creative. And she let it go to weird places. I've recommended the book so widely, it felt exactly right for this moment of conversation about AI. Probably more like in the long Run probably more of a time capsule of 2025 than something that will be. I'd be surprised if the text is really relevant to wherever we are in 10 years with technology, but it felt like a real capture of the moment.
- [25:14]
Jeff O'Neill
I guess I'll go from there to my most recommended book of the year. And I have moved units. I know Zarna Garg didn't need me to move units. She was on good hang. So that's just like I think now she's doing okay. The publicity placement. Everyone's looking for Amy Poehler's new podcast, but I have done my small part to pull the wagon of this American woman. I think if you can do audio at all, this is the way to do this. I'm sure it's delightful on the page as well, but her narration of her life story, which is itself, if played straight sort of in a John Kerry who was just reporting on it, would be an amazing story. But she's a stand up comic and didn't come to it till much later. And there's, there's both a. There's a reverence for her own experience, but also a silliness and irreverence at the same time. Like she's not an existential nihilist, like things mean something to her, but also at the same time she is very much not afraid to take a piss out of things. And she has an unusual experience and perspective from which to do it it. My recommendation feedback from people has been sort of five stars across board, no notes. It's a really wonderful Pick me up. I think it's a pretty generally recommendable book. Of the books I'm going to talk about today, probably it's the closest to a Swiss army book that you can get. But if you've got some Spotify credits sitting there, use it up. If you got an audible credit, get go right now and get on hold at the library. If you do audiobooks on library, I'm sure there's a giant wait but then when it comes up, you'll be so glad. And I think about her first visit to Chuck E. Cheese quite a bit. Every time I drive by a Chuck E. Cheese, I think of Zarna Garg as visiting America and Ohio for the first time. And really, you know, it's, it's, it's not a representative lens of America, but it's not. Not representative in a way. So that's this American Woman by Sarnagar.
- [27:02]
Rebecca Schinsky
That was a great recommendation. I would have missed it if you hadn't have recommended it multiple Times and I really, I enjoyed listening to that one also. Let's see, my next one is the Dry Season by Melissa Febos. Her memoir, ostensibly a memoir about celibacy. She sets out after a couple tumultuous relationships, one really abusive relationship, to re examine her relationship to love and sex. She thinks she's going to be celibate for like three months. It becomes a much longer project. And while she's got a bunch of free time because she's not meeting people and flirting with them and seducing with them and having a lot of sex, she does this whole inventory of her entire relationship history and documents key pieces of it for us, which is so brave and just this is like a hallmark of Melissa Febo's personal memoir is she will just tell you stuff about her life in a way that is kind of astonishing and I deeply appreciate it. So she's got this whole inventory of her romantic history. She's looking for where she has gone wrong, how did these patterns develop? But this is not like an over therapized memoir about this. She also then gets obsessed with what do people do when love and sex are not a primary focus of their life? And she starts researching like Hildegard of Bingen and these other like women, ascetics from centuries past, famous nuns. And she starts identifying that like, like, oh, a lot of these women became nuns because that was the only way to escape the patriarchal expectations of getting married and having kids. If you wanted to pursue intellectual life, you basically had to become a nun. And so they got the life of the mind. And she starts to think for herself what other forms of expression and creativity and satisfaction could she have? She's not going to give up sex forever, but how to build out some other components of her life. And it's that wandering into like this would have been interesting as just a celibacy memoir. Melissa Feebos writing about anything is interesting if you don't know her work. Her first memoir was about her time working as a dominatrix. So like she's covering like the whole spectrum. But Melissa Febos writing about celibacy, sex, relationships and then also like the roles of romantic relationships and entanglements and what we get if we get out of outside of those or if we change their primacy. That's really what it is. Like what if your life was centered around something other than a romantic relationship? Just great sharp sentences. I stay in awe of her willingness to talk about all sorts of stuff. One aspires to be that open and then one is Afraid of the Internet, so I appreciate her.
- [29:49]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, she's not afraid to ride the. Ride the dragon. This is an interesting transition because the Ten Year Affair by Aaron Summers is not. It's not about dissimilar ideas about a limited imagination, the circumspection that can happen, or the circumscription that can happen when your life is bounded by your relationship. This is a novel. We talked about it before. It's a contemporary novel and it's a story of a woman who's interested in having an affair. And then the narrative strikes, you know, gets split into two strands, one in which it does happen, one in which it doesn't. And Summer sort of follows them down and it gets a little more complicated than that as it goes. I think that's interesting. But I would be there just for Summers telling it sort of straight, because this is what. This is what I want from contemporary fiction that's interested in looking at a milieu which is what is. What are the mores of this place? How do they. What is said, what is unsaid, how do the expressed politics, cultural, sexual, interpersonal or otherwise have secondary ramifications for how people put together and how difficult it is to get outside of that. The affair as a scene of investigation, a scene of discontent, a scene of blowing up. Your life is as old as there are affairs. Like you go back to the Trojan War. We're all going to learn about what happens when someone has an affair, because the Odyssey is just all aftermath. Thanks, Helen. Thanks, Paris. And if Menelaus just could have let it go and if no one took the oath, it's a whole thing, right?
- [31:17]
Rebecca Schinsky
If people could have been cool, just let it go.
- [31:20]
Jeff O'Neill
If we could all just been cool and say, you know what people do tenure, people do things and the way in which they do them. And then particularly Summer's own. She had. It's not quite a gimlet eye. She is suspect, but generous towards her characters. And I was thinking, you know, I compared her to a little bit. There's a little Efron in there. I'm never going to do a straight one to one, but in thinking about the works of Rob Reiner the other day, I was like, he kind of does similar same things. Like certainly sharp, certainly can be dyspeptic, but I kind of feel like you can heal like the floors are still warm even that these. The boards of these people that they tread on. It is not throwing everyone under the bus and looking how we should just all die and no one's Worth anything. There is an ambient warmth, but I think that gives a bit of a safety net to it being really nihilistic. And then she's just damn funny and the dialogue is just damn funny, and that's harder to find.
- [32:18]
Rebecca Schinsky
A book I read this year.
- [32:20]
Jeff O'Neill
Yep.
- [32:21]
Rebecca Schinsky
Really great.
- [32:22]
Jeff O'Neill
So anyway, 10 year affair by Aaron Summers.
- [32:23]
Rebecca Schinsky
All right. My last one is Heart the Lover by Lily King. As I've thought about this more, it's just.
- [32:29]
Jeff O'Neill
I'm gonna get to this, Rebecca. I think this is the one I'm gonna try to get to for sure. I've seen too much about it now.
- [32:34]
Rebecca Schinsky
A couple hours on your couch.
- [32:36]
Erica Ezzafedi
I know.
- [32:38]
Rebecca Schinsky
Sit by the Christmas tree. Make yourself a drink. It's like love triangle, but elevated. The main character, a woman, meets a boy in college, and the boy's best friend is always around. And for a while she's with one of the boys. And then as she grows up, maybe she's with another boy, maybe she's with somebody else. We come to them at multiple points in their life. It's like decades of these relationships. There's. There's so much nuance and complexity. It's short. Like an entire pregnancy is encapsulated in one paragraph. Lily King, not wasting any time. I think it's under 200 pages. Like, I read it on a flight and I was texting you from the air. Like, don't sleep on the new Lily King just really packs a powerful punch. It's, I think the closest I came to tears reading this year. Being at 30,000ft might have had something to do with. With that, but just incredibly moving. Incredibly moving. It feels. Her writing always feels true to me about what it is to be a person and to be in relationships and how messy and tender and weird they can be, and also just how beautiful inside all of that mess. And she does it all without ever straying into, like, cloyingness or triteness or the Nicholas Sparks zone of things. Like, it's just also very taught, like, to write 30 years. I think I said when I read this. There's a Jonathan Evison version of this book that's 600 pages long. And I read it earlier this year and I also loved it. But to be able to do 30 years of multiple relationships in so few pages with such an economy of language is just real talent. And I'm always on the Lily King train. But this one is moving pretty close to the top of my Lily King list. So I won't say anything else because you got to get to heart the lover.
- [34:34]
Jeff O'Neill
I I saved two for the kind of do it in one shot if you can, or you're going to be sitting in your car in the driveway trying to finish. I'll start with if you can sit down and give yourself two hours. Kind of like you said with heart, the Lover and read Tilt by Emma Petit. Yeah, do it in two out. Just sit down and do the whole thing. Preferably an Ikea. That would be some real experiential immersive reading there at the same time. So Tilt came out early this year, Patti's debut novel in which a woman is on the cusp. She's. She's ready to have the baby any day now situation. She is. She lives in Portland. She's a creative slash knowledge worker and is married to another one. And she's at Ikea trying to get stuff ready for her new addition to her family and her life and has a bit of a breakdown and then an earthquake happens. The Big one. As Petit and Catherine Schultz have documented for us, the big One is also pretty much the thing I'm trying not to look at. You remember how Snuffleupagus and Sesame street was sort of invisible, but you also knew it was there. The big earthquake off that will someday happen off the coast of Oregon is my Snuffleupagus. I know it's there, but I'm really trying hard not to see it. And it is the earthquake and what happens right after it is a it's kind of a motherhood story. But Cormac McCarthy's on the road, but not quite as zombie filled, actually not.
- [35:52]
Rebecca Schinsky
Nearly as there are no zombies.
- [35:54]
Jeff O'Neill
The earthquake has opened pretty quickly, but then the main character has to. Doesn't have to. She's trying to get somewhere and cars are not available on the roads and bridges and over the course of I think it's just a day, I don't think the sun sets. She walks through Portland, has experiences and it's just kind of a straight on rails, evocative, powerful, elusive. I think by the end this is not a, you know, let me just say this, it's not a spoiler, but if you're the kind of person that worries about dog dying, the dogs don't really die. I mean there's death and everything, but it's not manipulative in that way or super traumatic. It's. It's harrowing, but it also feels like, like maybe what would happen and it doesn't. It helps and hurts its case. For the visceral reading experience I have where the character literally walks by my house, like on her. On her way across town. So I don't know how other people will find it, but for a singular Reddit and afternoon couldn't imagine it putting it down in that window of time. Tilt by Emma Petit is pretty unbeatable. And then in terms of the I was finding excuse to listen to it. Audiobook of the year for me, people have heard me talk about this. It's the carpool detectives. It's the true story of four women who are, you know, one of them has been a forensic accountant. So she has some experience looking at like money crimes. But they're not, you know, they're not detectives. And over the course of COVID they come together and they're not all friends. They sort of meet through weird Covid like circumstances. They, instead of baking sourdough, they decide to solve a cold case. It's a true story, I should say, and I don't want to give it away, but they make progress and it's an unbelievably great audiobook experience. I don't know why this wasn't a bigger book. I don't know why it hasn't been optioned for a movie yet. There's something, I don't get it. Chuck Hogan is the writer and has some real success there. I feel like this should have been a bigger book and maybe this is just what happens because there are so many books. Maybe someone optioned the rights and they're sitting on it because I don't understand why Michelle Monaghan and Emily Blunt and Lupito Nuongo and Mindy Kaling. I don't know. I'm just picking up actresses here that are 20 couldn't do this book and have a great time. Why is this not a 6 part limited series on HBO yet? I don't understand what's happening.
- [38:18]
Rebecca Schinsky
My only theory, and it only can go to like, part of this is that since you find out in the course of the book that there are reasons that the women's identities have to be protected. And so there are no, like, the real women can't like go on book tour with Chuck Hogan and do a bunch of appearances talking about the story.
- [38:37]
Jeff O'Neill
But that couldn't you that be an angle? Like, it should be hot. We can't have the original people.
- [38:42]
Rebecca Schinsky
It should be like it should. I mean, I, I read it after or I listened to it after you recommended it and we had the like, when are we getting the series?
- [38:51]
Jeff O'Neill
Exactly.
- [38:52]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yes, it would be and it would.
- [38:54]
Jeff O'Neill
Be the process stuff. Is very cool. Like, I mean, it's amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I had someone text me this story saying, wouldn't this make a great book? Because it was like some Instagram stories, like, I've got good news for you.
- [39:07]
Erica Ezzafedi
Yeah.
- [39:08]
Jeff O'Neill
Because it is. But also made me think, gosh darn it. It just didn't.
- [39:11]
Rebecca Schinsky
It does feel like something that really, like, had the hallmarks of a book that could break out. Close your eyes, exhale. Feel your body relax, and let go of whatever you're carrying today.
- [39:23]
Sharifah Williams
Well, I'm letting go of the worry.
- [39:24]
Rebecca Schinsky
That I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1-800-contacts. Oh, my gosh.
- [39:30]
Sharifah Williams
They're so fast.
- [39:31]
Kelly Jensen
And breathe.
- [39:32]
Rebecca Schinsky
Sorry. I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry. Namaste.
- [39:39]
Kelly Jensen
Visit 1-800contacts.com today to save on your first order.
- [39:43]
Jeff O'Neill
1 800-contacts.
- [39:45]
Rebecca Schinsky
Hey, what's up, y'?
- [39:46]
Erica Ezzafedi
All?
- [39:46]
Kelly Jensen
Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair.
- [39:47]
Rebecca Schinsky
My favorite thing about the holidays, Decking out my whole house.
- [39:51]
Kelly Jensen
It's not a competition, but if it.
- [39:53]
Rebecca Schinsky
Was, well, I'd win the season with.
- [39:54]
Kelly Jensen
Wayfair Outdoor inflatable Santa.
- [39:56]
Vanessa Diaz
Got it on.
- [39:57]
Danica Ellis
Wayfair.
- [39:57]
Rebecca Schinsky
Trees, lights and ornaments. Wayfair hosting must haves like dining sets.
- [40:02]
Kelly Jensen
Beds, sheets and towels.
- [40:04]
Rebecca Schinsky
Wayfair for everything in your style, delivered with fast and free shipping. Visit Wayfair.com or the Wayfair app to win the season. But again, it's not a competition. Wayfair Every style, every home.
- [40:17]
Jeff O'Neill
Kraft Mac and Cheese is the best thing ever. It's even better than pop music. You look just as natural enjoying us at age 13 as you do 55. Kraft Mac and Cheese. Best thing ever.
- [40:32]
Erica Ezzafedi
Yeah.
- [40:32]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah. I. The the question mark behind the question could be, is there something about this story that if it were gotten got a bigger spotlight, would. I don't know. Did you read the thing about Oliver Sacks in New Yorker? We haven't talked about it, Rebecca.
- [40:45]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah, I did.
- [40:46]
Jeff O'Neill
I just wonder. I wonder maybe in the vetting or due diligence process. I don't know. I. That's pure speculation. I have no reason to think that it's all that is really only a symptom of my affection and my belief that there's a thing here that a lot of people who don't listen to read books would like and it would work. And, you know, you don't need dragons or robots or AGI to do it.
- [41:08]
Rebecca Schinsky
A great way to get it made into an adaptation Would be for more people to go read it and build up a sales history.
- [41:14]
Jeff O'Neill
There you go. So those are my six. I think we got your five a B Reading year. I liked all these books, but I didn't. I didn't have a lot of. Oh, my gosh, I can't believe I didn't put this on my list. You notice we didn't get to 10.
- [41:27]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah, I could have done 10, but I think the six are really stand out, like, for honorable mentions, like, I'll just toss out A Marriage at Sea. Ruth by Kate Reilly. Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy and our boy, Dan Brown. The Secret of Secrets. Love to have a Dan Brown book. Yeah, it was a real delight. It was a good Dan Brown book.
- [41:51]
Jeff O'Neill
I. I wanted to mention we do not part. It came earlier in the year, again, early. She's operating at such a different level. It feels like, I don't know, part of the Hong Kong corpus rather than a book that came out in 2025, if that makes sense. I really like the Weepers by Pete Mendelsohn. I interviewed him for the show. It's a really good, interesting, strange little book. You both. Both you. And I liked Great Black Hope by Rob Franklin. I really liked Bibliophobia by Sarah Chahaya, which I talked to her for. First Edition, a memoir. It's not always goes great when you fall in love with books. Really honest and interesting there. I think I'm kind of. I like the Language of Mathematics by Rel Rojas, though that may have come out the end of 2024. I'm just looking at what I read in 2025 and some stuff in the earlier in the year. How Things Are Made by Tim Minshell. I talked about before. Just like weavers in Sussex doing stuff.
- [42:47]
Rebecca Schinsky
Was this the year of ingrained? Was that. Was that last year?
- [42:49]
Jeff O'Neill
I read it this year, but it came out December of last year. I actually initially had my list. I was like, wait a minute. I think I maybe read that late. Poet's Square by Courtney Gustafson. It was on my middle of the year list that we did for Powell's. It's still really good, especially on audio. A woman moves to a new town and there's a bunch of feral cats that live around her place. And she becomes a advocate, watcher, steward, documenter, poet of feral cats and what it means it can do for you. And that's not a joke. That's. That's actually what happens. And it was quite good. Endling by Maria Riva. I think I talked about that before. A strange, elusive metafictional book that it's very hard to recommend to people, but I liked it quite a bit myself. Yeah. And then I had Dead On Live, and the only reason it wouldn't have made it. Didn't make it is because I had encountered those things before and it felt like a culmination. But again, entered my favorite reading experience of the year. That didn't have to all new in 2025. I would have probably had ingrained and Dead and Alive there.
- [43:56]
Rebecca Schinsky
A pretty solid year, I think. A B year overall. There were some A books, but it was a B year.
- [44:01]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, so without further ado, here are a sequence of conversations. Each one's about 15 minutes long. Rebecca, we asked them to pick two. So you're gonna hear Erica, Danica, Kelly, Sharifah, and Vanessa. Rebecca, I'll talk to you later.
- [44:16]
Rebecca Schinsky
Thanks, y'.
- [44:17]
Erica Ezzafedi
All.
- [44:17]
Rebecca Schinsky
Happy holidays. All right, now we are joined by Kelly Jensen. She is our senior editor at Book Riot. I am personally very excited about this segment because these are bonkers selections, Kelly. One of them I've read and one of them I've looking at kind of through my fingers all year long. And I cannot wait to hear from you. Tell us how your year in reading was and about your highlights.
- [44:42]
Kelly Jensen
So in terms of, like, the reading year, it was fine. I read a little bit more than I have in the last few years, thanks in part to not scrolling TikTok anymore.
- [44:52]
Rebecca Schinsky
That'll do it. Yeah.
- [44:54]
Kelly Jensen
I mean, really, it. It does, right? Like when you have the choice of laying in bed, scrolling TikTok before bed, or reading a couple chapters. When you read a couple chapters, it makes a difference in how much you read.
- [45:05]
Jeff O'Neill
It's that simple. I mean, it's that hard and that simple at the same time.
- [45:08]
Kelly Jensen
Right, Right.
- [45:09]
Rebecca Schinsky
So.
- [45:10]
Kelly Jensen
So it was fine. Most stuff I read was fine, which is not, you know, to say bad or good, just fine. The stuff that really stood out for me this year was the weird stuff. I read a lot of weird fiction, a lot of very unhinged female lead characters, and those were so fun. They were really good. This year, I read several of them back to back to back in the middle of the summer, which was a wild ride. And then I grabbed one at the very end of the year that, like, I didn't get to write about for our best of books that, like, I keep thinking about because it was so good and unhinged in the best.
- [45:48]
Jeff O'Neill
Well, let's start there. Now I'm curious Because we saw your picks before. I know there's one that Rebecca read that's on my shelf. That's on your list. But what's the one we don't know about? Let's. I can't wait any longer. Kelly, you have to tell us about it.
- [45:58]
Rebecca Schinsky
Kelly's taking a cheat. We're doing three titles.
- [46:00]
Kelly Jensen
I. I am. So the cheat is Best Offer Wins by Maurice.
- [46:05]
Jeff O'Neill
Okay. Yes, I've heard of this. I know this book.
- [46:08]
Erica Ezzafedi
Yes, it.
- [46:08]
Kelly Jensen
It didn't come out until the end of the year, so middle or end of November, I can't remember when it came out. But this is a story about a woman who is obsessed with an idea, and she pursues it relentlessly to her own detriment. So it follows Margot, who's 37. She's really tired of losing bidding wars to other home buyers in D.C. so he. She and her husband Ian have been trying to start a family, and they've been struggling with infertility here. So this is also happening at the same time, after they've built some pretty solid careers for themselves. You know, they are ready to buy this house. Their current apartment that they moved into after selling their first place in anticipation of being able to buy a bigger place is just too small. But They've now lost 11 bidding wars, and Margo is going to do anything she can to get a house. So when she gets a tip that there's a home, checking all of her boxes going on the market soon, she decides she's going to check the place out to be ready to put in an offer, like, the minute that she can, the minute that it goes live. This leads to her breaking into the backyard of the home to look around, which leads her to running into one of the homeowners, which leads her to putting together a string of lies about her life, getting to know these, this couple. And all this is being shared with the sellers in order to befriend them and, she hopes, buy the house out before anybody else can get it. The plan, however, as you can imagine, it goes great.
- [47:34]
Jeff O'Neill
Right? This works perfectly. She gets the house perfect under asking.
- [47:38]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah, Escrow episode of Normal Gossip.
- [47:42]
Kelly Jensen
Unfortunately for Margo, it backfires and it puts her job in jeopardy.
- [47:48]
Sharifah Williams
Not to.
- [47:49]
Kelly Jensen
Not to mention that she becomes obsessed with finding any dirt on the couple who is selling the house. So she's spiraling. And it's this really interesting story of obsession that's also a clever takedown of modern housing and social class, as well as a really thoughtful exploration of race and gender. And it's the kind of book I picked up on a whim and found myself going, okay, just one more chapter. Just one more chapter. Yeah, I loved it. I loved it. It's been pitched as a domestic thriller and I kind of hate that description for it. And that's because I think thriller readers will probably like this one, but they're going to be mad that it doesn't have a murder.
- [48:24]
Jeff O'Neill
Someone gets their head cut off or something or I don't want to spoil. I don't know what happens. So. Sorry, I stepped on that. So it's not a thriller. I guess I'm bringing my own expectation of what I would expect from a thriller.
- [48:33]
Kelly Jensen
You're saying it's not that, Right, right, it's not that. I mean, I think thriller readers would think that the mystery part takes too long to get to, to fit like the, the contours of that genre. And then for folks like me who are not thriller readers, I think that the incorporation of the mystery is the far less about the question Margot is exploring and more about how absolutely unhinged Margot is in pursuit of this story. Her background's in journalism, so this is like her scouring archives. Like, this is not, you know, I'm going to the police and like working with them or trying to sniff out details. It's more I'm gonna write this story to like fit this narrative.
- [49:11]
Rebecca Schinsky
Like a late stage capitalism satire maybe more than anything.
- [49:14]
Jeff O'Neill
Totally.
- [49:14]
Rebecca Schinsky
Okay.
- [49:15]
Kelly Jensen
Yeah, absolutely. I loved every minute of it. And yeah, I. I don't know. I don'.
- [49:21]
Sharifah Williams
Know.
- [49:21]
Kelly Jensen
Margot was just, she get this idea in her head and like really, really, really pursued it to the point where you're like, please stop, please stop, please stop. You're going to lose your job doing this. And like you're watching her do this and you as a reader are like, what are you doing? Knock it off. But there's also this like, bit of, you know, empathy for the situation she's in because, like, you know why she's doing it. Even if you completely disagree with the, the means and methods by which she's. She's pursuing.
- [49:47]
Jeff O'Neill
I know you don't mind scrolling a Zillow listing either, Kelly. So probably that, that like looking at really Kelly's most. She probably would be voted most likely to buy an old Carnegie library in the middle of nowhere and move into it amongst our staff.
- [50:00]
Kelly Jensen
Possibly, possibly.
- [50:02]
Jeff O'Neill
But Blob is completely normal compared to that. Right, Kelly?
- [50:06]
Kelly Jensen
Totally.
- [50:06]
Jeff O'Neill
So let's go, let's go normal from there.
- [50:09]
Kelly Jensen
All right. From there, I don't know.
- [50:12]
Danica Ellis
That.
- [50:14]
Kelly Jensen
Well, anyway, so. Blob by Maggie Sue. I did not expect to love this book as much as I did. And I'll be honest, that it was reading this one that made me realize how great, like, weird girl fiction was this year. And by weird girl fiction, I mean books about women, young and middle age, in the case of these books, who are just acting on their basest instincts and. Or who are indulging in these intrusive thoughts that so many of us write off as no ghosts. And in the year of our Lord 2025, when everything has been hard, slipping into the world of marginalized people, women and women of color, just going all in on these instincts has been the sort of escapism that I didn't realize I needed. So all that's an intro to say blob. You will go in and maybe not particularly like Vee, our main character, but you empathize with her experiences as a college dropout living in a Midwest town where she kind of sees herself as having no future. And a lot of readers have written her off as so unlikable that they either have 1 stopped reading or 2 cannot empathize with her. But I love me a good unlikable character.
- [51:18]
Jeff O'Neill
Absolutely.
- [51:18]
Rebecca Schinsky
We love a weirdo.
- [51:19]
Jeff O'Neill
Yes. Come on.
- [51:20]
Kelly Jensen
Right, right, right. That label tends to get applied to women and girls more than anything, and especially to marginalized women and girls.
- [51:27]
Jeff O'Neill
Because dudes get to be anti heroes, right? Yeah. You're unlikable if you're a lady or an anti hero if you're a dude. Yeah.
- [51:33]
Kelly Jensen
Nailed it. Yeah. So if you buy into the premise that you're not necessarily supposed to like V, you're certainly going to be unable to stop reading this book when she discovers a blob on the street and brings it home.
- [51:45]
Rebecca Schinsky
Well, I mean, just that sentence alone.
- [51:47]
Jeff O'Neill
I mean, it's on the COVID Like, they don't hide it. Like, it's me.
- [51:50]
Kelly Jensen
Yeah, you're like, what does this mean? It means exactly what.
- [51:53]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, there's. There's no subtext.
- [51:56]
Erica Ezzafedi
Yeah.
- [51:57]
Kelly Jensen
This is not like, you know, a metaphor for anything. Like, it's literal, a blob on the street, but it's not an ordinary blob, unfortunately. Fortunately. I don't know, it's Setian. So over the course of the story, it starts to grow limbs. It grows this whole personality. V leaves her home with Blob, just sitting there on the couch being a blob, and then she comes home to Blob, having changed the TV channel or having grown a limb or two. And you know, like, that's the thing blobs in the street just do.
- [52:23]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, I can fix him.
- [52:24]
Sharifah Williams
Yes.
- [52:25]
Erica Ezzafedi
It's like.
- [52:25]
Danica Ellis
Like, so.
- [52:26]
Rebecca Schinsky
It's so amazing. Like, it's an impossible to really talk about this book.
- [52:31]
Kelly Jensen
I.
- [52:32]
Erica Ezzafedi
Right.
- [52:32]
Kelly Jensen
Like, the premise is literally the. The title, because it's Blob of love story. So, you know that there's.
- [52:37]
Rebecca Schinsky
There's.
- [52:38]
Kelly Jensen
You know, so. So V realizes that she has this opportunity here that she can make Blob her ideal partner and finally find true, meaningful love. But Blob, being sentient, may have some other ideas, and Blob doesn't necessarily want to partner up with Vee. Maybe Blob's starting to have feelings for a woman and that Vee's been trying to maintain a friendship with, even if friendship is a loose word for what the relationship really is. But, yeah, it's a weird and funny and surprisingly moving read about identity and family and street Blobs.
- [53:13]
Rebecca Schinsky
What do you do when your street blob gets agency?
- [53:16]
Jeff O'Neill
I don't know, Kelly. I know you pay attention to covers too. This was one of my favorite book covers of the year.
- [53:20]
Kelly Jensen
Oh.
- [53:21]
Erica Ezzafedi
I mean, it's a great cover.
- [53:23]
Kelly Jensen
Yeah, it's got the blob right there.
- [53:28]
Rebecca Schinsky
So gutsy for a debut novel, too. Like, where is Maggie sue gonna go from here?
- [53:34]
Erica Ezzafedi
Right?
- [53:34]
Kelly Jensen
Right.
- [53:35]
Vanessa Diaz
I don't care.
- [53:35]
Kelly Jensen
I'm going with it.
- [53:36]
Rebecca Schinsky
Totally. And I would believe that either she goes even weirder, or maybe she was like, let me roll out with my weirdest idea, and the next book will be like mainstream book club fiction. Like, I would buy any and all of that at this point.
- [53:49]
Kelly Jensen
Same.
- [53:50]
Danica Ellis
Same.
- [53:51]
Kelly Jensen
I was 100% in from the start. I didn't anticipate that to be the case. I bought it when it was, you know, it was on sale for, like, 199 or $2.99. Because the COVID I loved it. And then I was like, oh, this is amazing.
- [54:02]
Rebecca Schinsky
This is all right.
- [54:04]
Kelly Jensen
This is everything I want in a book.
- [54:05]
Rebecca Schinsky
So from falling in love with blobs to being attracted to airplanes. Where else are you taking us, Kelly Jensen?
- [54:16]
Kelly Jensen
So my last pick is about getting jiggy with an airplane. Probably the.
- [54:21]
Jeff O'Neill
Also not a metaphor. That's just what happens.
- [54:25]
Kelly Jensen
No, no. You know, we have to admit that in 2025, one of the best books out there was about a woman who finds airplanes sexy. And I really think more people need to recognize what literature did this year, and it was this. So this is Kate Folk Sky Daddy, and it follows a woman named Linda. Her job is one that most of us would agree is pretty sucky. She does content moderation, free video sharing platform, making a whopping $20 an hour in the San Francisco Bay area. And she hardly gets to keep that money because her, you know, cost of living is so high. Her home is literally in a windowless garage on somebody else's property. So, you know, she. She has to live for something. And that is the last Friday of every month where she'll go to San Francisco and she will fly to a regional airport hub. She doesn't care where she goes. What's important here is that she is with an airplane during that time. And it's really important to her that nobody knows that her trips are about fulfilling a fantasy with the plane and not about the travel at all. So she is, to put it mildly, obsessed with every part of the plane. And as readers begin discover, her sexual fantasies are wrapped up up in a really terrifying experience she had on a plane as a child. But things go from weird to weirdly complicated when Linda meets a man and she's torn between her belief that her future is with an airplane and the beliefs that others have pressed upon her that she should find somebody who makes a little money and build a quote, unquote normal life from there. But is that what she really wants? Where and how can she be normal when deep down she knows that her plain obsession is anything but just simply an obsession?
- [56:09]
Rebecca Schinsky
Just all the cookies in the world for getting through that with a straight face. Kelly. Incredible stuff.
- [56:14]
Jeff O'Neill
So, Kelly, riddle me this. So, like, it's clearly strange, but it's not just about making her seem to be cracked, right? Like, it's, it's more sympathetic to the character. Okay.
- [56:24]
Kelly Jensen
Oh, yeah, yeah. But I think she would also think it's kind of funny. Oh, interesting. I think that she, you know, there's.
- [56:30]
Jeff O'Neill
A self awareness a little bit like, wow, this is some. This is something else that I've got going on here.
- [56:35]
Kelly Jensen
Yeah, yeah, I think so. There. Sorry. She bought a plain fragment off of ebay that she, like, keeps in her mouth. Like, this is a comfort object to her.
- [56:49]
Rebecca Schinsky
Okay.
- [56:49]
Kelly Jensen
Yeah, yeah.
- [56:51]
Rebecca Schinsky
But it's a.
- [56:51]
Kelly Jensen
It's a subversive and funny read, and I will say that it is forever ruined. How I look at airplanes. I would love a drink with Linda because I think she would have a lot of really interesting things to say. But we would have to have that drink somewhere that is not her garage apartment because the owners of the house get her. Get really mad when she has people over. But we'd have to have this drink somewhere that's also not an airport or.
- [57:16]
Rebecca Schinsky
An airplane, because no Delta lounges for Linda.
- [57:19]
Erica Ezzafedi
Yeah.
- [57:20]
Kelly Jensen
No, no. But I.
- [57:22]
Jeff O'Neill
Again, wonderful things about it. I know Lib loved it. I know a lot of people really enjoyed this. I don't know that I'll get to this this year, but I am glad this book is. Exists and I bring it on.
- [57:31]
Kelly Jensen
I was so surprised. I had no idea what to expect. I put it on my TBR after it showed up on a bunch of the, like, best books halfway through the year, I was like, all right, what? You know, in my head, I knew what it was, but reading it was a whole different experience. Because you're like, oh, she likes planes in that way.
- [57:48]
Sharifah Williams
Oh, really?
- [57:49]
Kelly Jensen
No, that's what the book is about. She likes planes in that. That capacity.
- [57:52]
Jeff O'Neill
Shout the author again. I. I think we maybe stepped in Keep folk. Sky Daddy.
- [57:57]
Rebecca Schinsky
Sky Daddy. One of the great titles of the year. Certainly also a great cover.
- [58:04]
Kelly Jensen
No. No hiding. What's going on here?
- [58:05]
Jeff O'Neill
Kelly, a pleasure. I'm so glad we got you. And I got you. I got. I'm so glad you. You snuck a third one in, too. Real delight to talk to you.
- [58:13]
Kelly Jensen
I. I'm just here to talk about all the weird women this year and how great the weird women have been in a year that has been really challenging. It was such a delight to watch people really, truly do the things that you think about sometimes but are like, I would never do that. And you're like, oh, I'm literally watching a train wreck right now. And I'm really enjoying it.
- [58:38]
Jeff O'Neill
Thanks so much.
- [58:39]
Rebecca Schinsky
Thanks so much, Kelly.
- [58:40]
Erica Ezzafedi
Thank you.
- [58:42]
Rebecca Schinsky
All right, now we are joined by Danica Ellis, one of our editors. Danika, I think our listeners know from your appearances on the show you have fun. Weird, whimsical taste in fiction often. And I'm delighted to see Tusk Love by Thea Guanzon show up on your list, because I think you talked about it on front list foyer when you were on the podcast with me earlier this year. Why don't you tell us about your year in books? Talk to us about Tusk Love.
- [59:08]
Danica Ellis
Yeah, I feel like in books, I want to be on the extreme. So I either want, you know, really serious, dark, thought provoking, but. Or I want the fluffiest thing you can possibly write. I feel like everyone says you need conflict, and I disagree sometimes I don't want any conflict at all. So I have a couple of lighter books for sure, and Tusk Love is one of them, which is a little bit of a Backstory of how I got to it, because I was gonna.
- [59:37]
Jeff O'Neill
Say how you have so many titles.
- [59:40]
Rebecca Schinsky
Your discovery mechanisms that you could pick.
- [59:43]
Jeff O'Neill
Pick from. How does one. How does one. Danica Ellis say, you know what? It's Tusk Love Day. Let's go.
- [59:48]
Danica Ellis
I know it's because I love Critical Role, which is a web series where people play D and D together. But it's really good because they're all voice actors, so they're. It's great storytelling. And it's recently been made into two different Amazon prime animated shows, which I highly recommend. Very popular. And in one of their campaigns, they go to a bookstore and they pick up this raunchy book called Tesla up, and they read out excerpts from this, like, book within a D and D campaign that is now a real book, which is so great.
- [60:25]
Jeff O'Neill
Now, here's something I want to pause here just for a second. Danica, I'm much older than you are. Not like decades and decades, but if you would have told me when I was 15 playing Dungeons and Dragons in my friend's basement, which was essentially like a satanic ritual as far as everyone's concerned in this.
- [60:39]
Rebecca Schinsky
In suburban Kansas, if you would have.
- [60:41]
Jeff O'Neill
Told me that this Critical Role exists, there'd be Amazon series, it'd be. I would not have believed you. So I just want to take a moment for history to put the mainstreaming.
- [60:51]
Rebecca Schinsky
Of D and D is a real thing.
- [60:53]
Danica Ellis
Yeah. Ever since Stranger, I think Stranger Things and Critical role and then D20 as well, they have really elevated it. So that's why I initially picked up Tusclub, because I haven't been a big romantasy person, especially straight Romantasy was pretty unlikely that I was gonna pick it up, but I'm so glad I did. I was wondering how they would kind of thread this needle, because in the game, the book is, like, a little bit silly. It is, you know, raunchy. It's. It's when they're reading out excerpts, they're not particularly well written. So how do you make this an actual book? And I think that the author just somehow managed to make it feel tongue in cheek and heartfelt.
- [61:40]
Rebecca Schinsky
Like it really worked.
- [61:41]
Erica Ezzafedi
Works as a stand so hard.
- [61:43]
Jeff O'Neill
The Princess Bride Paradox, almost, to do something like that. Yeah.
- [61:49]
Danica Ellis
Yeah. It definitely, like, it doesn't take itself too seriously, but it also completely works. I think if you have no background in it. It's a. It's a good romance. It's very steamy. And it's this also interesting balance of being both slow burn and steamy. Because they. They fall in love slowly. They are quick to sleep together. So you get this like, mix of both that I think works really well. I feel like I didn't talk about what this is about at all. It's about a merchant's daughter with suppressed magical powers who is on her way to her kind of arranged marriage. And then the caravan gets attacked. And Oscar.
- [62:35]
Jeff O'Neill
No caravan goes unattacked.
- [62:37]
Danica Ellis
I know, right?
- [62:38]
Jeff O'Neill
No caravan is ever sort of made it safely from point A to point B.
- [62:43]
Danica Ellis
Exactly. And she is sort of rescued by Oscar the half orc, which is where Tusk love comes from.
- [62:50]
Rebecca Schinsky
These are just incredible sentences that are coming out of your mouth right now.
- [62:55]
Danica Ellis
And he kind of reluctantly helps her, accompanies her to keep her safe. And then obviously they fall in love. So.
- [63:03]
Vanessa Diaz
Great. Yeah.
- [63:04]
Jeff O'Neill
It was like a good story within it. Like, are they, like doing quests and stuff or like, what's the, you know, the plot? A lot, kind of beyond.
- [63:10]
Danica Ellis
It's more of just a journey.
- [63:12]
Jeff O'Neill
Okay.
- [63:13]
Danica Ellis
Yeah.
- [63:13]
Jeff O'Neill
So they like a journey.
- [63:15]
Danica Ellis
Yeah. They're trying to stay safe. There's a little bit of danger. But it's. It's mostly them trying to come to terms with the fact that they have feelings for each other because it's very inconvenient.
- [63:27]
Vanessa Diaz
So.
- [63:28]
Jeff O'Neill
Okay.
- [63:30]
Danica Ellis
Yeah.
- [63:30]
Jeff O'Neill
All right.
- [63:30]
Danica Ellis
My first favorite.
- [63:32]
Rebecca Schinsky
That sounds like a really fun time. What else do you have on your list?
- [63:35]
Jeff O'Neill
I don't think I know what geozoology is. I could maybe guess I could do a little breaking down of. I don't know, I mean, geo zoology, I guess, the study of animals in particular places. I don't know. Tell me about this particular next book. Danica.
- [63:54]
Danica Ellis
Yes. So my next pick is Lewin Wren's Guide to Geozoology by Angela Shea. I had to say that on. I did an all the More Books episode where I was listing my favorites and I had to take that like eight different times because I just couldn't get through geozoology properly. So this is a middle grade fantasy graphic novel. And one of my favorite books of all time is the Tea Dragon Society by Katie Neal.
- [64:24]
Jeff O'Neill
A real fandom. We could do a whole. In the old annotated days to come. Anyway, people love that book.
- [64:31]
Danica Ellis
Yeah. And I am definitely on that train. I'm looking at. I have a big print of the Tea Dragon Society on my wal in my office. So I have been looking for something to kind of scratch that itch. And this is really it. So geozoology is basically in this world. They have these massive animals that are essentially part of the landscape, like you could be walking over these animals. And it is about this girl who. Her grandmother is a famous geo. Zoologist who travels all around and helps Geofauna is what they're called. And one day she kind of stops coming home. She stops sending letters. And Lou decides to try to go after her and find out what happened to her grandmother. She's accompanied by her friend. And it is. The illustrations are just so beautiful.
- [65:29]
Jeff O'Neill
They look beautiful.
- [65:30]
Erica Ezzafedi
Yeah.
- [65:31]
Danica Ellis
This is the, like, only book, I think, where I. I literally finished it. I closed the COVID I took out my laptop and just ordered prints so I could have them because I just.
- [65:43]
Rebecca Schinsky
Great recommendation.
- [65:44]
Erica Ezzafedi
Yeah.
- [65:44]
Danica Ellis
I love the art style so much, and it is very cozy and comforting. But it's also a really interesting story about grief and these cultural divides between generations because her grandmother would write to her, but not in a language that she actually understands. So she's trying kind of come to terms with how their relationship was a little bit distanced because of that gap in their languages. And, yeah, it's beautifully illustrated. It's also beautifully written. So this is. I hope that this author does a lot more because I just love it.
- [66:25]
Rebecca Schinsky
What a fun discovery.
- [66:26]
Jeff O'Neill
Danica, it looks a little bit like. Did you do the Hilda books? Do you know the Hilda books at all?
- [66:32]
Danica Ellis
Yes, I really like the Hilda books.
- [66:34]
Jeff O'Neill
And my kids love them too. They're a little older. Older now, but the. This one that you're talking about, Lou and Wren's Guide, looks kind of a combination of, like, Pokemon and Hilda put together, like, these fantastical creatures. Like, it looks really cool. So I'm saying that not to. I think for comps for red alikes for people might be doing gift shopping is why I say that. I know there's a lot of people that might find that particular Venn diagram useful for. For shopping for kids and others in their life.
- [66:57]
Danica Ellis
Of course, I'm always looking for graphic novels about cute little fantasy animals or I guess cute giant fantasy animals.
- [67:05]
Jeff O'Neill
Did you have a favorite, like, graphic novel as a kid, when you were a kid? Because, like, I think you're old enough that, like, graphic novels for middle graders weren't quite a thing yet.
- [67:14]
Danica Ellis
They really weren't. I think when I was a kid, we were just reading, like, Garfield stuff.
- [67:20]
Jeff O'Neill
You did the holy Trinity of Garfield, Calvin and Hobbes and the Far side?
- [67:23]
Erica Ezzafedi
Yes.
- [67:23]
Jeff O'Neill
That's what you did.
- [67:24]
Erica Ezzafedi
Exactly.
- [67:24]
Danica Ellis
Yeah. Which I gotta say, Garfield is so puzzling. Looking back, I still don't know why kids love it so much.
- [67:32]
Rebecca Schinsky
And I feel like the Far side holds up unexpectedly. Unexpectedly.
- [67:38]
Jeff O'Neill
Put Ames into a two day long trance. When we got the complete far side from the library, he was just. He was just gone.
- [67:46]
Rebecca Schinsky
I mean, a kid who loves wordplay is gonna be like, see? Yeah, see you later. Calvin and Hobbs. I know. Still holds up. Bob puts a friend's twin boys onto Calvin and Hobbs several years back, and they left our house holding, like his whole stack of childhood Calvin and Hobby Hobbs paperbacks.
- [68:02]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, well, in Lumberjanes too. In my house.
- [68:04]
Erica Ezzafedi
Oh, yeah.
- [68:05]
Jeff O'Neill
For my daughter and my son. They both love Lumberjanes. I'm. I feel like when we were doing, like, I don't know, this is maybe seven or eight years ago now. Rebecca, when we did, like, there was the comics renaissance now.
- [68:17]
Danica Ellis
Yeah.
- [68:17]
Rebecca Schinsky
That we think almost 10 years ago.
- [68:19]
Jeff O'Neill
Saga and Lumberjanes and Planet. Yeah. And a whole bunch of things. But I picked up Lumberjanes again. We have a bunch of them. And I was like, this is. I would read 20 more volumes of this. I know the creators have gone on to do other things, but I guess Nimona too, in that same.
- [68:35]
Danica Ellis
Yeah.
- [68:35]
Rebecca Schinsky
Good stuff there.
- [68:37]
Jeff O'Neill
Cool. Well, thank you so much.
- [68:38]
Rebecca Schinsky
Thanks so much, Dan.
- [68:39]
Jeff O'Neill
Thanks for joining us.
- [68:40]
Danica Ellis
Thank you.
- [68:41]
Jeff O'Neill
Do you want to say the names again? Because we may have stepped all over them. Why don't you say the names?
- [68:44]
Danica Ellis
Sure.
- [68:44]
Jeff O'Neill
One more time.
- [68:45]
Danica Ellis
So that was Lewin Red's Guide to Geo Zoology by Angela Shea. And then the other one was Tusk Love by Thea Guanzon.
- [68:57]
Jeff O'Neill
Thanks so much.
- [68:58]
Rebecca Schinsky
Thank you.
- [69:00]
Jeff O'Neill
Friday, Avatar Fire and Ash arrives in theaters.
- [69:04]
Erica Ezzafedi
I am the fire.
- [69:06]
Jeff O'Neill
Get your 3D tickets now for the greatest chapter of the biggest saga in history. Whatever happens, protect this family. Critics rave. It's by far the best Avatar movie.
- [69:18]
Rebecca Schinsky
If your father and I do not.
- [69:20]
Kelly Jensen
Return, you go as far and as.
- [69:21]
Rebecca Schinsky
Fast as you can.
- [69:23]
Jeff O'Neill
Movies don't get any bigger than this. Avatar Fire and ash. Rated PG 13. Get tickets now.
- [69:30]
Rebecca Schinsky
This episode is brought to you by McAfee. I found this great place to stay this weekend. Click on the link and book it. Oh, wow. McAfee alerted me that this site is fake and even blocked it.
- [69:42]
Sharifah Williams
Cybercriminals create fake sites to steal your.
- [69:46]
Jeff O'Neill
Passwords and financial data.
- [69:48]
Rebecca Schinsky
McAfee identifies and blocks these sites to keep you safer online so you can book your trip without worry. Learn more@mcafee.com online protection.
- [70:00]
Jeff O'Neill
Tis the season to cozy up with all your favorite holiday movies and shows. You coming where to the North Pole, of course. Like a very Jonas Christmas movie. And Home Alone on Disney.
- [70:11]
Kelly Jensen
Did I burn down the joy I Don't think so.
- [70:14]
Jeff O'Neill
Then snuggle up with a Pole Express and National Lampoon's Christmas vacation with Hulu on Disney. I think we're all in for a very big Christmas treat this season. There's something for everyone with Hulu on Disney Bundle subscription required terms apply. Visit disneyplus.com hulu for details.
- [70:30]
Rebecca Schinsky
All right, we are joined now by Erica Ezzafedi, one of Book Riot's associate editors. Erica, it's been a little while since we've had you here on the show. Thanks for coming back.
- [70:39]
Erica Ezzafedi
Thank you for inviting me. I always look forward to a good yap sesh with y'.
- [70:43]
Jeff O'Neill
All.
- [70:44]
Rebecca Schinsky
Likewise. You are a queen among the yappers.
- [70:48]
Erica Ezzafedi
I really am. I wear that title proudly.
- [70:51]
Jeff O'Neill
They say in Walk the Line, no one follows the killer. No one wants to follow Erica on a company call when we're doing an icebreaker, something like that.
- [70:59]
Rebecca Schinsky
So, to my great delight, Erica is going to facilitate our monthly all hands calls once again next year. And it's gonna be a good time. It was a good time the first time around. It's gonna be a good time again. You told a story about leopards a few years ago that I'm not sure I totally understood, but I. I remember it.
- [71:18]
Erica Ezzafedi
Cougars.
- [71:19]
Kelly Jensen
Cougars.
- [71:20]
Erica Ezzafedi
I saw a cougar. I'm from Tennessee. We got all types of stuff in the back.
- [71:23]
Jeff O'Neill
What did you call them cougars in Tennessee? Because in. I heard. I was in North Carolina over break, and they called them mountain screamers. And I thought they were pulling my leg. Oh, okay.
- [71:31]
Erica Ezzafedi
You said you were aware.
- [71:32]
Jeff O'Neill
North Carolina, over Thanksgiving. And we were talking about, as one does, big cats, because my family is who we are. And naturally, apparently the local lingo for cougar was a mountain screamer, but I don't know. You don't need to.
- [71:45]
Rebecca Schinsky
Someone made that up.
- [71:46]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah.
- [71:46]
Erica Ezzafedi
You know what? I will say I almost feel like they were pulling your leg. But on the other hand, when you go deeper south, it just gets wonky. Like, I'm from Nashville, but we moved to what's it called? Bolivar. No one knows it. I barely remember it, but it was in west Tennessee, like, not too far from Mississippi and Memphis. And they. I was used to, you know, them being called a cougar, a mountain lion. They call them swampy cats out there.
- [72:09]
Rebecca Schinsky
Swampy cats.
- [72:10]
Erica Ezzafedi
Swampy cats, yeah. So I really. I actually believe you. And there was. I didn't tell y' all this. There was one time maybe that. Maybe that makes this make sense. But there was one time at night that me and My brother and stuff. We were outside and we heard this like animal scream and we still can't locate.
- [72:26]
Jeff O'Neill
Was it a mountain screamer? It was a mountain screamer.
- [72:28]
Kelly Jensen
It might have been.
- [72:29]
Erica Ezzafedi
I think that's a new species, actually. I think that's something else.
- [72:32]
Jeff O'Neill
Something else?
- [72:33]
Erica Ezzafedi
It has to be.
- [72:33]
Jeff O'Neill
Well, but speaking of wildlife, one of your picks for us today.
- [72:38]
Rebecca Schinsky
Look at that segue, right?
- [72:39]
Jeff O'Neill
Only a thousand episodes. That's what. That's the kind of muscle memory you get. Erica. Why don't you talk about the Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones.
- [72:48]
Erica Ezzafedi
Okay, so the Buffalo Hunter Hunter. I was not expecting. I'm a weenie. First of all, despite Mountain screamers. Okay. Tales of mountain screamers and all of that. I very quickly. Nope. Out of scary situations, you know, if the wind blows a certain way, I'm out. So I don't read a lot of horror, but I was like indigenous horror. There's like a little vampire action going on.
- [73:11]
Jeff O'Neill
So that was enough to get you out of your scaredy cat corner. Okay. I was gonna ask you like, why, why did you pick this one up?
- [73:17]
Erica Ezzafedi
Scaredy cat. Not to be confused with swampy cat. Yeah, So I did choose it. So. Yes. So this, this gets, this gets nasty. I'm gonna be real. Like, this is nasty. Like I had a nightmare from it. I'm gonna be. And that's why I don't read. Yeah, I did like the third, the third night of reading this, I had a nightmare. But it. Of the monster in it. Well, it's a monster, but not the one. You know how that goes. So this takes place in like two timelines, mostly in like 1912, but we get a little, little taste of 2012 and this 100 year old diary is found and it's given to the descendant of the writer of the diary. So it's the diary of Arthur Buarn. And they give the diary, whoever found it in some kind of excavation. It. No, it found in like a wall.
- [74:11]
Jeff O'Neill
Very secretive.
- [74:12]
Vanessa Diaz
Very.
- [74:12]
Jeff O'Neill
Talk to Jones. I remember reading the abstract like it was found in a wall. Someone put it in a wall. That's all I remember about that particular.
- [74:18]
Erica Ezzafedi
Yeah. Trying to, you know, get rid of it. So trying to hide it. So it's given to Bukarn's great, great great granddaughter or something. Her name is Etsy and she's trying to make some things, you know, shake, rattle and pop at the university. Honey, she needs tenure. She's like, maybe this diary is it, girl. Like, maybe I can get something from this diary. Girl, I need that tenure. I need the check. Okay. So she starts reading it, and then we. The narrative kind of basically shifts to Arthur Bucharn's perspective. And he is like this Lutheran pastor, you know, out in the west in, you know, the frontier days, where people, like, didn't bathe but once a year, whatever, you know, it was very funky, nasty times, times. And so one day, this Native American man comes into his church. He stands out, obviously, because frontier days, you know, racisms, all that. And it's so interesting hearing his internal dialogue because he's like. He's Patek. He pats himself on the back for being like, you know, like a considerate Christian, like, you know, this, you know, Indian man. But then he's like, like, extremely racist in it. So his name is Good Stab. He's a black feet man. And he's, you know, he's like, kind of chilling in the. In the corner kind of. He comes in each day and then eventually they start to talk and Good Step starts to tell him his life story. And Arthur's like, wait a minute, girl. Some of this doesn't make sense, okay? You're talking about some stuff that happened, like, 70 years ago. And you don't look at Dave.
- [76:00]
Jeff O'Neill
Oh, that's always. Always a tell.
- [76:02]
Erica Ezzafedi
It's always a tell. And he's like, you know. Oh, he's just a, you know, a touched Indian. A little touched in the head.
- [76:07]
Vanessa Diaz
That's.
- [76:08]
Erica Ezzafedi
Well, that's one thing we say in the South. I don't know if you've heard that.
- [76:10]
Jeff O'Neill
I've heard that.
- [76:12]
Erica Ezzafedi
Yeah. So, you know, Arthur's like, oh, this is just, you know, bless him. Bless his soul. He's still one of God's children, etc. Etc. And then Good Stabs stories get a little. Well, they get a little stabby. They get a little bloody, you know, they get very morbid. And he just is recounting his story, especially since the day he encountered this creature in a cage. I'm not going to give too many spoilers there, but there's a little. A little raggedy little thing in a cage that was doing something. All right. That's what I'll say. And Good Stab is journeying through his days. He's kind of takes on this transformation. And Arthur's listening, and he's like, huh, huh. He's still not believing things. But then Good Stab gives him details about things that only people who saw them firsthand could have known. Like, one thing in particular, in 1870, there was this very real, like, this actually happened massacre that the US army did to around 200 Native Americans. It's called the Marias Massacre. And side note, reading historical fiction is one way I've learned about so many different things because, you know, the US Public school system is not what it does not give, what it needs to give. So I. This is the first time I learned about it, and it was in a very personable way, because these were Good Stabs, people, basically. So back to Good Stab, our good man, Good Stab. So as time goes on, you know, Good Stab is visiting him every day. Arthur starts to notice peculiar things about Good Stab. He has a very particular appetite, let's say, and he does weird things and he's a little uncanny. And then we eventually learned that Good Stab is not just there to spill the tea, you know, he's there for, like, revenge. And it's like, I will say the thing that. The thing. Yeah, the thing that gave me a nightmare was actually not supernatural at all. It was like, based on the real life historical facts. I was like, oh, that was terrible. The.
- [78:30]
Rebecca Schinsky
The thing you said a few minutes ago about the monster but not the monster makes me wonder if this is an interesting pairing for folks who liked Sinners.
- [78:38]
Erica Ezzafedi
This year I made a list of books for people who like Sinners, and this was on it.
- [78:43]
Jeff O'Neill
There you go. So nice call, Rebecca.
- [78:45]
Erica Ezzafedi
I almost forgot about that.
- [78:47]
Danica Ellis
Oh, my gosh.
- [78:48]
Rebecca Schinsky
That was so 2025 is just one way woman's search to see how many times she can watch Sinners before the Oscars.
- [78:54]
Erica Ezzafedi
I mean, that is a goal to have. Yeah, I. Yeah, I mean, this one didn't have a nice little Irish jig in it, but you do what you, you know, you do what you can. You make do.
- [79:07]
Rebecca Schinsky
I'm also kind of a weenie and I have not yet dipped my toes into Stephen Graham Jones, but I think this is going to be my starting place.
- [79:14]
Erica Ezzafedi
Yeah, I. I personally feel like the supernatural horror aspect, well, first of all, there are some unique qualities to it, I suspect, though I'm not sure, but I suspect that obviously it's a vampire story. I think that's, you know. No, that's not a spoiler or anything. But I think that he kind of meshes indigenous lore into how that vampires express. So it's not the usual vampire that we're used to seeing. So that's an interesting aspect, Honestly, to me, that the vampire part was. Wasn't even scary, like I said.
- [79:47]
Rebecca Schinsky
Okay.
- [79:48]
Erica Ezzafedi
You know, so, you know, for my fellow weenies who also like history, you know, you will have a nightmare, but not from the monsters. Okay.
- [79:56]
Rebecca Schinsky
Just the good old horrors of American history. Exactly.
- [80:00]
Jeff O'Neill
Just the regular stuff. Real life, just thrill life.
- [80:04]
Erica Ezzafedi
This is not escapism, it's just terrible. Got it.
- [80:08]
Rebecca Schinsky
Yeah. Interesting through line here with your other pick then, because Harlem Rhapsody by Victoria Christopher Murphy is also a totally different. Different kind, but another way of exploring black history and American history that hasn't been told. If you want to tell us about that one.
- [80:24]
Erica Ezzafedi
Yes, I am noticing a trend of myself. I think I read a lot of historical fiction and it was not just that I read a lot of it this year, but it made it to my favorite list. So I am very much in the Harlem Renaissance and the jazz era. And this book kind of perfectly embodies the two. Just like the prose and the setting and how the setting is set up. It feels very musical at times. It feels just very indicative, evocative of the jazz era. So, yes, this also taught me something that I didn't really know about before. I shamefully recently found out within the last like couple of years about Jesse Redmond Fawcett, who was known as the midwife of the Harlem Renaissance. And that's because of how much she influenced it. She worked at this literary magazine, this black literary magazine called Crisis. And it was. I think it had other things other than literature in it. Actually, I read this book for a book club and one of the ladies in the book club remembers reading this as a younger girl. She was a little.
- [81:35]
Rebecca Schinsky
Oh, wow.
- [81:36]
Erica Ezzafedi
Yeah. Reading the. The magazine. So they had different. A lot of different stuff in the magazine. But she was the literary editor, Jesse Redmond Fawcett. And she is the reason we know about people like Langston Hughes. No. Larson County Cohen, Claude McKay. So she was iconic. But it's like, why have I, like, I've hardly heard of her. Well, that, you know, might be for a reason. No shade. But shade. Once she was a woman. So there's that. That. And she was, you know, one of the like few only really black women to hold a title like this at that time. I would say even one of the few women really even to hold a title like this. So now why, why did I say shade? Okay, so the literary magazine was founded and mostly still ran by W.E.B. du Bois. He's who hired her. And they were having a full on affair and he was very married.
- [82:35]
Jeff O'Neill
I don't think I remember. I mean, I know some of this era, but I didn't know. I don't think I knew that piece. So when I, when I was reading, I think Vanessa talked about this at some other point. And I looked it up, the book. I was like, oh, that is spicy.
- [82:48]
Erica Ezzafedi
Yeah. So they were just running around. I lived in Harlem. Harlem is not that big. And it was just running around gallivanting. Gallivanting. As they, as they.
- [82:57]
Rebecca Schinsky
You're gonna run into everybody, you know, and you're. And it's not just that.
- [83:01]
Erica Ezzafedi
It's like, it's black people. So, you know, you know, you know, I saw WB Du Bois with that girl. You know, I can hear my grandmother, you know, she a little fast, but, you know, uh huh. His wife knows. It's like it was so messy. So there was one part in the book. Again, we discussed this during my book club. There was one part in the book where Jessie, Ms. Jessie did something very messy. Messy Jessie. It was like it involved a birthday party. And I was like, ooh. I was like, that's not even believable. Meanwhile, there was an author's note saying that that was actually real. Like it actually really happened. And I'm like, you know, there's this thing on, I see like on Tick Tock when people are like, you know, telling people to, you know, maybe reconsider their romantic options. It's a phrase and it's like, girl, stand up. Girl, stand up. So yes, there are. It has all of that going on at a point it is like, Jesse, what are we doing here?
- [84:01]
Jeff O'Neill
And they had a following out, right? I mean, this part I remember. Eventually Du Bois and Fawcett falls out and she leaves as literary editor, like right in the middle.
- [84:08]
Rebecca Schinsky
You mean a messy affair didn't turn.
- [84:10]
Jeff O'Neill
Out well for the woman especially. It always turns out great for the lady too, in that position too, because. And it was just right in the heart of the. I think 1927 or 28, my memory. So like right in the white hot heart of it. Which is a real shame. And editors in general, like are under appreciated. So I think there's a combination of things there for sure.
- [84:31]
Rebecca Schinsky
Historical fiction that really shows people at all of their messiness and that's like juicy and fun to read, I think is one of the great gifts of this moment of publishing that we're in. Like history kind of gets a bad rap. Or people tend to think of at least like history nonfiction as like dry or maybe it's going to be boring or heavy. But for books like this to really bring characters to life and show their full, glorious, kind of disastrous humanity is really fun. Always a delight to have you, Erica.
- [84:59]
Erica Ezzafedi
Always a delight to be had.
- [85:02]
Jeff O'Neill
So that's Harlem Rhapsody. I don't know if we said Victoria Christopher Murray is the author. Maybe you said it. I have forgotten it. And she also wrote a book called Personal Librarian, which if I remember correctly, for real heads from the Be Our Podcast days, I believe is historical fiction about Bel D. Costa green, who is J.P. morgan's personal librarian, which we did an episode about, who was also a super fascinating woman. Erica, thank you so much for regaling us.
- [85:27]
Erica Ezzafedi
Erica, thank you for having me.
- [85:29]
Jeff O'Neill
All. All right, now we have Sharifah Williams, who you've heard before in the show. Our director of content here at Book Riot. Sharifa, you have toddlers. And I know from experience that having toddlers can do unusual things to your reading life. Talk about your year in reading and how do you work in books to your. To your life as you're chasing the twins. Twins around.
- [85:49]
Sharifah Williams
Well, it's funny you should mention that because I have a pukey.
- [85:52]
Jeff O'Neill
Oh, no, no. We'll keep it to 12 minutes then. That's all you need to say.
- [85:59]
Erica Ezzafedi
It was.
- [86:00]
Sharifah Williams
It's been an interesting year for me, for sure, in reading, and I've had to really rely on before bedtime reading in a way I haven't before. Audio books have always.
- [86:10]
Jeff O'Neill
Before your bedtime. Before your bedtime.
- [86:12]
Sharifah Williams
Yes, before my bedtime time, which is much later than the girls bedtime audiobooks have been a savior for me, but I definitely have read less books this year and I am a lot more selective about which books I read because I know I have limited time and I want to read something that I'm really going to enjoy if at all possible.
- [86:36]
Rebecca Schinsky
And you've taken on some hefty reading projects, though, in the midst of this. It's not like I. I've got toddlers at home, so we're keeping it light and fluffy. You just came off of a big read of the Warmth of Other Suns. You've done some heavy reading this year.
- [86:50]
Sharifah Williams
Yeah, I mean, I wanted to challenge myself, but I wanted to do it within the confines of. Okay, if this book is really compelling, it is really engaging my attention, then I'm going to continue on with it. And that was the Warmth of the Other Sons. It's a doorstopper, but it was also so captivating, like I couldn't put it down. And so I feel like I've done some of my. I've experienced some of my best reading this year, even though it has been a much more limited year in reading. So a mixed bag, I guess.
- [87:27]
Jeff O'Neill
And with that, we'll start you off with a real light One, it sounds like. Here is your. Your first pick.
- [87:33]
Sharifah Williams
I assume you mean one day everyone.
- [87:35]
Jeff O'Neill
Will, you know, just a little beach reading for you.
- [87:38]
Sharifah Williams
Yeah. By Omar El Akkad. So this one, actually, I was really terrified to go into, and I read it at the top of the year because I knew that, you know, as a parent, as somebody who has seen the news and has been exposed to a lot of things I, you know, have. Will never be able to unsee. Like, I knew that this book that Omar El Akkad, who is known for writing fiction, this is his debut nonfiction work, I knew that he was not going to go gently into the conversation about Gaza and Palestinians, and I knew that I had to brace myself. But I'm so glad that I read this book because it really captured for me what I think I struggled to express about what I was seeing in the world, what I was reading in the headlines, and just the sort of inner turmoil I felt as a member of the Western world. And Omar El Akkad talks about from a background of. Of reporting, journalism, writing, being in the world and in the world of politics and war. He really talks about his own feelings, his own experiences. He talks about the media and about publishing and about creatives and activists and how we have all engaged with. With the discussion about Gaza and about what's happening to the Palestinian people, about murder and terrible things that, you know, we can tend to feel not apathetic to. But, you know, you can be made callous by the amount of just the onslaught of news about violence and horror coming at you. And so it was a really grounding experience for me reading this book. It really brought me back to, like, my own principles and really helped me to understand that this was a book that is not just a great read for now, because I think that right now, a lot of people who have read this book and who are reading it are people who probably don't need to be told that this is an important issue that. That needs to be discussed and that needs to be fought for. But I think that it will stand as a historical document that we can return to when we do need a reminder of, you know, even when it's unpopular, to stand against something to say this is wrong. This is a reminder that we have experienced this before. We have been through this. We have seen this. And as removed as we may feel, feel from any situation, there is always a call to stand up for people who cannot speak, for people who don't have a platform. So I truly can't think of a more important book I've read this year, and one that has really helped me reconcile what felt like something that was irreconcilable, something I could not understand, grasp.
- [91:03]
Erica Ezzafedi
Wrap my head around hearing you talk.
- [91:05]
Rebecca Schinsky
About it, is, I think, the final push that I needed to pick it up. The reason that I've been hesitant since it came out was precisely what you just said of like, I wondered if there was a preaching to the choir element of it in which I would certainly be a member of the choir. But that idea of really having a piece of grounding reflection that also we can carry into the future is very appealing. We should mention Omar Ellicott won the National Book Award for nonfiction for this title this year, one of the ones that is very likely to stand the test of time. I think it's a little.
- [91:40]
Jeff O'Neill
I mean, it's hard to know we were talking about the Books of the Year contenders over on Zero to well, read things or not, sort of canon contenders, things that can become part of durable conversations. And with nonfiction, it's even harder, believe it or not, than fiction to know what's going to hold up or what will become a signal work about a particular issue issue. You know, sometimes it happens. You get a Silent Spring. You get the big Hiroshima piece in the New Yorker. You get notes of notes on a Native Son by James Baldwin. Things like that become idea documents that aren't a history, you know, that aren't sort of a full accounting. And sometimes you do.
- [92:14]
Erica Ezzafedi
But you do.
- [92:14]
Jeff O'Neill
You do get something like a Gorevich, we're sorry to inform you that tomorrow you'll be killed along with your family about the Rwandan Jew. Like it does happen. So I'll be curious to see see as historical events unfurl. I think a National Book Award win certainly gives it an anchoring outside of whatever else might happen. But an early contender and probably something we should have seen a little bit more coming from a. This is important. And people who read books are going to be engaging with this. It's a book that's beautiful.
- [92:42]
Rebecca Schinsky
Sharifa saw it coming. She took it.
- [92:44]
Jeff O'Neill
She took it in her fantasy draft. Right. And. And honestly and then did the work to read it there. Only. I mean, your next pick isn't exactly light, but it's lighter compared. Anything is sort of lighter compared with that. This is something that Rebecca and I will probably be talking about in the segment we have not recorded yet. Possibly. But go ahead and tell us about the Wilderness by Angela Flournoy.
- [93:07]
Sharifah Williams
Yeah, I mean, it's funny you mention that. It is a Lighter pick. Because the reason this book really, really stood out to me. And I couldn't put my finger on it for a while until just a few days ago when I was trying to think about how to talk about this book, I realized that it was because, you know, when we talk about literary fiction, especially when we're talking about, you know, what makes award winners, what makes literary fiction work stand out, often we talk about, you know, what did this book do for literature at large? How did it push?
- [93:46]
Jeff O'Neill
Where did it push? A little bit. That's a really good way of thinking about it, I think.
- [93:51]
Sharifah Williams
And one thing that I realized was that it's the tenderness and compassion with which Angelo Flournoy treats these young black women, these characters, that I found, unfortunately, refreshing in literary fiction. Because this is not. This is a story about young black women, about these friends, but it is not a story about the racism they face. It is not a story about their struggles against bigger problems in the world. It is not focusing on trauma as the main story point. Although all of them experience these things, all of them have traumas and difficulties and challenges, just like a lot of us do in our lives, and especially as we are coming into our own in our early 20s, and then being able to follow them through their lives throughout all of these challenges they face, they can always rely and return to their friendship. And it is the sort of tenderness of this narrative of these friends coming together, the compassion of. These are young women who are really trying to figure it out, who are going to make missteps, who are, you know, going to let their egos take them places, places they really would, you know, should not have gone. And, you know, I. I don't see a lot of that in literary fiction. And so it felt not only really impressive from a place of, like, this is a story that really does capture the lives of these women as they grow up together, but also from the standpoint of this is a book that really shows in a way that is not about, you know, I mean, I hate the phrase trauma porn, but, you know, it's not that. It is about exploring the nuances of these women that they are. They contain multitudes, and they are. They have a lot of, you know, know, life stories and backgrounds and things they go through, and it forms this bigger picture of them, that they are these complicated, complex people. And I just loved it. I loved being taken on that journey. It felt familiar to me. It felt like a bit of a love note to me in my 20s, especially, because a lot of it takes place in LA. You know, it goes between New York and LA.
- [96:42]
Danica Ellis
And.
- [96:42]
Sharifah Williams
And there were points in this book where they were talking about la, and I was like, was somebody spying on me?
- [96:49]
Rebecca Schinsky
Because Angela Flournoy is reading your mail?
- [96:54]
Sharifah Williams
And so I am also biased in that respect because I was like, oh, my gosh, this book feels so close to my heart. It feels perfect.
- [97:01]
Jeff O'Neill
If someone rolled by on roller skates in a pink wig, you would have had to send her a note to be like, what's going on here?
- [97:08]
Rebecca Schinsky
There is something really magical about reading a book like this by an author who's about our age. Like, Sharifah and I are the same age. Angela Flournoy is right in that zone. And while I don't share the experience that you and Angela Flournoy have of being a black woman in the world, like that depiction of their friend, the friendships that these women get to be whole and messy, and they have these great big moments together, and they also hold each other again accountable, like, sometimes more softly than others for their stuff. But they're all in there. There's a real witnessing of each other's lives. And that floridoi lets us witness their lives. I had the same experience of. It really made me think about, like, my younger self and the friendships that are enduring. And I found it to be really surprising. There were a bunch of points where I thought I knew where she was going. And then we would zag in the plot, like, okay, Angela Flournoy, like, what else do you have for us? Let's do it.
- [98:05]
Sharifah Williams
Yeah. I tried not to know too much about the story going in, and I cannot be any happier that I did, because it's a wonderful book to just go in blindly and let the story take you all over the place.
- [98:20]
Rebecca Schinsky
And with your sci fi background, too, you must have been delighted for the Octavia Butler of it all.
- [98:25]
Danica Ellis
Yes.
- [98:28]
Sharifah Williams
As a little, like, internal dialogue of, like, have I even read a butler book?
- [98:33]
Kelly Jensen
Like, I was like, come on, come.
- [98:36]
Sharifah Williams
On now, pick up that parable of the Sower. But it was. Yes, I was absolutely thrilled by that mention.
- [98:42]
Jeff O'Neill
And for those of you who haven't read or haven't seen it, I'm looking. It's on my nightstand. It's actually under my lamp right now. For reasons I don't really understand, it must have been why it's not very long. So if you're trying to get in under the new year, it's like 2, 4, 40, something like that. I don't think it's even 300 pages and it reads very Quickly. So, you know, you could get this one under your belt here in the last few weeks. If that's something you care about, there's no reason you have to do it for this year. But it is a 2025 release. I know some people like to play along and read 2025 releases in the year they come out.
- [99:10]
Rebecca Schinsky
Oh, yeah. And if you're in a book club that's waiting for paperbacks, like just sometime mid-2026, this will come out in paperback and will be an excellent, like, substantial book club conversation.
- [99:23]
Sharifah Williams
That is a great point. I can't imagine a better book club.
- [99:26]
Rebecca Schinsky
Read than this one. So much to talk about.
- [99:30]
Jeff O'Neill
Sharifah, thank you so much for joining us.
- [99:33]
Sharifah Williams
Thank you.
- [99:35]
Jeff O'Neill
All right, Vanessa Diaz, our managing editor here at Book Riot, you're up now. You've got two picks. Tell us about two of your favorite books of the year.
- [99:43]
Vanessa Diaz
I do, and I think I may have even mentioned them on the show on my front list, Foyer Appearances. But, you know, we're going to give you a little more detailed analysis. Both those first one is probably not a surprise for anybody who has ever paid attention to anything I've read. And that's the Bewitching by Silvia Moreno Garcia. It's witchy. It's Silvia Moreno Garcia. I like to make the joke that I'm pretty sure she has a genre roulette in her home that she just spins whenever it's time to crack open the keyboard. And she's like, I'm gonna do that. And she did. And it's great. It's sort of dark academia. It's a mystery. It's horror. It's such things. So it starts off in 1990s Massachusetts, where Minerva is a Mexican grad student who is studying the history of horror literature. And for her thesis, she's researching this obscure horror writer named Beatrice Tremblay, who also went to that same university, obviously, decades prior, wrote some twisty, macabre tales. But there's also a bit of a mystery kind of swirling around this particular writer, and that's that there is this unexplained disappearance of that writer's roommate, Ginny. Ginny was a spiritualist. She was one of those kind of gauzy, very glamorous, beautiful women that everybody was kind of surrounding. You know, she would pull people into her orbit, and everybody was kind of fascinated with her. And it also created this weird tension with, like, who could claim her as their bestie. So there were some kind of dynamics going on there that play out interestingly. But that's kind of the buzz if that's really what most people know this writer for, versus, like her actual work or her actual horror writing. So Minerva starts to research this. It's slow going. She has to do a whole bunch of very tedious poking, as research often is. But the more she learns about the disappearance and more learns about that spiritualist angle, the more it becomes pretty clear that Giddy may have actually been at least convinced that she was haunted of some sort. And the types of stories that she's learning and like weird quirks that she would mention that like, she felt that she was being pursued by this really weird presence, that she would walk away and then seemingly kind of disappear in a way that didn't make sense to people, really are echoing tales that she remembers her grandmother telling her about her life in 1900s Mexico. And then we do get that perspective of the grandmother Alba, who is telling you about her experience growing up in Mexico as the daughter of a family where the patriarch dies and then a brother of her mom kind of comes in and we've got some weird feelings about who he is and like what he's trying to do with the family. And that's kind of all you should know because those stories just start to kind of quietly converge. You probably know from the title that there is some sort of witchy something, but it's a very particular brand of witchy. It's this like Mexican Bujeria thing. That's not, you know, what you might expect from just like a typical witchy novel.
- [102:22]
Rebecca Schinsky
Not your practical magic.
- [102:23]
Vanessa Diaz
No, there are no Owen sisters around here. This is a much deeper, darker, more sinister sort of thing going on. But the way she blends those two stories together is really brilliant. And I'm just a huge fan of the kind of horror that Soy Moreno Garcia writes.
- [102:38]
Rebecca Schinsky
You are maybe like the captain of Silvia Moreno Garcia's street team unofficially. And I know that you've loved, I think everything that she's written. I've heard you talk about them on the podcast and seen them show up in book riots best of year after year. Where should people start who have not read her? Or is this really a pick your genre that you like and jump in situation?
- [102:59]
Vanessa Diaz
I know, I think the picking of the genre is probably great just because she does have something for so many of those vibes. But I mean like her earlier stuff, Signal to Noise is great if you are wanting to do something that's a little bit more on the sci fi tip. I think Gods of Jaden's Shadow is phenomenal if you like, sort of time Rompy. She tends to weave in a lot of historical elements into her stuff, and that's one that takes us all the way from, like, Jazz Age Mexico with, you know, dead vengeful gods and somebody that gets brought back to life. So that's great. I think Mexican Gothic is the one that really kind of put her on the map.
- [103:32]
Jeff O'Neill
Right. I mean, yeah, it is a breakout time. I started seeing her name pop up in lists from the author of kind of. Of stuff.
- [103:38]
Vanessa Diaz
Yep. But if you read Mexican Gothic and like it, which is very much this, like, horror gothic, taking the, like, prototype of, like, that decaying English, literal English matter, but sticking it in, like, the hills of Hidalgon Mexico, you should also read certain dark things because that is her vampire novel set in Mexico City that is also not like your typical vampire novel and brings in aspects of, you know, mythology and history from Mexico. So she just does it for me. But, yeah, lots of great places to start.
- [104:04]
Jeff O'Neill
And she pumps out, like, one a year.
- [104:05]
Erica Ezzafedi
Right.
- [104:05]
Jeff O'Neill
Like, she really does. Yeah, it was really.
- [104:08]
Vanessa Diaz
And she's writers. Yeah. Because she's a huge advocate for, like, the horror community and specifically, like, the bipoc horror community, but for reasons that no one needs me to explain, is, like, really exhausted by a lot of social media. So she'll just kind of go away and then really come back out to be, like, by the way, another book coming next year. And then, like. And just literally what she just did, she announced the intrigue, which is this, like, noir. She's. She's. She has been dipping back into noir lately. So anyway, yeah, there. She's.
- [104:33]
Erica Ezzafedi
She's busy.
- [104:34]
Vanessa Diaz
She keeps that keyboard warm.
- [104:35]
Jeff O'Neill
But I recommended Silver Nitrate to my brother because it was the only book I ever knew that was about an audio engineer.
- [104:42]
Danica Ellis
Yes.
- [104:43]
Jeff O'Neill
So that was a fun one with.
- [104:44]
Vanessa Diaz
Like, some Nazi occultism. Yeah.
- [104:46]
Jeff O'Neill
Again, as one does, a little Hellboy mixed in at some level. Your other pick for us this year is something that I've seen pop up a lot. And I think when Rebecca first linked to it in the Book Riot newsletter, we were shocked about how many, like, clicks it got.
- [105:00]
Rebecca Schinsky
So many clicks.
- [105:01]
Erica Ezzafedi
So.
- [105:01]
Jeff O'Neill
So, I mean, this is one that I don't know. I mean, I've read the COVID I have no reading experience, but why don't you talk about the macabre?
- [105:07]
Danica Ellis
Yes.
- [105:07]
Vanessa Diaz
So, yeah, the macabre is apparently my theme for today. First in Vibe and also in Vibe.
- [105:12]
Rebecca Schinsky
But in title always.
- [105:14]
Vanessa Diaz
Does it ever change? Yeah. So in the Macabre by Kosoko Jackson, which was my first time reading Kosoko Jackson. Most of the work that I associate him with is more in the YA romance and. Or like rom com space. Queer romance. And. And this. He took some queer romance but applied it to this book that's full of art and yeah, horror vibes. And so at the very beginning we meet this gentleman named Lewis and he's in a hospital. It's all in a prologue. His mother is dying and he's sitting next to this really mysterious woman who's sort of just making conversation with him in the way that you might in a waiting room, except that she starts to sort of get more and more sinister with the stuff that she's saying. And it becomes pretty clear that she maybe knows and the mother, but he doesn't recall why. And then she quite literally wraps that conversation with saying something to the effect of like, yep, didn't like your mom and that's why I killed her and why I made it hurt. And he's like, wait, what?
- [106:03]
Jeff O'Neill
And then, wait, hold on, wait, back up.
- [106:05]
Vanessa Diaz
But then she basically magically, you know, men in blacks, him, where like, he suddenly is looking at her and like slowly starts to forget what it is that she was just saying and he doesn't. And that's literally where the prologue ends. We flash forward, he's running through the streets of London because he has been invited by the tape and I think the British Museum in tandem for this exhibition where they have allegedly chosen different artists from different countries that Britain, at what point colonized in an act of sort of artistic retribution to be like, hey, sorry, we colonized. Do your art thing. He's like, great, I guess I got chosen. He's a struggling artist. Can't really like figure out why it is that he was chosen. But he's not going to look the gift horse in the mouth. So he goes shows up at the museum, museum with his. The specific piece in tow. But when he enters the room, everything looks kind of funky and creepy. And he realizes that he has been brought here under a ruse. And that ruse is that he has been specifically brought for this sort of test to see if the suspicions that they have of him are true. Which is that this fugue like state that he enters when he's working on his paintings is actually a form of very rare magic that allows him to physically step into paintings. And the reason that's a big deal in this particular, like, yeah, situation is that there are these nine sinister paintings that are scattered across the globe. Origins of most of them unknown, that need to be recovered at all costs because they are capable of like an unspeakable evil. But also, the person who did those paintings in the first place is Lewis's grand great grandfather.
- [107:38]
Jeff O'Neill
So they're all by the same person, all the paintings sort of person, Horcrux with situation.
- [107:44]
Vanessa Diaz
Exactly. You took the words out of my mouth. So he, they test it out, right? He enters that first painting and it is one that is the one that's featured on the COVID So if you looked at that cover and you were like, oh, that's creepy cool, he quite literally steps into that cover and it's this story of a young boy who is at a funeral because a woman, the one woman pictured in the picture has died. But like, how did she die? That's the creepy part. And he realizes that it's, yes, he has this power, but like, what do I do with it? How do I get out? And they're like, well, you can sign on to do this. It will change your life if you do. It will not change your life, or it will if you don't, but not in the way that you want. So you probably kind of have no choice but to join us. And so he does. And that just kicks off this globe trotting, time hopping adventure into history. Gothic magic, cursed objects, definite, you know, commentary on the effects of colonialism, of stolen art, stolen artifacts, with some of that queer romance in the back too. But it is a gory romp and a history lesson and is, I think, the darkest that I've seen. Kosoko Jackson, by his own words, like, get with his books.
- [108:48]
Rebecca Schinsky
It was just a bloody good time. A gory romp and a history lesson is a hell of a cover blurb.
- [108:53]
Jeff O'Neill
And it's a coward. But I'm like, the very opening of Da Vinci Code, right, is like in a museum and there's like people splayed out and flagellated and bleeding. I kind of dug that. Like, that's, I think, one of the magic things of that book. And it sounds like there's elements to that there also. I was thinking about this as you were talking, Vanessa. I think macabre is like top 10 word. That's just an unsightful word.
- [109:16]
Rebecca Schinsky
It's a cool idea.
- [109:17]
Jeff O'Neill
It's just a wonderful. I'm so glad that someone took that to just title their book.
- [109:23]
Vanessa Diaz
I didn't know anything about it. Saw the title and was like, but you know, because, yeah, it's good, a good word. And, oh, it just lives up. It's, it's, I think Jeff and I talked on the last episode about how we're, you know, the art books thing is like having a bit of a moment and this was. Which is so different considering I'm trying to read Mona's eyes right now.
- [109:38]
Rebecca Schinsky
Very different tone.
- [109:40]
Sharifah Williams
Yeah.
- [109:42]
Jeff O'Neill
Those two would be interesting. Right? It's like the Shining meets Simona's eyes.
- [109:46]
Vanessa Diaz
And Kosoko Jackson is funny because I kept reading this thing.
- [109:48]
Kelly Jensen
God, this is just like cinematic like.
- [109:50]
Vanessa Diaz
The way he envisions it. I could see that this is a thing he could potentially turn into a film. And that's. He's been all over social talking about how one of his big passion projects all his life was to get into film. And then he just decided that the state of the world is terrible. I want to pursue those dreams. And he's pursuing film right now and like making headways and as I'm watching him take these baby steps and they could. Could you one day do this?
- [110:11]
Rebecca Schinsky
Like also Ryan Coogler, what's he doing next?
- [110:14]
Vanessa Diaz
Like Black Panther 3.
- [110:16]
Jeff O'Neill
I just saw that.
- [110:17]
Vanessa Diaz
Yeah, actually, yes, that is. Is true. But yeah, so macabre theme.
- [110:21]
Jeff O'Neill
I'm stepping on a future. Deals, deals, deals. But there was just a deal announcement for a book called the Louvre Heist that I think someone xando is going to do. That's a non fiction account. Great, we're all ready. We can do a six hour podcast.
- [110:34]
Vanessa Diaz
I'm available.
- [110:35]
Jeff O'Neill
Did you just see that? Someone boosted a bunch of Matisses from a museum in Brazil. Brazil, Old copycats.
- [110:42]
Vanessa Diaz
It's just, well, I mean once you know how apparently like, like, you know, rough shot targets. Yeah, I was like was we can steal arts.
- [110:50]
Kelly Jensen
It's fine.
- [110:52]
Jeff O'Neill
That one in my city's just sitting there.
- [110:55]
Rebecca Schinsky
Got yourself a little truck with a ladder attached. They're all over the place.
- [110:59]
Vanessa Diaz
Yeah, if my 401k doesn't deliver, I have a backup plan. But.
- [111:02]
Jeff O'Neill
Right, just yourself, a B, a B and a little moxie and you've got yourself a criminal enterprise gumption. Vanessa, Melissa, thank you so much.
- [111:12]
Vanessa Diaz
Thank you. A world on fire. Nations collapsing, ideologies clashing.
- [111:28]
Rebecca Schinsky
And ordinary men and women caught in the storm.
- [111:31]
Vanessa Diaz
Hi, I'm Ray Harris Jr. Of the.
- [111:33]
Rebecca Schinsky
History of World War II podcast. And we'll cover the best battles that shaped the war.
- [111:38]
Jeff O'Neill
From the deserts of North Africa to.
- [111:40]
Rebecca Schinsky
The frozen forests of the Ardennes. Because history isn't just names and dates. It's people, choices and consequences at World War II podcast net.