What 20,000 AI-Generated Stories Have in Common

Summary

Book Riot – The Podcast

Episode: "What 20,000 AI-Generated Stories Have in Common"
Date: June 22, 2026
Hosts: Rebecca Schinsky (RS), Vanessa Diaz (VD)

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Overview

This episode dives into a variety of book world news, including the upcoming Kazuo Ishiguro release, AI’s growing (and sometimes awkward) presence in reading and writing, major book adaptations, and recent literary award winners. The heart of the episode is a fascinating discussion about a new study analyzing 20,000 AI-generated stories and what their striking similarities reveal about the limits of artificial creativity.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Exciting Book Announcements

• Kazuo Ishiguro’s Next Novel
  • Title: Ms. Lambert Steps Aboard
  • Release: March 2027 (Knopf)
  • Genre: World War II spy novel with comedic and caper elements
  • Inspiration: Set in 1938 England, echoing the era of “The Remains of the Day”
  • RS: "It's exciting news. The very exciting, like, Muppet arms worthy. Multiple exclamation points in all of my texts about this announcement from Knopf..." (06:06)
  • Adaptation: "Klara and the Sun" film coming soon, starring Jenna Ortega and Amy Adams
  • RS: "You don't know what it's going to be, but there is this just masterful hand guiding the stories from the first page. You just know that you are with one of the greats." (09:08)

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AI and the Reading Experience

• Google Play Books Adds AI Summaries & Assistance

  • Summary features and chat-driven “reading companion” tools now available (with opt-out options).
  • Features include: "Catch Me Up" recaps, question prompts, deep dives into themes/characters.
  • Hosts are skeptical about utility—preferring immersive, uninterrupted reading.
  • RS: "This is straight from the department of nobody wants this." (11:18)
  • VD: Notes usefulness for those juggling multiple books but laments the ever-present distraction of digital interruptions.
  • VD: "It's just inserting AI into every possible corner of life, which is what feels like it's happening every time I open my eyes is just exhausting..." (15:42)
  • Mention: Accessibility uses acknowledged as a potential bright spot.

• Gen Z’s Print Preference

  • New research: Digital natives are shifting back to print for deeper, less-interrupted engagement and social/discovery reasons.
  • RS: "Their data shows a real preference for print books and a shift back into physical bookstores, into libraries, partially as a way to sort of ballast against loneliness, but also because people in that generation and younger generations are looking for ways to be online less." (12:33)

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The Main Theme: What 20,000 AI-Generated Stories Have in Common

Segment Begins: [16:02]

• The Study

  • Conducted by Cornell University researchers; led by Daniel May.
  • 20,000 stories generated with AI models (ChatGPT, Claude, Google Gemini).
  • RS: "Over the 20,000 stories, they found a really astonishing amount of repetition. Eleven words, including lighthouse keeper, baker, mayor, clockmaker, fisherman, librarian, conductor. And then the names Mara, Elias, and Elara appeared in 88% of these 20,000 LLM generation stories." (16:55)

• Key Findings

  • Names ("Elias the Lighthouse Keeper") and occupations show up in the overwhelming majority of stories—88%!
  • The phrase "Elias the Lighthouse Keeper" appeared in two-thirds of all AI-generated stories.
  • No evidence this character exists in training data: not from pre-existing literature.
  • Theorized cause: In alignment tuning, AIs are instructed to avoid copyrighted or adult content, defaulting to the safest, blandest choices—“cozy” but generic.
  • RS: "The theory here is that Elias the Lighthouse Keeper is basically about LLMs, just trying to, like, tell you a story that will offend no one." (18:30)

• Unexpected Applications

  • This phenomenon extended beyond stories into non-fiction summaries (e.g., alternative cancer handbooks).
  • VD: "They found this in other places, including a handbook that claims to provide info on alternative cancer treatments... Like Elias the housekeeper made a mention in that." (19:43)
  • When AI-authored books started flooding Amazon, many falsely attributed to “Elias Thorne.”

• Literary Implications

  • The recurrence exposes a lack of true creativity in LLMs.
  • RS (quoting Gizmodo): "...all of this points back to the fact that LLMs are not creative... If you give AI a creative task. Here's the great quote. It'll give you the equivalent of elevator music." (21:17)
  • RS: "That there was so much overlap that in 20,000 stories, 88% of them had these 11 words. And that Elias Thorne is just out there now as a character, as a fake author, just truly strange and surprising." (22:11)

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Major Literary Awards and Winners

Segment Begins: [24:03]

• Women's Prize for Fiction

  • Winner: "The Correspondent"
  • VD: "This is one where the extended shortlist I had actually read several of, so I was curious to see what actually ended up rising to the top... Now I want to read it, like I own it. I should probably take the time to do so." (24:14)
  • Jane Fonda set to star in a forthcoming adaptation.

• Lambda Literary Awards (“Lammies”)

  • Recognizes LGBTQ literature; highlighted winners:
    • "Sympathy for Wild Girls" (Bisexual fiction)
    • "The Lilac People" (Transgender fiction)
    • "Hunger Stone" (Lesbian fiction)
    • "Yeet" (Poetry), "Ladies in Hating" (F/F romance), "A Mannequin for Christmas" (Gay romance)
  • VD: "I've heard so many good things... But even from our own Book Riot contributor team of Hunger Stone by Kat Dunn, which won the award for lesbian fiction, and that one just looks like a great time." (27:00)
  • Noted diversity of categories, making it a rich resource for recommendations.

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Adaptation Corner

Segment Begins: [28:51]

• Rachel Kushner’s "Creation Lake"

  • Warner Brothers adapts with Maggie Gyllenhaal directing.
  • Mention of previous Gyllenhaal film (“The Bride”) and anticipation for Kushner’s complex, character-driven narratives.
  • RS: "I think this is really interesting potential. Jeff and I both really liked Creation Lake. Kushner's an interesting writer..." (29:58)
  • VD: "I really like Maggie Gyllenhaal. I feel like she takes risks, so it'll be interesting to see her take on this novel." (30:38)

• Ali Hazelwood’s "The Love Hypothesis"

  • September release (Prime Video), Lili Reinhart starring.
  • RS: "It's coming out on September 23rd. Lili Reinhart plays the lead... it's a fake dating story. And it's a great time." (32:24)

• Hannah Grace’s "Icebreaker"

  • Netflix adaptation (part of a wave of “horny hockey” romances).
  • VD: “More horny hockey. This time on Netflix’s part. So they're getting into the action with an adaptation of Icebreaker by Hannah Grace, which is another one of these covers that I feel like I've seen a thousand times..." (32:45)
  • Executive produced by Alex Cooper (“Call Her Daddy”).

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Frontlist Foyer – What We’re Reading

Segment Begins: [36:05]

• Vanessa Diaz:

  • "Cleopatra" by Sara El Arifi
    • Reimagining of Cleopatra's story, featuring direct address to the reader, deep historical detail, and narration by Bridgerton’s Adjoa Andoh.
    • VD: "It's a lot of fun. I'm really enjoying it." (37:39)

• Rebecca Schinsky:

  • "Night Objects" by Eli Raphael
    • Boarding school thriller with secret societies, marginalized perspectives, and literary style; compared favorably to “The Secret History” and “God of the Woods.”
    • RS: "It's kind of everything that I want a thriller to be." (38:02)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• Rebecca Schinsky on Google Play’s new AI feature:

  "This is straight from the department of nobody wants this." (11:18)

• Vanessa Diaz on AI’s infiltration:

  "It's just inserting AI into every possible corner of life, which is what feels like it's happening every time I open my eyes is just exhausting..." (15:42)

• Rebecca Schinsky on AI-generated story uniformity:

  "That there was so much overlap that in 20,000 stories, 88% of them had these 11 words. And that Elias Thorne is just out there now as a character, as a fake author, just truly strange and surprising." (22:11)

• Rebecca Schinsky explaining LLM creativity limits:

  "If you give AI a creative task...It'll give you the equivalent of elevator music." (21:17)

• Vanessa Diaz on adaptation excitement:

  "I really like Maggie Gyllenhaal. I feel like she takes risks, so it'll be interesting to see her take on this novel." (30:38)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [06:06] — Ishiguro’s new novel and adaptation news
• [10:01] — Google Play’s new AI features: opinions and context
• [11:18] — Skeptical hot takes on AI as a “reading companion”
• [12:33] — Gen Z’s print preference & immersive reading
• [16:02] — Main segment: Analysis of 20,000 AI-generated stories
• [24:03] — Literary Awards (Women’s Prize, Lambda Literary Awards)
• [28:51] — Book Adaptation News (Gyllenhaal’s “Creation Lake,” “The Love Hypothesis,” “Icebreaker”)
• [36:05] — What We’re Reading (Cleopatra, Night Objects)

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Tone and Style

The hosts’ conversational, witty, and bookishly skeptical tone shines throughout. There’s playfulness (mock-panic about AI story sameness), genuine excitement (Muppet arms for Ishiguro!), and nerdy glee for great writing and adaptations.

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For Further Exploration

• Gizmodo link about AI story repetition ([referenced in show notes])
• Complete Lambda and Women’s Prize winners list
• Adaptation trailers & release info (especially for the upcoming Ishiguro and Hazelwood works)

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Missed the episode? This summary has all the essential literary happenings, news, and banter you need—minus the ads and intros!

Transcript

[Rebecca Schinsky]

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[Vanessa Diaz]

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[Rebecca Schinsky]

You're listening to the Book Riot Podcast. I'm Rebecca Schinsky here once again with Book Riot's managing editor Vanessa Diaz while Jeff is out on vacation. Vanessa, welcome back.

[Vanessa Diaz]

Here I am again.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

We're getting lots of great fan mail about your recent appearances on the podcast. Between your episode about the messy marriage of the Harlem Renaissance and the silliness that happened on our Hot List episode. So Jeff is just gonna really have to earn his keep when he comes back.

[Vanessa Diaz]

I almost made a list of myself of like ways to be more Jeffy on this episode, particularly cause one of the pieces of news is very exactly it's puns. But it's like he has a funny knack for using some like trisyllabic word and then going hard on an alliterative like crunch. And I'm just gonna try really hard to do that. But then I thought, you know what? No, I'm gonna be me. We're gonna the Vanessa energy is what we need for me. And then when Jeff comes back, he can go full Jeff. It's. It's all fine.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yes, I'm sure that he will come back well rested and fueled with ridiculous puns. So I'm glad to have you in all of your glory here.

[Vanessa Diaz]

Great.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Little bit of a lighter Newsweek in terms of like truly substantial stories, but we have some book announcements to share. Couple things related to AI because that is the timeline that we live on. There are still some trailing book awards from 2025 and some interesting adaptation news. So a real book riot podcast variety pack that we will get into after this first sponsor this episode is sponsored by It's not her by Mary Kubica Stick around after the show to hear an excerpt from the audiobook edition. Two families at a secluded lake resort are at the center of a chilling crime in this twisty thriller from the best sell author of Local Woman Missing Courtney Gray's peaceful vacation turns into a nightmare when she discovers her brother and sister in law dead in their lakeside cottage. Her niece Reese is missing. Her nephew Wyatt is asleep upstairs, unharmed. As police swarm the quiet resort, dark truths about Courtney's family and the town itself begin to surface. Is Rhys a victim or the killer? With everyone hiding something, Courtney races to uncover the terrible mystery. But the closer she gets, the harder it is to know who or what to trust. This was an instant New York Times bestseller. It's a gripping thrill ride with razor sharp tension and a whiplash ending that Geneva Rose, another number one New York Times bestselling author, says she never saw coming again. Stick around after the show to hear an excerpt from the audiobook edition of It's not her by Mary Kubica.

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[Vanessa Diaz]

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[Rebecca Schinsky]

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[Rebecca Schinsky]

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[Vanessa Diaz]

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[Rebecca Schinsky]

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[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay, Vanessa, let's just start with where are you on Ishiguro?

[Vanessa Diaz]

Funnily enough, from listening to y' all talk about him enough, it was this last year was the year I finally corrected my. I have not read Ishiguro. Ooh, sorry. There's a whole lot of noise happening on the street today where I'm at. But I finally read Never Let Me Go because it sounded like something that would be deeply in my wheelhouse. And it was, but also kind of a stretch for a little more literary than what I've been leaning, as you all know, lately, deep into the genre of it all. And this was a really great blend. I was like, oh, I get it now. Cool, cool, cool. And now here we are.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It's exciting news. The very exciting, like, Muppet arms worthy. Multiple exclamation points in all of my texts about this announcement from Knopf that Ishiguru Kazuo Ishiguro, the Nobel Prize winning novelist, has a new book coming out in March of 2027. It's called Ms. Lambert Steps Aboard Vanessa Diaz. This is a World War II spy novel.

[Vanessa Diaz]

I was like, this actually is so well tailored for me. I love a historical. I love a spy. I love the Lifetime movie title. Like Mother May I Sleep with Danger is the first thing that came to brain. The setup just sounds like everything. Like if you. Yeah, I'm really jazzed because this is very much the kind of thing, as you know, that I like to read about, and it's Ishiguro.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

So Ishigura and I first encountered the announcement on Instagram. I broke vacation containment and texted Jeff in Europe, and his immediate response was, holy shit. So we are all collectively just so excited about a new Ishiguro novel. It's been a couple of years since the last one, Clara and the sun came out in 2021. By the time this comes out in the spring, we will have all seen the Klara and the sun adaptation by Teika Waititi. The first looks at that came out this morning that I saw, and it's just still shots from the set. Jenna Ortega playing Clara, the AI artificial friend. Amy Adams is the mother of a girl who is using Clara as her artificial friend. I'm still nervous, but we'll see. I think it's gonna debut at some of the summer festivals. And so the reviews have not started. But a new Ishiguro book is always exciting. This one opens In England in 1938, a similar timeframe to Ishiguro's 1989 novel, the Remains of the Day. But that book is more reflections on World War I and sort of like where the world is starting to head in the 1930s. Also a great in the genre of old men Waiting to Die. But this one is built around a chance encounter between the mysterious miss Lambert of the title of the book and a man who's a music hall aficionado. It's right before World War II starts. And they have capers. They have capers. Jordan Pavlin, who is the publisher and editor in chief at Knopf, described this as a blend of spy fiction and the kind of wit that PG Wodehouse was known for. I don't need to hear anything else. I don't need to hear anything at all. Yeah, I know when I was texting with Jeff about it, I was like, who cares what it's about? Like, this is a new Ishiguro novel. But I don't know what combination of genre features could make me more excited for a new one than it's a World War II lady spy.

[Vanessa Diaz]

Yeah, just, you know, me and spy. Anyway, I'm notorious for loving anything in that realm. I'm a big. I've podcasted with Jeff about how much I used to love all the James Bondi stuff of it. Obviously this is different, but like, in Ishiguro's hands, I love the historical the PG Wodehouse. Like, this is just so many blends of factors that I'm like, really?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And Ishiguro is just like the reason or one of the many reasons that we love him so much is he takes on every genre. Every book is something different, something totally different. You don't know what it's going to be, but there is this just masterful hand guiding the stories from the first page. You just know that you are with one of the greats. I can't wait. I just cannot wait. So this is great news. Smash your pre order buttons for Ms. Lambert steps aboard Danger by Kazuo Ishiguro. Coming in March. It feels like so long to wait, but I know the Time will pass quickly. It's so fun to have that to look forward to in the realm of things that we don't really look forward to. We've got some LLM stuff to talk about. Will you tell the people what Google Play did this week?

[Vanessa Diaz]

Sure.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Don't sound so excited about it, Vanessa.

[Vanessa Diaz]

The part that annoys me the most that there's parts of this that I'm like, ah, I would find that helpful. And anyway, so they have announced that there's basically going to be this enhancement now to Google Play books that incorporates AI into the reading experience should you so desire. Anyhow, you can actually go and do like a level account, level setting if you don't want to. You can do it by book, et cetera. But it does allow.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

So you can opt out.

[Vanessa Diaz]

You can opt out, yes. But it does allow readers to basically use AI as a, as they say, helpful reading companion to enhance your Google Play books. Some of the stuff you'll be able to do is generate a recap of what you've read so far with this feature called Catch Me Up. You can highlight passages and ask questions and dive deeper into, as it says, themes, context, characters. You can ask questions. Sure. This is what everybody's wanted. Again, I begrudgingly admit that as a person who dips in and out of a lot of books all the time, you know, as we do for our job, like you're just reading a lot of things at the same time. I'm like, oh, that Catch Me up feature maybe. But also Google exists and I can just go back in the book. You know how cranky I am about AI related stuff. So why don't you give me a balanced interpretation of what's happening.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I don't have one. Great. I think this is incredibly annoying. This is straight from the department of nobody wants this. Yes, like my really cantankerous response is the way to catch yourself up is to take notes on like your stopping points and then revisit them when you

[Vanessa Diaz]

make a book back up.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Maybe there are some accessibility use cases that I'm not thinking about here. And of course we support all of those uses as people need to make their reading experiences work for them with different abilities and different challenges that folks might encounter. But in general, interrupting your reading experience is not something that I'm a fan of unless you really, really snag on something. Jeff and I were just talking about this when we were prepping folks for how to enter into the read along for the Odyssey, and I really think that unless you absolutely feel like you can't continue without the specifics about term or an idea that the better thing to do if you snag on something in your reading is make a note of it and Google it after that reading session is over so that you don't come out. Because again, that task switching and trying to then recover your attention and go back into your book is incredibly challenging. It's also just counter to the ways that people who love books want to experience books. What we hear is that people want to sink into books. And this really landed at an interesting time for me. Earlier this week I got to interview interview two media studies researchers that will be on an episode next month who have a book coming out about Gen Z's reading habits. And Gen Z particularly interesting because of course they are the first generation of true digital natives. They never knew life without the Internet. Their online and offline lives are blended in ways that those of us in older generations just can't quite get our heads around. And their data shows a real preference for print books and a shift back into physical bookstores, into libraries, partially as a way to sort of ballast against loneliness, but also because people in that generation and younger generations are looking for ways to be online less. And sinking into an immersive reading experience is one of those ways. That generation also tends to do their E reading on their phones. They're not using dedicated E reading devices. And so those phones, if you're trying to read an ebook on your phone, it's just a constant interruption. They don't like that. I imagine that they would not also enjoy this chatbot pop up like, I'm just picturing Clippy from Microsoft Word from now.

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[Rebecca Schinsky]

I'm glad you can turn it off.

[Vanessa Diaz]

Me too.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

You know, I will be curious how long this kind of thing exists. Amazon has already made a feature like this available inside the Kindle app and Kindle devices. Amazon also doesn't tell us data about anything. So I guess if you're listening and you're a Kindle reader or now you're a Google Play reader and you have this available to you, do you use these features? Do you want these features? What are we thinking about this? I want to hold the possibility that I'm way off or that we're both way off and people actually will find this useful. But it concerns me for what it will feel like to be reading a

[Vanessa Diaz]

book because again, I do think there's a, like, if you again, ask me, like, would you occasionally find it useful to like, be. And honestly, if I'm really thinking about it. It's actually more like, hey, can you. Can you tell me what happened in the first two books in this series is more. The thing that I guess I really need is not what this is.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, yeah, you need the, like, the thing that plays before the new runs on Netflix.

[Vanessa Diaz]

I'm like, please run a trailer for me, please. But even if I did find a. I mean, part of what I. What I love coming on this show as an example is that it's just fun to talk to people about media. And if you have questions about a book, to me, I'm always like, just have a conversation somebody. Or again, just Google. But, like, find other book readers. Ask someone a question, have talks with it. Also, there's this disclaimer at the bottom of this. It's like, by the way, sometimes this stuff's not accurate because that's just how AI works. I'm like, cool, so you might actually get told something that's not true. All of that being Edge case, I still am just such a. Yeah. As a person who does struggle with distractibility, it's like I relish the ability to just be sunk in a book and thus read with, like, a pad of paper and a pen at the side. Because I'd like to just be able to, like, take the notes and like, reference them later. I just. I just don't think this is a good. Good idea, even. But again, there are probably folks out there who will differ, and that's fine. It's just inserting AI into every possible corner of life, which is what feels like it's happening every time I open my eyes is just exhausting in a way that I. I'm trying not to sound like a total, total prank about, but, you know, I'm like 85% there.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I feel like this is a nonpartisan issue. Like, everybody pretty much agrees that there are some utilities to AI, and most of the shoehorning is annoying. Folks, let us know what you think about this podcast.com, if you've used it, if you will turn it off immediately. Any interesting experiences with it, we would love to hear about that. Speaking of research about AI, 404 Media broke this story that's paywalled, and Gizmodo is the link that we're going to have in the show. Notes to a piece that's publicly available. But something strange happens when you prompt a bunch of different AI models built by different companies to tell stories. And these researchers asked a bunch of chatbots, researchers led by a software engineer named Daniel May to produce 20,000 stories. These folks are at Cornell University. And over the 20,000 stories, they found a really astonishing amount of repetition. Eleven words, including lighthouse keeper, baker, mayor, clockmaker, fisherman, librarian, conductor. And then the names Mara, Elias, and elara appeared in 88% of these 20,000 LLM generation stories.

[Vanessa Diaz]

Rebecca? 88. 88% of somebody just feeding in, like, the plot to the Travis Baldry, like, cozy history. No shade to him. I just met, like, like, what is this? What are we doing?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, yeah. It says no combination of that pool of nouns appears more often than the phrase Elias the Lighthouse Keeper.

[Vanessa Diaz]

Sure.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And that showed up in two thirds of all the AI generated stories. And again, we're talking about ChatGPT and Claude and Google Gemini. So given the same prompt, these different models basically all start telling you stories about Elias the Lighthouse Keeper. And the researchers were like, what is happening here? So their first guess, which makes a ton of sense, was maybe this has to do something with the data that these models were trained on. And a lot of the models were trained even across different companies on similar data sets and similar, like, collections of books and collections of stories. But when they went and looked in the training materials, they could not find Elias the Lighthouse Keeper. There is no, like, famous classic book or series or anything like that about Elias the Lighthouse Keeper. So then they just start digging. And they have theorized that it's more about the alignment training that these models receive to tell. Like, if you just prompt a model to tell you a story. They've all been now trained to stay away from copyrighted characters and to stay away from adult content and to just go for, like, the lowest common denominator, the most safe kind of thing. So the theory here is that Elias the Lighthouse Keeper is basically about LLMs, just trying to, like, tell you the. Tell you a story that will offend no one.

[Vanessa Diaz]

No one. Yep. The most reasonable man in the world. This is Jeff. Jeff wrote this. He just doesn't want to tell. He wrote the code.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Do we think Jeff wants to read a story about Elias the Lighthouse Keeper? He is still recovering from the.

[Vanessa Diaz]

Yeah, I mean, I'm sure the part you're about to get into is like, okay, this is, you know, this is. I'm pulling this straight from the Gizmodo piece. Be like, okay, it's one thing for this to happen if you're maybe asking it to write you a children's bedtime story, but they found this in other places, including a handbook that claims to provide info on alternative cancer treatments. I think yes. Like Elias the housekeeper made a mention in that. Like, yes.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And Elias's last name is Thorn, apparently. So you. They have. Have now also found, like, a whole bunch of AI generated books on Amazon that cite Elias Thorne as the author or as the main character of the book. So this is one dead giveaway if you're trying to just, you know, stay alert when you're searching for books online and not accidentally buy something that's AI generated is if it's by or about Elias Thorne. That's probably fake.

[Vanessa Diaz]

Or a butcher, a baker, or a candlestick maker. And like.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Or a librarian. Just like. So we're talking historical fiction again.

[Vanessa Diaz]

It really. And it was funny once it made the distinction that, like, no, this actually, it's the opposite of what I initially kind of joked about that, like, no, it's not pulling from copyrighted works, or at least we think it didn't. And we think they're picking really safe stuff. Of course, second there, if you just look at that list of occupations, it really does sound like one of, like, the cozy mystery wave of, like, where it's just like, again. Or not cozy. Cozy fantasy. Right. Picking like a shopkeeper, like a baker, a librarian, like all the cozy protags you can think of, which I guess, you know, because they're cozy. Yes, they're safe. Except it's not that it's them trying to stay away from.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I think it's actually both. It's like it's these models trying to, you know, stay away from copyrighted materials and also stay away from any offensive, inflammatory and so cozy is the mode. Right. But the great point here, which the writers at 404MADE, this writer, whose name I'm scrolling up is A.J. dellinger at Gizmodomakes, is that all of this points back to the fact that LLMs are not creative, that they can pull stuff together. But like, a study from last year that found that AI generated images repeatedly fell into 12 specific motifs. Like, this is happening again with the writing tasks. If you give AI a creative task. Here's the great quote. It'll give you the equivalent of elevator music.

[Vanessa Diaz]

Yep, that was my favorite. Yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

But I just found that fascinating. Like, it's not surprising to me that there's some overlap here, but that there was so much overlap that in 20,000 stories, 88% of them had these 11 words. And that Elias Thorne is just out there now as a character, as a fake author, just truly strange and surprising. So you can get all of the details about that at the gizmodo. Story that'll be in the show notes. Or of course the 404 Media story if you are behind the paywall this

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[Rebecca Schinsky]

Vanessa, let's clean up some more awards. You talked about the Women's Prize for Fiction on the Hot List earlier this week or last week. Now, as folks are listening, tell me who won.

[Vanessa Diaz]

So that was the Correspondent, which again, you're seeing all over the place. And if you want to hear us talk a little bit more about that on the Hot List, you absolutely should. But yeah, I have like a streak, as I have talked about with Jeff, about never having read a single book on any of the award lists. It's like my thing I'm known for, and this is one where the extended shortlist I had actually read several of, so I was curious to see what actually ended up rising to the top. Those didn't make it, but the Correspondent did. And I mean, great, great. Now I want to read it like I own it. I should probably take the time to do so. But I took home the Diamonds Prize this year.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I'm leaning towards picking it up at some point as well now too, because it seems to be sitting in that zone the zone we want books to be in of it's popular, it's actually good. I was getting a pedicure yesterday and the woman sitting next to me just started chatting because I was holding a book asked to be first if I had read Theo of Golden. You'll be pleased to know that I did not say anything about Smooth brain fiction. And then we pivoted into the Correspondent and then I said, have you read the new Ann Patchett? Which seems to be like the place you go from the Correspondent, but I mean these are all over the place now and Virginia Evans is just having a hell of a time. None of us saw this coming mid year last year when we locked in our fantasy league picks. It would have been a really winning title. Gonna be interesting to see this one continue its run. Also because Jane Fonda is starring in an adaptation that's already in production. So maybe next year, maybe late 27 feels like a holiday movie to me. The book will be out in paperback by then, so we'll see. Maybe that's what I'll do is I'll hold out and wait and you and I can do one of our fun conversations together.

[Vanessa Diaz]

That'd be be great.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Read it and go to the movies. Also on the awards tip this week the Lambda Literary Awards came out. Just affectionately known as the Lammies. Perfect timing. During Pride Month, the Lambda Literary Awards honor LGBTQ books and writers across a bunch of genres. I love to see this list every year because they have so many categories, so there's just opportunity for so many different books to get shine and attention. A couple favorites that are coming from folks on our team. I know Danica loved Sympathy for Wild Girls by Demery McGee talked about it when Danica was here on the show with me last year that won the Lammy for Bisexual fiction. The Lilac People by Milo Todd, which was nominated for a few other awards last year won the Lammy for Transgender fiction. Lidia Yukonovich's memoir Reading the Waves won the Bisexual Nonfiction Award. Any other notable ones that you recognize as we scroll through? There are so many interesting books.

[Vanessa Diaz]

I have heard so many good things and I am eventually going to read it. I haven't had time. But even from our own book Riot contributor team of Hunger Stone by Kat Dunn, which won the award for lesbian fiction and that one just looks like a great time. The author, the COVID alone really got me just love any a draped woman looks like she's fainting. Great. But that's one that so many people like. When we have done I think Both when we did the list of best books so far last year and then best books of 2025, multiple people were like, this book was great. This book was great. It was the anticipated. So definitely going to make sure to read that at some point. And then I've heard really good things about which I just love the title, the poetry collection Yeet by Jason B. Crawford. Which a great title gonna read because it's called Yeet. Like why not? The Ladies in Hating by Alexandra Vashti. Although I was looking for Susie Dumond because I really, really loved her Bed and breakfast.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I loved that one Bed and Breakup.

[Vanessa Diaz]

Yeah. I'm like, yes. But Alexandra Vaschi is also someone that we love. And so it was great to see Ladies and gentlemen hating win as well.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, I think I've got a pick of ladies in Hating. The tagline alone. The fomance of a lifetime.

[Vanessa Diaz]

Correct. And it's foe fo.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

So I'm guessing enemies to lovers. Here it is, a great bright summer looking cover. And then the gay romance as the title was A Mannequin for Christmas by Timothy Janofsky. So a little holiday romance option as well. But they've also got awards for middle grade ya, LGBTQ children's books and comics, drama, erotica mysteries, spec fic, queer studies, you name it. That's an awards list that is worth checking out so folks can take a look. We'll have that in the show notes as well. All right, let us gather ourselves now and turn to Adaptation Corner. Where do you want to start? We've got some interesting ones.

[Vanessa Diaz]

Oh, great question. I want to talk about the Maggie Gyllenhaal news only because the first line of this piece of news is really shady too me. So I mean, the first part of the news is just that we just found out that the movie. Oh my gosh, Rachel Kushner's book Creation Lake is being adapted. Warner Brothers is, as they say, taking another chance on Maggie Gyllenhaal because the first line of this piece announcing it is like they're re teaming with her. Even though the bride was a massive disappointment. Like that's what they lead with in this piece. I'm like, guys, let's focus on the

[Rebecca Schinsky]

adaptation mustard on this Police by Boris Kitt at the Hollywood Reporter.

[Vanessa Diaz]

But fine. But yeah, the studio has option. Warner Brothers has optioned this Rachel Kushner novel, Creation Lake, which I haven't read.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Oh, it's good.

[Vanessa Diaz]

Yeah. Rachel is just another one of those authors. And I'm like, yep, I'm gonna get to it. Yep. I'm get to. And then reading about what this is about, which spies or not a spy who, like, breaks in or, like, gets in on a farming collective in France and then starts to question things. It's like, oh, that sounds super up my alley. Why haven't I read this? So now I'm gonna. But yeah, we're also getting a take on it from Maggie Gill.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I think this is really interesting potential. Jeff and I both really liked Creation Lake. Kushner's an interesting writer. There will be some fun character studies. The Bride is on HBO Max right now, and I think I'm gonna watch it just to see the mess.

[Vanessa Diaz]

Me too.

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Cause it.

[Vanessa Diaz]

I mean, I don't know if you saw the trailer. My queen is in it. Oh, my gosh. What? I just forget her name from Hamnet. Oh, my gosh. Jessie Buckley.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Oh, yes.

[Vanessa Diaz]

Yeah, she is the Bride. So I've been wanting to see it. And then I saw the preview. This was coming out around the same time that, you know, Frankenstein was, like, the big movie that came. And so then when I saw it kind of in conjunction, I was like, well, this is a very different vibe. And I don't know if I'm ready for this right this second. So I, too, may stream it. Just to see.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It looks chaotic and funny.

[Vanessa Diaz]

It looks chaotic and quirky and weird. And, I mean, that cast is like Christian Bale and her. And gosh, who else is it? It's this whole list of people that I'm like, sure. So anyway, I really like Maggie Gyllenhaal. I feel like she takes risks, so it'll be interesting to see her take on this novel. And it's clearly time that I read it as well.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

But, yeah, yeah. There was a woman reading a paperback of this at the pool at the resort that I was at last weekend. And it was like, everybody el around me had. I saw Theo of Golden. I saw an Elle Kennedy hockey romance. I saw some Patrick Radden Keefe, and I saw this woman reading the Creation Lake paperback, and I wanted to be like, hi, let's be friends.

[Vanessa Diaz]

That's you. It's such a good.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Such a good sign. I think we're gonna get along. I would not have guessed this for an adaptation, but I do think it has some really good hooks. So I'm excited to see that. I'm also really excited to see that the Love Hypothesis from Ali Hazelwood finally has a release date. We've been hearing Adaptation for a while. It's coming out in September. It'll be on Prime Video. This is based on the first of Ali Hazelwood's Women in Stim romances. I was late to this party, but I'm so glad to be here. I read this last year and I'm into the series now thanks to some encouragement from Jeff's partner Michelle, who is a huge Ali Hazelwood fan. But it's coming out on September 23rd. Lili Reinhart plays the lead. She is a stressed out grad student and Tom Bateman plays is the hero of the story, Dr. Adam Carlson, who is a grouchy young professor. And this is a fake dating story. And it's a great time. They're looking happy, they're looking swoony. It should be fun. Everybody looks a little sexier in a lab coat, right?

[Vanessa Diaz]

Thinking back to my college days, I'm like, did we. No. But here, yes.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, it works if you're Lili Reinhart.

[Vanessa Diaz]

It does.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

So September. September. Keeping an eye out for that. And then Vanessa, you talked about the horny hockey thing. That's happening now on the Hot List episode. What's the latest from horny Hockey Corner?

[Vanessa Diaz]

More horny hockey. This time on Netflix's part. So they're getting into the action with an adaptation of Icebreaker by Hannah Grace, which is another one of these covers that I feel like I've seen a thousand times as somebody who puts together a lot of the deals, emails that we do here at Book Riot. So, like we have a newsletter that is exactly what it sounds like. It's just discounted books that we find. And the second heated rivalry came out. Everybody who had ever written a hockey adjacent anything. Those books started to pop up to some degree. They've kind of blended together. But this one always caught my eye. Cause it just felt like, especially for a millennial, the white hot center of like, oh, it's not just a hockey player, but a figure skater. Are the two main characters like, yeah, we can do that. So yeah, that's what this one is about. If you don't know. It is a romance between two college aged kids. I think the main character just gets into the University of California, Maple Hills, which does not exist. I definitely thought this was gonna be like somewhere in North Carolina with that cute name and it's like California. Oh, cool. But she goes off to college and she's a figure skater and she meets Sky. Things happen.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Things happen.

[Vanessa Diaz]

It's romance. We kind of know what we're getting here. Have you read this one or anything adjacent to her?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I have not. I have not. Read any hockey romance I like. I miss that trend. But this is, it's interesting to see Netflix getting on this because we had heated rivalry from HBO and Off Campus based on the L. Kennedy books. Yeah. Is at Amazon. So Netflix was like let us in on that action.

[Vanessa Diaz]

This one also has an Olympic gold like or like an Olympic wannabe, which I think like timing wise is also really interesting because we're about to hit into the Olympics thing and the character's name is Anastasia Allen, but she goes by like Stassi I think. And there's just a whole lot that

[Rebecca Schinsky]

feels very coded Netflix, interesting note here is that it's being executive produced by Alex Cooper, the host of Call Her Daddy and her production company Unwell Productions. So she's really branching out into all forms of media for especially targeting young women. And I think that's a really smart choice to get into this modern ROM com space. So if you are a fan of Hannah Grace and the Icebreaker, which has sold over a million copies, or if you just need something to fill the heated rivalry shaped hole in your, you'll have another option with this Icebreaker series on Netflix. All right, that is our news this week. So now it's time for us to journey into frontless foyer, sponsored of course by Thriftbooks, where I'm sure you could find copies of Icebreaker by Hannah Grace or Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner. Cause Thriftbooks has millions of new and used titles, an endless selection of books, video, video music, gifs and games. All that physical media that the kids are into these days and they're at great prices so that you can fill your imagination and your library without breaking the bank. We're talking childhood classics, new undiscovered worlds of adventure. There really is something for everybody and every budget at Thriftbooks and they have this Thriftbooks reading rewards program where every purchase gets you closer to free book rewards so you can read more and spend less. At thriftbooks.com you can also check out thriftbooks.com BRpodcast to see a running list of the titles that we have talked about in front list foyer. Vanessa, what have you been reading this week?

[Vanessa Diaz]

Breaking news based on our last episode. I'm now reading yesteryear. Like I said, it will be shortly. It's been acquired, but one that I am like 75% through, so I feel pretty confident recommending it at this point is Cleopatra by Sara El Arifi. I am a sucker. As anybody who knows me knows, for any book that takes the story of a really well known woman in history and goes, but what if. Or what if the story you don't know isn't like the whole whole story, which is, you know, probably just the case because of the way history was written.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. Not a lot of women recording history

[Vanessa Diaz]

back in the day.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice 4]

No, no.

[Vanessa Diaz]

So this is of course about Cleopatra from the author of the Faebound series, which is really well loved. And I think the Final Strife series is what the other one is called. And the whole like the setup of it is that like Cleopatra is talking to you, quote unquote, like from the. Or yeah. Like she, she basically the whole. The perspective of it is like, here's what you. She's talking to the audience like you think you know all about me. Let me actually tell you the rest. And so several points of the book, she does stop to be like, well, this is the version you got, but here's what actually happened.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

That sounds fun.

[Vanessa Diaz]

It is really, really, really researched. Like there are details here that I didn't think were going to pop up just from being a person who has spent a lot of time obsessively. Like I went through all the stages that a young girl. Like I went through the Egyptology, I went through the tutor. Arguably I'm still in them, you know, mythology. And Cleopatra is one that I'm a little bit obsessed with. And there's just a lot of information pulled from clearly a lot of research. And as a bonus, if you're an audiobook person person, it's read by one of my favorite narrators who is Adjoa Andoh, who is a. Has just. I loved her before. I'd never seen her on screen, but she plays Lady Danbury in the Bridgerton books. Just has the most like theatrical, smooth like beautiful voice for narrating this person. So yeah, it's a lot of fun. I'm really enjoying it.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Cleopatra by Sari Ellerife. I like the idea. A lot of a historical character kind of turning straight to camera and being

[Vanessa Diaz]

there, he's like fourth wall.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

You're probably wondering how I got here.

[Vanessa Diaz]

I swear that's exactly how I described it to somebody. It's like it's basically that for Cleopatra it's a lot of fun.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice 4]

Cool.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I talked a little bit on the Hot List episode about Night Objects by Eli Raphael, but I just finished that over the weekend. Really, really enjoyed it. It's a thriller set mostly at a ritzy boarding school in Washington State. You gotta take ferries to get there. And everybody is the son or daughter of a congressperson or someone else who's really important and well connected. Except our main character who grew up in Miami and then with her parents to like basically near the San Juan Islands. Her mother died and her stepfather thinks that the best thing for her is to go away to school. He's able to get her a scholarship. He's also just trying to like sort out his life and how can he care for her. So she goes off to ritzy boarding school. I love a boarding school setup. So this was just gonna like go straight into my veins no matter what. But there's also a secret society. And Art girl, our main character, gets tapped to join the secret society, which is really unexpected for her because it's again, all these really rich kids and she is not from that background. She's also one of the few people of color at her school. So she's navigating a whole lot of dynamics. And there's this real tension for her between wanting to fit in and be accepted by these kids, but also trying to hold some awareness. Like maybe she shouldn't totally trust them and maybe she's really just out of her depths with them and. And she does end up involved in some pretty difficult situations, including the one that she tells us about on the first page of the book where one of her friends has died and she's wanting everyone to know that she was not the one who killed that boy. So some real secret history flavors here. The book itself doesn't feel like secret history. Donna Tartt, you know, is one of one, but one of the boys names is Henry. So I do think Eli Raphael is like, you know, doing some winks over to Donna Tartt and the secret history. And it's kind of everything that I want a thriller to be. It felt a lot to me like the God of the woods. And Liz Moore has blurbed the book and been an active champion for it. That's a really good comp. And we usually, you know, you gotta watch out when people are comparing their books to like the biggest book of the summer from a year or two ago. But this one I think really earns it. I picked it up because I was surprised to see a debut mystery that I hadn't got. I hadn't seen any other press for it and it came up in the top five of the year so far from Amazon's editors wanted to check it out. I'm not sure that I'm placing it that highly, but I also don't read a ton of mystery thrillers, so I don't know what that landscape is looking like this year. It very well might be one of the best ones of the year, but just cool to see that happen for a debut writer. And the night objects that the title refers to are stars and other celestial objects. Our main characters really into a star astronomy. It's something that she bonded over with her mom and it continues to play an important role throughout the book. So there's just like little touches. There's some elevated writing that I really appreciated. I do think that that takes this out of just sort of standard genre writing and gets you into like there's some literary flavor to Raphael's construction of things. So yeah, Night Objects by Eli Raphael. Interested to see how it does for the rest of the year? Yeah, that is our show. Thank you of course to Thriftbooks for sponsoring Front List foyer. You can find these show [e-mail] listen, you can email [e-mail] next up in the zero to well read feed is kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain. We are very excited about that conversation and we will be doing a yesteryear book club here in the Book Riot Podcast Patreon in the first week of July, so you can join us for that and all of our bonus [e-mail] bookriotpodcast Vanessa, thanks for sitting with me once again. You're gonna take the reins next week.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice 2]

I am.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

So our folks are here in good hands with you. And of course, as always, the Book Riot Podcast is a proud member of the Airwave Podcast Network. We'll see you soon. Thanks so much for listening today. We hope you'll enjoy this audiobook excerpt from It's not her by Mary Kupocca, provided by our story sponsors.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice 2]

I'm standing at the kitchen sink, washing dishes when I hear her scream. My knees lock and I go suddenly upright. Drawing in a short breath, I glance swiftly up from the hot, soapy water in the sink, losing my grip on a plate that slips from my wet hands and into the basin. Water splashes. I stand there, rooted to the earth, listening in vain for the anguished sound to come, come again, or for there to be something else, something that explains it, like tires skidding, the squeal of car brakes, the resident German shepherd, the one that Cass and May are both afraid of barking, or Emily's voice calling out to see if May is okay. But there's nothing. Only silence, which worries me as much as the scream. Just moments ago, my niece May was here at our little rental cottage. She and Cass had a sleepover last night, sleeping on the double bed under the slanted eaves of the loft, staying up too late, watching Disney movies on DVD and gabbing about whatever 10 year olds gab about. I fell asleep before they did, waking around three in the morning to check on them and finding them both asleep with the TV still on. Before May left to go back to her own own cottage, they stood at the front door giggling and saying goodbye with their sticky syrupy faces and hands. I stood in the adjoining kitchen staring out at them, admiring their friendship. Cass and May are much more than cousins, they're best friends, like sisters. Even after May was gone, I got busy cleaning the small kitchen, asking Cass to go straighten up from their sleepover, and she had disappearing to the upstairs loft where the sound of May's scream doesn't reach. I'm the only one in the cottage to hear it, and I thank God because the sound is tortured, carrying across the property, coming in through the open windows, leaving me feeling shaken and eviscerated, though I don't know why, except I've never heard May scream like that before. I reach for the faucet handle and turn the water off, drying my hands on a towel as I hurry toward the front door. I see May through the open window first and my heart catches because she's dashing down the hill and through the trees, back toward us faster than her small legs can go, her arms windmill, her hair in her eyes because the wind is pushing from behind. Halfway to me she trips over something, her feet lifting up from the ground sending her momentarily airborne before she falls, crashing hard onto the to the earth. It's not a soft fall. The ground isn't grass but a bed of pine needles and dirt. It looks painful, though May doesn't lie there crying, as I would expect her to do, as Cass might do. Instead, she gets back up just as quickly as she went down, glancing over a shoulder in the direction of her own cottage before turning again and running to me. I step outside, outside, letting the screen door fall closed. May comes crashing into me, her arms locking around my waist. What is it, May? What's wrong? I ask as she buries her face into my abdomen, sobbing, her hands around my back, holding tight as if wanting to disappear inside of me. My eyes sweep the property, searching for signs of something off a car, a child pregnant predator pulling away, or the mean German shepherd running loose again, but there's nothing that I can see. The cottage where we're vacationing is in the north woods of Wisconsin, over five hours north of home. It's on a lake and is one of eight little cottages situated in hundreds of acres of woods. The lake is peaceful this morning. The only people awake besides the girls and me are fishermen in Canada, canoes like Elliot, my husband, who woke up early this morning and left before any of us were awake, hoping to catch something to put on the grill for dinner. I hear the slow rasp of the screen door behind me. What happened? Cass asks, and I turn to see her coming hesitantly out, standing unsure on the deck behind me as I hold May in my arms. I don't know, I say. What happened, May? I coax, bending my knees to lower myself to her height. But May says nothing, clinging to me, her sticky hands clasped around my neck now tugging without meaning to on my hair, and it's only when I peel them off with effort and hold her at an arm's length that I see her hands have blood on them. What's this? This? Did this happen when you fell? I ask, thinking of the way she went down just moments ago. She must have fallen on a rock or a tree root. I take her hands into mine, briefly, examining them for an open wound before moving a strand of hair out of her eyes. But May only shakes her head, wiping her runny nose on a pajama sleeve before looking back at her cottage for a second time and then lowering herself to the the ground, hugging her knees into her chest. Rocking, I lift my gaze. I let my eyes go to Emily and Nolan's cottage next door, which is hard to see through the thick trees. When we arrived at the lake a few days ago, I envied their cottage. Not only had Emily rented the largest one on the property, which came as no surprise considering she has three kids, two of whom are teenage teenagers and would rather die before sharing a bed with a sibling, but hers was more private than the rest. Once the resort's main house, it's set off at a distance so she can sit on her deck with her coffee and stare out at the placid lake without having a stranger in another cottage at an arm's reach, watching her, listening in on her conversations. Is your mom there, May? In in the cottage? I ask about my sister in law, Emily, and this time she nods. Come sit with me, I say to Cass, glancing back over my shoulder at her. Stay here until I come back. I want to make sure everything is okay. Cass nods as she takes my spot, sitting beside her cousin, her hands on May's back in a very grown up way that belies her 10 years as I start making my way through the trees and toward Emily and Nolan's cottage, quickening my pace by instinct. I feel a wave of unease come over me, though I hold it back, telling myself nothing is seriously wrong, that May probably just walked in on them arguing again and got scared or upset she overreacted. Things haven't been the best between Emily and Nolan of late.