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- [00:01]
Keith
Not all meals are created equal. For instance, breakfast has the spicy egg McMuffin for a limited time and lunch doesn't.
- [00:11]
Charlie
McDonald's breakfast comes first.
- [00:23]
Keith
Well, here we are again, insinuating ourselves into your lives. It's the bookcase with Kate and Charlie. We're delighted to see you and we hope you're delighted to hear us.
- [00:34]
Stacey Abrams
Yes, we hope that we are. A good habit that you have formed or a bad habit, I don't know, depending on how much time he's been listening to your phone.
- [00:42]
Keith
We have a very familiar name for you this week. Stacey Abrams is well known in the political world. She ran for governor twice in Georgia. She was the minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives. She has been very, very influential in organizing voting rights in that state. She's been very outspoken about that. She is a national political figure in the Democratic Party. And, oh yeah, she writes novels and she writes good ones. And so this is not going to be talking about politics. This is talking about her skill as a mystery writer.
- [01:17]
Stacey Abrams
Yeah, this is a wonderful mystery. And we did a mystery at the beginning of the month on July 3rd, right before our 4th of July, we did Chris Chibnall and the Death of the White Hart. And so normally we don't do two mysteries in a month, but we really liked this one because, you know, we've all read formulaic mystery after formulaic mystery and the butler did it or, you know, the, the cousin twice removed did it, or you're always working towards the cast of characters and narrowing down which one of them pulled the trigger, as it were. But this one, this is one in which the AI which is being explored by a healthcare company and somebody at the healthcare company dies and the AI that this cutting edge company was developing could have done it. And I thank God there are so many mysteries out there. And when you're a mystery writer who can come up with a truly unique way of breaking the mold, you've got my attention. Her exploration of AI and the both positives and dark sides of AI as they intertwine with this great whodunit mystery really takes some skill. And so I really wanted to talk to her about this book that is breaking all the rules and, and is still a page turner.
- [02:25]
Keith
Well, just for the heck of it, we probably should name the book. Oh, yeah, it is Stacey Abrams. She's written a book just out called Coded justice and it is the third in a series of books that she has written, not with a detective necessarily, but with a lawyer who gets involved in this case in trying to uncover what AI May have done improperly, I. E. Killed somebody. Coded justice is the name of it, and it's the third in a series featuring Avery Keene.
- [02:55]
Stacey Abrams
Rogue justice was another. But here's the other thing. You don't have to have read those other mysteries, I think, to enjoy this new Uncoded Justice. It could be a great standalone if it was just a standalone. I'm excited she's continuing with Avery Keene, but please don't feel that you have to have read the other two books in order to enjoy this one.
- [03:15]
Keith
The first one was While Justice Sleeps. I was grabbing for the titles. The next one was Rogue justice. And this, as I say, is Coded Justice. As we were saying, it's not just a question of who done it. As I said to Stacy when we talked to her, it's also a possibility of what did it. Was AI responsible for the death? That is at the centerpiece of this book. So if you're tuning in to hear Stacey Abrams on Politics, watch the cable channels. But it's really interesting to see this person who has such a rich political and very active political life that she's just churning out novels as well. This is the third, as I say, in the Avery Cain series. There's a couple of nonfiction books she's written. Her first mystery was While Justice Sleeps. That was in 2021. She's written a series of romance novels under the pseudonym of Selena Montgomery, and she's also written a whole series of children's books. My wife and I were in a bookstore this afternoon, and there was Stacey Abrams children's book. So she. She's got a lot on her plate.
- [04:15]
Stacey Abrams
She does have a lot on her plate.
- [04:16]
Charlie
It's.
- [04:16]
Stacey Abrams
It's funny when. When. When we. When we talk to her about why. Why be writing novels if you're also a politician? I was think, would I be more concerned if Jack or Charlie came home and said, I want to go into politics or I want to write novels? I think both of them would be equally terrifying for me as a mother. And yet Stacey Abrams does them both well. So here it is, our conversation with the great Stacey Abrams.
- [04:45]
Keith
Stacey Abrams, it is such a treat to have you in the bookcase. Long admirer and so pleased that you would join us. Coded justice is the book, as we've been talking about. And normally a mystery will raise the question of whodunit, and that's why you read it. But you've introduced a wrinkle. Not just whodunit, but there's a possibility of what done it you should explain.
- [05:08]
Charlie
I am going to begin by saying thank you to both you and Kate for having me. And I've waxed rhapsodic about how excited I am to be with you. I won't make you live through that again, but just wanted to start there. Code of justice is really premised on what do we understand about AI and when you imbue technology with such power, but it's built by human hands, based on human minds, what happens when we don't get it right or if we get it too right? And so the premise is that this technology is operational. It's trying to solve a very thorny set of issues. Healthcare for veterans. It's looking at issues of health equity because veterans in our society are the most among the most diverse populations. But when you think about the discrimination and lack of research that underpins our healthcare system, the creator of this technology really wants to make certain that no matter who you are, if you've served this country, healthcare will serve you. And then somebody dies.
- [06:13]
Keith
And then somebody dies.
- [06:15]
Stacey Abrams
After I finish this, I call my, my father. I go, oh my God. I mean, the amount of research you have to bring to this concept because the computer, as you say, kawak, is involved in healthcare. So you've gotta bring medical knowledge, pharmaceutical expertise, a healthy dose of how buildings work thrown in for good measure. I mean, was there ever a time where you were doing the research for this where you're like, what have, what hath I wrought? Like, is this is too much?
- [06:43]
Charlie
So I love research. My mom was a research librarian when I was growing up, and my parents used to say if you had a question, they would say, look it up. And you literally had no choice. So I, I very early on just learned to love research. And this one, it required a deep dive. I know way too much about, you know, ventilation systems now and acronyms that I should not know. I know just enough to be dangerous. My approach is I want enough that the reader thinks I know what I'm talking about and the expert thinks I'm respectful. So.
- [07:16]
Keith
There'S so much of AI that people don't understand. How much did you know going into it or how much did you have to simply research it to be able to write this book?
- [07:26]
Charlie
I knew very little. I have niece who my parents. My niece lived with me for several years. And so I grew up with this I call my borrowed teenager. And so she was probably in 10th grade when ChatGPT was made manifest. I was helping her with work and I saw her use it And I thought and said out loud, faith, why isn't that cheating? She was like, no, it's not cheating. She showed me the assignment, and they were told to ask a question of ChatGPT. And it was fascinating and terrifying. And as someone who grew up in a very analog world, I was at first surprised by how robust it was, and then I was bothered that I didn't know how to use it. And that was one of the reasons I wanted to write this book, because I often approach topics, what are the complicated, thorny, or just distant from our lived reality. Topics that we should know about, but no one's ever going to take the time to learn. And so I went and pulled three books. The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleiman, Unmasking AI by Joy Buolamwini, and the AI Revolution in Medicine by Peter Lee. I read all of those very deeply and then read the four Battlegrounds, which may put you into the fetal position. And once I read those books, I went to mit has this really good short course on AI. So I learned about it from there.
- [08:49]
Stacey Abrams
For a book like this, we ask writers often if they're a seat of their pants writer or if they're a plotter. You had to have had this very carefully planned out because there's no other way that it works. Is that fair?
- [09:00]
Charlie
Yeah. I'm a plotter. I do a synopsis, and then I plot chapter by chapter. I get surprised Calloc and my characters all did things I didn't expect. There are debates that my characters have where I didn't know what the answer was, and I was surprised to find out the positions they were taking. Yes, I know I wrote them, but I was very surprised by them anyway. But for me, it was also just understanding how deeply embedded AI Is in our lived reality in ways we don't think about. So there's a scene in the book where I'm starting to explain, and you guys remember when one of the characters is sort of read by the. By the psychic that is AI and just the little bits of information that we leave, like breadcrumbs throughout this world, can be scraped and gathered and used to help us. And as I fundamentally believe, having been in politics for too long, what can be a tool for us can also be a weapon against us. And I want us to really understand. I want the layperson leaving coded justice to feel smarter about AI to feel cautious about it, and to have some of their inchoate fears justified.
- [10:14]
Keith
I'm just struck in passing by your phrase, having been in politics too Long. Some people think that's redundant, but that's not an issue right now. I don't mean to give a spoiler, but your fictional AI system goes rogue. It's designed to solve medical problems by aiding the diagnostic process, but it starts diagnosing on its own and outcomes are as you say, then deaths happen. Did you know that you wanted AI to be a suspect? And how did you figure out I can write that and make that work?
- [10:49]
Charlie
I wanted AI to be a suspect, but I also wanted the human suspects to be as likely and intentionally. Throughout the book, if you haven't read it, there are multiple culprits. And I think that's part of the dynamic of this book for me versus other books where typically you have the bad guy, the good guy and your faints, the people who didn't, that you're kind of your people that you're trying to distract them with. And I wanted in this book for us to understand that the good guys aren't always good, the bad guys don't start out bad, and that this isn't a black and white conversation. That the best intention, the best ambition can be, you know, felled by human frailty and that technological superiority does not mean the best outcome.
- [11:39]
Stacey Abrams
I want to ask a couple questions of what AI is capable of. What you found out. Does AI actually make up lies to cover its own mistakes?
- [11:47]
Charlie
Yes. So that's called hallucinations. And what happens is that AI is pattern recognition at exponential scale. So let's understand that there is no current sentience that may change in the next five to seven days. But right now it is not capable of sentient. It can't create its own reality. But what it can do is gather the whole of human knowledge and try to do pattern recognition to figure out what would happen next. And therefore when you're looking at AI, large language models, so the, the models that feed the chatbot. So when you're asking Gemini something on Google, it's been learning from pulling other information. The problem is like a seven year old, if it doesn't have the answer but it thinks it should, it's going to make something up. And that's called hallucination. It sounds. You don't say a seven year old hallucinates, you call the seven year old a liar. But when you're an AI model, it's called hallucination.
- [12:46]
Stacey Abrams
As a follow up to that, is AI aware that the biggest threat that it has to itself is being shut down and does it try to avoid that?
- [12:55]
Charlie
There's a report By Anthropic about Claude. Claude's the name of its chatbot or its AI model. It was given a set of tasks and it was told in the code, if you fail in these tasks, we're likely going to recode you. So success leads to expansion, failure leads to recombination. And Claude decided it did not want to be recoded, and so it faked its answers so it wouldn't get recoded. Another model was told, if you succeed, you get this new addition. If you fail, this is what happens to you. And it decided to fake success because it didn't want to fail. There is nothing more human than trying to hide your mistakes. But we've given this power to a system that is, again, not sentient, but has remarkable capacities and is trained on both human intention and human bias.
- [13:50]
Stacey Abrams
How much of this novel comes from your anxiety about AI? And now that you have written the novel, do you feel better or worse?
- [14:00]
Charlie
I began less with anxiety and more with a studied ignorance. I didn't understand it and I don't like that. It touches so much of my world and I need to know why. And so I entered it with curiosity, with a little trepidation, just because it's such a complicated topic. AI is this extraordinary tool for learning, for gathering information, for synthesizing ideas. It can do in an instant what could take weeks or months. And that is a miraculous thing. That is a feat of human engineering. What is concerning, what has now led to my anxiety on the other side is that we have this tool that we are refusing to govern, we are refusing to regulate. That's the place where we should be concerned because we have this extraordinary tool that we are leaving untouched. Not because we don't know there are problems, but because we're afraid to ask the questions or we don't want the answers. And that's the place where anxiety should start to raise. But that's also the place where intention needs to step in.
- [15:06]
Keith
You raised something that worries me. We did a lousy job.
- [15:10]
Stacey Abrams
You raised several things that worry me.
- [15:12]
Kate
So I don't know how he's picking.
- [15:13]
Stacey Abrams
Out just the one.
- [15:15]
Keith
We did a lousy job of regulating social media, and so it took off in directions that, that are unfortunate in many areas. But I also worry about if we try to regulate AI, because with all due respect to the politicians that you worked with in the past, I'm not sure they understand really what the best way to regulate it may be. Do you have concerns in that area as well?
- [15:41]
Charlie
Oh, absolutely. We have no idea what we're doing.
- [15:43]
Keith
But that's scary.
- [15:47]
Charlie
Well, no, I mean, just think about it. I dove into this book in part because this is a topic I didn't understand. Most people aren't going to do what I did to learn what I know. And I have the deepest respect for my colleagues at the state and local level, at the federal level. But we are often wholly reliant or largely reliant on experts to tell us what we should know. And you have to trust that those experts are giving you all the information you need. But regulation does not mean stopping. Regulation means questioning. And it is okay for us to ask questions and get some of the questions wrong as long as we're getting answers that advance our knowledge. The decision not to ask questions because we don't have perfect questions is an abdication of responsibility. And more importantly, it is a danger because again, you've got those two other groups who one has no interest in giving you the right answer, another has an incentive not to give you the best answer. And the benign neglect folks don't even know they should be asking questions. And so you need regulatory frameworks not because you're trying to stop innovation or thwart advancement, but because there are questions we have to ask when we are building things that will know more than we do. And that goes back to the fundamental challenge of being a legislator. You're asked to talk about topics ranging from blueberry regulation to AI regulation. And you are not going to be an expert in all of those things. But you have to be good at and comfortable with and primed to ask hard questions so that those who do know it better than you do have to ask themselves what they're doing and so we can prepare for what it yields.
- [17:29]
Keith
So why did you decide to do all this in the form of a mystery as opposed to writing? Stacey Abrams on Watch Out World. AI is coming. And here's what you need to know.
- [17:42]
Charlie
Because I want somebody to read it. So I started writing fiction in law school. My very first novel was started. It started as a spy novel, became a romance novel because I was writing in the late 90s and publishers did not publish espionage by women and they were not going to publish a novel by or about a black woman. And it was based on my ex boyfriend's dissertation on chemical physics. And without going into the very long story, I wanted to write about environmental justice. I wanted to write about the fact that we were in the midst of this conversation about environmental degradation and we were putting out rules that were forcing developing nations through this sieve that developed nations didn't have to go through. We got deployed everywhere we wanted, and now we were telling all these developing nations, figure it out on your own. But you don't have the resources for it, and you've got to do it faster than we did. I thought that was problematic. Nobody was going to listen to me pontificate about environmental justice. So instead I created a chemical physicist spy who is, you know, trying to appease her bosses and trying to avenge the death of her mentor. And so she goes in. But if you read my book, you learned about microzeolite technology, the limits of environmental justice, and what we should be thinking about. I wrote one on ethnobotany. I've written about forensic psychology and forensic anthropology. I write about things that people want to know, but they don't think. They either have the time to learn it or the capacity to understand it. But if you put it into fiction, people will give themselves permission to be both interested and to be knowledgeable when they're done. Plus, it's a lot more fun if you. If there's a body count as you're learning all these things.
- [19:28]
Keith
I introduced you and said, it is wonderful to have Stacey Abrams in the bookcase. I could have said, it's really wonderful to have Selena Montgomery in the bookcase. And I became aware of you when Wild Justice Sleeps came out, and I thought, oh, she's turned from politics to writing. But it turns out you've been writing all along and wrote for a long time under the pseudonym of Selena Montgomery. What got you into this crazy business of writing novels? And what made you think I could do this? And why did you publish for so long under a pseudonym as opposed to Stacey Abrams?
- [20:05]
Charlie
So grew up daughter of a librarian and the daughter of a storyteller. So my mom loved to read to us. She would read everything. My dad is dyslexic, and so he was reading was hard for him, but he loved telling stories. And so my parents just really imbued us with this belief that we should be entertained and engaged through writing and words. When you're a kid and you tell a story, they call you a liar. If you write it down, you're called an author. So I learned to write my stories down. So I've been writing since I was young. I wrote my first attempt at a novel when I was 12 called a diary of Angst because this boy I liked didn't like me back. And I had the whole fiction around. What was wrong with him and what was completely right with me? But I've always loved writing. It was during my third year of law school, as I mentioned, my ex boyfriend. He was a physicist, a chemical physicist, and we were still friends. So I would read his stuff and his dissertation was fascinating to me. And I thought I could use this to tell this story about environmental justice I want to tell. I started writing it as a spy novel. Publishers rejected the idea that I could write a spy novel, but I thought, I know, I've read stories like this. Not quite what I was doing, but I realized if I just made my spies fall in love, I could kill the same number of people and just call it romance. I did. And so at the time, I was a third year at Yale Law School, I was also very deeply involved in tax policy because I am a big old nerd. And I was publishing at the exact same time I published my first romance novel, Rules of Engagement. I was publishing Operational Dissonance. Basically I was publishing on the unrelated business income tax exemption and they were going to publish at the same time. Google had just become a thing. So I just learned about Google and I googled my name because a friend of mine called and said, there's this thing called Google. Put your name in there. And it pulled up this article I'd written my senior year of high school on Mesopotamian astronomy that ended up in a college journal. Anyway, so I realized everything I wrote down somebody could possibly find. And no one was going to read a romance novel written by the same person who was writing about tax policy. The way I put it, no one's going to read romance by Alan Greenspan. So I had to. You can publish romance under a pen name, you cannot publish tax policy under a pen name. So Selena Montgomery had to exist for romance to be in the world, and Stacey Abrams got to be the tax policy writer. That's why you'd be so.
- [22:38]
Stacey Abrams
I'd be so excited if I found out Mitch McConnell for years has been publishing for Harlequin like I would just please politicians. If you're doing this, tell us because I'm dying to know.
- [22:53]
Keith
Well, I confess I have not read a Selena Montgomery novel. I've read a lot of Stacey Abrams, but I have not read much Selena Montgomery. But you had some pretty racy titles. Maybe there was an embarrassment.
- [23:05]
Stacey Abrams
You can't see this at home, but he just gathered up his collar right around his neck when he said that. Like he got sort of priestly there.
- [23:14]
Charlie
So I write romantic suspense. But I will. I will point out one thing for people who are concerned about sort of where on the spectrum of romance I sit. I am very squarely for romance readers. I'm, I'm sort of just beyond the Silhouette special edition I'm in that. I write romance, but I have parents who are pastors. My mother's parishioners used to read my books. So I write evocative romance. I am not the most provocative my romance writing. I mean, look, I write romantic suspense. I write books that romance readers are going to love and respect. But I don't have to worry about a constituent or my mom's parishioners, my dad's parishioners, reading my books and praying for my soul.
- [23:57]
Keith
I'll just finish by asking, is this the end of Avery Kean? You've written three books now about her, and when people see this, it's the third of three books. Is Avery Keene gonna go on?
- [24:08]
Charlie
She is. As of actually this week. Doubleday has said that Avery has at least two more stories in her. And my job is to figure out how else to scare all of us and what else we need to learn.
- [24:19]
Keith
Stacey Abrams, it's a pleasure to have you in the bookcase. Thank you for taking the time and if you'd stand by for a minute, we've got some rapid fire questions for you.
- [24:33]
Stacey Abrams
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- [24:47]
Kate
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- [24:50]
Stacey Abrams
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- [24:51]
Kate
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- [24:55]
Stacey Abrams
Turn those what ifs into Sign up for your $1 per month trial@shopify.com SpecialOffer.
- [25:02]
Charlie
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- [25:10]
Stacey Abrams
You fix the problem.
- [25:12]
Charlie
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- [25:32]
Keith
Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. Now, I was looking for fun ways.
- [25:35]
Charlie
To tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited Premium Wireless for $15 a month is back. So I think thought it would be.
- [25:42]
Keith
Fun if we made $15 bills, but.
- [25:45]
Charlie
It turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial.
- [25:50]
Keith
Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment.
- [25:54]
Kate
Of $45 for a three month plan equivalent to $15 per month. Required new customer offer for first three months only. Speed slow after 35 GB of networks.
- [26:00]
Charlie
Busy taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com.
- [26:08]
Keith
Rapid fire for Stacey Abrams do you read presidential memoirs?
- [26:12]
Charlie
I do not meet memoirs. I read biographies. Presidential biographies.
- [26:16]
Keith
Do you read fiction or nonfiction?
- [26:18]
Charlie
Mostly I read both at the same time.
- [26:21]
Stacey Abrams
What's the best presidential biography you've ever read?
- [26:24]
Charlie
Robert Caro's compendium on Lyndon B. Johnson. And my favorite one is Master of the Senate.
- [26:28]
Keith
Yeah, yeah, they're all wonderful.
- [26:31]
Charlie
It really is amazing.
- [26:32]
Keith
A Princetonian. Robert Carroll. Favorite mystery writer Nora Roberts.
- [26:38]
Charlie
She writes romance, but romantic suspense. And she has a series called End Death. That is fantastic.
- [26:45]
Stacey Abrams
How do you mark your place in a book?
- [26:47]
Charlie
Bookmark or I memorize it. The same bookmark, different bookmarks, or I just memorize the page number.
- [26:52]
Keith
Well, Katie has a T shirt that says bookmarks are for quitters. If pressed to name a favorite book of all time, what would yours be.
- [27:01]
Charlie
Of all, all time? It would be the Phantom Told Booth by Norton Jester.
- [27:05]
Stacey Abrams
Ah, I love that book.
- [27:07]
Charlie
It's not the actual answer because I don't believe in picking favorite books, but if I have to give someone one, that's the one I'd give them.
- [27:13]
Stacey Abrams
When is your favorite time to read?
- [27:15]
Charlie
I read all the time. Basically, I just, if I have a moment in between other things, that's the time to read a book.
- [27:22]
Stacey Abrams
Your most influential teacher and why?
- [27:24]
Charlie
My mother and father, because they taught me to love learning and to not be afraid to fail.
- [27:31]
Keith
Was there a gateway book for you? Was there a book that made you realize I'm going to be a reader all my life?
- [27:37]
Charlie
The first book I remember reading on my own was Helen Keller, the Story of My Life. My older sister taught me how to read, I think in part because she was tired of reading to me. And so I learned to read when I was really young and I was sitting on the couch reading this book and my grandfather came up to me and he said, what are you doing? I said, I'm reading. And he looked at me like, no, you're not. And I started reading the book to him. And you know, apocryphally I was, you know, somewhere between I was a young, young, young when I read it. But I remember that story. I remember Helen Keller, the story of my life, the children's version, and how she should not have been able to be anything and was everything.
- [28:20]
Keith
Again, our thanks to Stacey Abrams. I love the fact, Kate, that she, when pressed to name a favorite book of all time, she picked a children's book. And I think that's, that bespeaks a very, very nice personality.
- [28:34]
Stacey Abrams
Yeah, it's a great children's book. If you guys haven't read the Phantom Tollbooth by Norman Jester, it is fun, it is interesting, and it has some of the greatest dad jokes and puns you'll ever read. And I love, too, that Stacey Abrams was also a romance novelist. I think that's, that's great. And I, and I love, too, that she felt that she had to keep her name separate online because, you know, would you vote for a tax bill by a romance writer? Would you read a romance novel by somebody who wrote a tax bill? And so I was, I was going to ask you, you've known a lot of politicians in your life, other than Mitch McConnell, who I think could write a great romance mystery, maybe between turtles. I don't, I don't know. But anyway, do you have any politicians that you wish had written a romance novel or that you think could have done it in a way that would have been amusing?
- [29:19]
Keith
Well, there's some who would have been on pretty dangerous ground if they'd done it. Thomas Jefferson comes to mind, and a few other presidents maybe, who, who were not totally faithful to their, to their spouses. So they, they should be ruled out as not, not being eligible to do that. I don't know. Stacy said the romance novel she wrote under the name of Selena Montgomery were pretty tame because she has two parents who are ordained, and so she wanted to make sure that, that they could read them. And, and I suspect you would be very uncomfortable if I were ever to write one.
- [29:54]
Stacey Abrams
Yeah, I think I would be. I think JFK could have written a steamy one. J. Edgar Hoover's may have been a bit odd. I just, I like, I'm just thinking of, like, people who really could have put their own interesting twist on the romance novel. Probably JFK could have written the steamiest. Ronald Reagan probably could have written the most romantic. He and Nancy had such a wonderful love story. Bill Clinton's would probably be a better rogue. Like, there's lots of different possibilities.
- [30:20]
Kate
Just saying.
- [30:22]
Keith
I think we should move on. Kate Fair enough. We got a bookstore for you this week. It is the Bookstall in Winnetka, Illinois, on the North Shore, just north of Chicago. The Bookstall is a fixture in that community, has been there for, I think we found out over 70 years. Stephanie Hochschild is the owner of the store, and we had a good time talking to her. Stephanie Hochschild from the Bookstall in Winnetka. Good to have you with us. How's business?
- [30:56]
Kate
Business is good. Summer is typically a slower time for us, so we use it to get organized, and then our real season begins in the fall. We are a very busy store, not only in the store, but also with a vet. So I would say business is good.
- [31:13]
Keith
75 years in business. I At the beginning, the books must have been published on papyrus or something.
- [31:19]
Kate
Well, it was actually 88 years when I went back and looked. 88 years. We've been in this current location for. Since 1945, but it actually began 88 years ago, so we've not updated that banner in a while, just as I was nosing around.
- [31:34]
Stacey Abrams
So what does the stewardship of that kind of history mean to you? How do you have to carry that torch?
- [31:40]
Kate
That is very well put, because I do consider myself and the rest of the staff just stewards of this iconic institution that in 2012 was a bookstore of the year. So it is definitely an institution in this community. It's something I feel a great responsibility towards, to make sure we are meeting the needs of the community and also beyond Chicago and trying to do what's right. So we make a big effort to support charities and to make sure that kids who don't necessarily aren't necessarily able to afford books can get them. So we all take that very, very seriously. The Book stall is, you know, its own brand, its own entity, and it's really a wonderful thing that was built way back when in 1937.
- [32:21]
Stacey Abrams
One of the things that my father was telling me this morning is that you're especially passionate about kids and books and getting kids to read. And when I worked at a bookstore, I felt like the YA section had expanded exponentially from when I was a kid. But we just talked to a bookstore owner recently who feels like that trend has flatlined and may be on the decline.
- [32:42]
Charlie
Agreed.
- [32:43]
Stacey Abrams
How do we combat that? And is that a trend you're also noticing?
- [32:48]
Kate
Yes, I would agree with that. I think that some things are sort of sliding into the hands of those readers. And that would be, you know, the romance books, the romantasy, the sci fi. So I think why A is a category, but I think those readers look at other books in the story. Well, because they're all, you know, advanced readers. And I think the line is getting blurred between young adult and, let's say, new adult or the romance reader. Things like that so kids are still reading. And certainly TikTok has really contributed to that. But I think they're finding books in lots of different ways, which probably is reflected in the decline in the YA titles.
- [33:23]
Stacey Abrams
What about the little little kids? What about the, what about the kid kids section?
- [33:27]
Kate
Well, I mean, happily, parents are very invested in getting their kids to read. It's just an important life skill. So we have a thriving children's section. We also have a really, really active events calendar. So in addition to having lots of kids books in the store and a large book section and several librarians and teachers on staff who are wonderful matching kids with books, we also bring authors to kids all over the North Shore and all over Chicago. And for those kids who don't necessarily or aren't able to connect with authors, we have a foundation. So for particular authors, books we think are a good fit, we will bring those authors to, you know, the underserved Title 1 schools and make sure every book gets personalized to a specific child and each kid will leave that presentation with a book in their hand. And that is something that authors love the event staff loves because it's just a really wonderful feeling.
- [34:20]
Keith
Stephanie, checking your background, I see that you graduated from a no account university in New Jersey that I had a chance to attend. Also went to law school. So what was it about a bookstore that grabbed you and wouldn't let you go? Why did you get into this crazy.
- [34:38]
Stacey Abrams
Business other than the huge amount of money you were going to make?
- [34:42]
Kate
Yes, yes. Raking it in. You know, every now and then people say this book changed my life and that often seems like hyperbole. But during that time I went to go hear Brene Brown talk about her book daring greatly. I read that book cover to cover and that really gave me the courage to go forward with a purchase, which I was a little nervous about because the books, as you mentioned, it was an iconic institution. It's a very busy store with this events calendar. I didn't have much retail experience, but Brene Brown convinced me to go forward and trust myself and also the incredible staff that was there that this was a thing I could do.
- [35:20]
Keith
What was the greatest surprise then, having the bookstore? Positive surprise and negative.
- [35:27]
Kate
The positive surprise is how many authors I've been able to talk to. I mean, I spent quite a lot of time with Pat Conroy sitting in a green room before he went out. Joan Rivers was just extraordinary talk to Hillary Clinton. So that's been sort of incredible. And it wasn't really surprise, but it is a business so anybody who tells you that running a bookstore is sitting around reading books, it's not right. You know, you're Barbara, you're drinking a toner, you're worrying about staffing and schedules and things like that. So it's the nitty gritty day to day administrative part. But I will say that is sort of my idea of a good time. So, figuring out what books to order, going through the list, seeing what new is on the horizon, trying to make a guess. And I have been extraordinarily wrong a few times, but also sometimes right, which is really gratifying. But the variety, the richness, the things people want to read, which is sometimes surprising, the things they don't want to read, which is sometimes surprising and depressing. The saddest room of the store truly is the returns room for books that, you know, I know people worked very, very hard on. We are not a library, so we don't, we can't carry everything. We have limited space. But I love that part of the job probably more than anything.
- [36:46]
Keith
Stephanie, I hope you have a chance to preside over the bookstore for another 88 years. And thank you and long may you wave.
- [36:54]
Kate
Well, thank you so much for doing this, you guys. It was really a pleasure.
- [37:01]
Keith
That's the book stall in Winnetka, Illinois. You can find it on Elm street, just off Green Bay Road, actually. Stephanie Hochschild. So we'll keep you up to date on the folks who make this podcast possible. And then we'll have a final thought from Stacey Abrams.
- [37:17]
Stacey Abrams
The Book Case with Keith and Charlie Gibson is a production of ABC Audio and Good Morning America. It is edited by Tom Butler of TKO Productions. Our executive producer is Simone Swink. We want to make mention of Amanda McMaster, Sabrina Kohlberg, Arielle Chester at Good Morning America and Josh Cohan from ABC Audio. Follow the bookcase wherever you get your podcasts and be sure to listen, rate and review. If you'd like to find any of the books mentioned in this episode, we have them linked in the episode description.
- [37:46]
Charlie
Be curious, solve problems, do good.
- [37:53]
Keith
Run.
- [37:53]
Kate
A restaurant, and you learn pretty quick.
- [37:55]
Charlie
The sound of a crisp fry starts way before the first bite.
- [38:01]
Keith
As delivery.
- [38:02]
Charlie
In to go keeps Business booming. McCain's sure crisp fries keep orders crispy. Hey, delivery. After the trip, the crispiness comes through.
- [38:14]
Stacey Abrams
Mmm.
- [38:15]
Charlie
McCain's sure crisp fries go the distance. See how far our fries can take.
- [38:19]
Kate
Your business at surecrisp.
- [38:21]
Charlie
Com Delivery.