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- [00:01]
A
When it comes to gifting, everyone on your list deserves something special. Luckily, Marshall's buyers travel far and wide, hustling for great deals and amazing gifts so you don't have to. That means your mom gets that cashmere sweater, your best friend that Italian leather bag, your co workers unwrap their favorite beauty brands, and your nephews the coolest new toys. Go ahead. A price is this good, you can grab something for yourself too. Marshalls, we get the deals. You gift the good stuff. Shop now@marshalls.com or find a store near you.
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B
Every holiday shopper's got a list, but Ross shoppers? You've got a mission, like a gift run that turns into a disco, snow globe, throw pillows and PJs for the whole family, dog included. At Ross, holiday magic isn't about spending more. It's about giving more for less. Ross, work your magic.
- [00:49]
C
Welcome to Zero to well read a podcast about everything you need to know about the books you wish you'd read. I'm Jeff o'. Neill.
- [00:55]
B
And I'm Rebecca Schinsky. Today, as we wrap up 2025, we are taking a look at the books published this year that just might find a place in the canon, the kinds of things that we might be talking about on future seasons of Zero to well read award winners, pop culture hits, book club favorites, and more.
- [01:11]
C
If you're enjoying the show, please take a minute to rate and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you're listening. And this is an interesting exercise because one thing that isn't our our shared definition. You, you and I and I think other people out there may have similar but if you don't, that's okay too is part of what being well read means to us and what we want to do is have some sense of what's going on. Now, you and I have covered contemporary, you know, commercial, upmarket literary fiction for like a decade together to more or less, for, for more, for more, more or less coverage. It's, there's so many books, but we like to read what's in the ether, what people are talking about. Sometimes that means you read something you wouldn't read normally just to see what the deal is. Sometimes it means following award winners or things are kind of cult hits or having like steamrolling popularity or buzz around them. Sometimes it means Kel nightmare dipping into book talk and trying something else that those people are excited about. And sometimes they're great and sometimes they're not for you. Kind of like any other recommendation system. So what we're going to do today is look at some contenders and try to come up with a list of the 10 books from 2025 we think have the best chance of being read in 25, 50 years, 100 years too much. That scares me. I can't think about doing that. But as time passes, these may emerge as books people still know, care about, and being part of the literary reading conversation. I will say this, Rebecca. The smart money would be on zero, right?
- [02:43]
B
Yes, the smart money would be on zero. One of the exercises that we do over on the Book Riot podcast is hop in the time machine and go back to power, rank the books that came out 10, 20, and 30 years ago. So this year we did 20, 15, 15, 2005 and 1995. And by the time we get to 30 years back, very few of the titles that we come across that were popular that year, that were award winning that year, are things that we talk about at all today that have any place in public consciousness. But you'd be surprised how high that percentage is even just 10 years back. Very, very few books stand the test of time or last in public memory also, as evidenced by the fact that, like, our running list of books for this show is 400 titles long. Could probably get to a thousand if we really sat down and like, spun it out over time. And that's in a universe where hundreds of thousands of new books come out.
- [03:38]
C
Every two and a half millennia. I mean, if we're going to really start at the Iliad, right, You know, long stretches where there may not be as many contenders in the 11th century. But you know, you hear what we're saying at this point, too. And though it does happen that something that was super overlooked, you know, the Moby Dicks of the world, it does happen a lot of the times, especially the books we've covered so far this season, they were kind of a big deal already, right? Like they, they had some heat, you know, or there were the third book and it was a breakout author. It's very rare that something that isn't talked about in that year becomes a book that sticks around. It does happen. It does happen. Very rare, but very, very rarely. So that's we're going to do. We're going to walk through some contenders and as we go, we're going to try to come up with a list of 10. Our long list is longer than that. So as we go, we're going to highlight them in green, yellow, or red, and then we'll come back and say how many greens mean feels like an auto. Absolutely. Put up there. Yellow means come back to in reds. Like, you know what? I really don't think so. If we have to, if we have to be difficult with. If we have 12 greens, we've got some hard choices to make before we get into it. Rebecca, do you feel like it's going to be hard to come up with 10 greens? Yeah, I do too.
- [04:51]
B
I do, I do. 2025, I mean, all the aforementioned things already that it's hard for any book to last 25 or 50 years. But 2025 has been a relatively quiet year in publishing. There has not been one big book of the year. Last year, James by Percival Everett really dominated the conversation, won all of the big awards. A couple years back it was the Heaven and Earth Grocery store by James McBride. There are years where a book just rules the conversation and like the reading public consciousness, we didn't have that. This year there have been a handful that have emerged, but like different, a different book has won each one of the big awards so far. We're still waiting on the Pulitzers. We should say those don't come out until May, so that's incomplete. We also are looking at like Amazon and Barnes and Noble's Best books of the Year. Publishers Weekly, Best Books of the Year. The New York Times lists are big and those are not out yet as we're recording this. So, like, there's a lot of possibility there, but I expect to see that variation continue. And the fact that attention hasn't really solidified around just like one or two titles, I think is going to leave us with a bunch of yellows that we'll be tipping more into greens to get to our 10 at the end, if I had to guess.
- [06:06]
C
That's right. All right, Rebecca, why don't you start out because you recently read this. The Booker Prize winning Flesh by David Soloi, which we had felt had some heat going into the Booker Prize. We'd heard good things about it. And why don't you provide an estimation of what you think its longer term prospects are?
- [06:23]
B
Sure. So this is about a teenage boy named Istvan who lives with his mom in a quiet apartment in Hungary. He's shy, he's new to town, he's a stranger to a lot of like, social niceties and rituals that his classmates perform. So he's pretty isolated and he finds himself drawn into a series of events that leave him feeling estranged from his peers, his mom and even himself. The way the book is narrated, the way not even narrated, the consciousness that is presented in the book, kind of a real pulling back from interiority that we're used to demonstrates that and gives the reader that same feeling of alienation. And in the years after this thing happens, when he is a teenager, he's just kind of born along on the sea of things that happen to him. Life really happens to him rather than him feeling like. Like whatever the opposite of main character energy is. Ishvan has that NPC energy. Yeah, like npc. He feels like an NPC in his own life. It's a collect. The book is a collection of like intimate moments over the course of several decades that follow this man. I think this feels very of the moment, very much concerned with men's feelings of alienation and masculinity. It's interested in agency or the lack thereof that people feel and what it's like to feel like your life is happening to you rather than your life a result of your own choices and your own like power or control. The Booker Prize committee praised it for being risky. Reviews cite the spare prose and I can confirm the prose is very spare and the narrative distancing from Ishtbon's interiority. It was on Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year and Barnes & Noble's best fiction of the Year in addition to having won the Booker. So there has been some heat for this.
- [08:08]
C
One. It has all the makings of something that would be a contender. I'm a prime candidate to read a book like this. I have not yet and I've heard you talk about it warmly. I've seen the reviews, I've seen the prize and I kind of feel myself not caring about the book and I you don't want to use yourself as a proxy for everything all the time. Also, what else is there? Here's another thing to look for or I'm going to be looking for when you talk about this. The books that endure really need to do something special and it feels like what this book is doing and your characterization others is cool and interesting. Yes, but is it really special? Special enough to contend with another 10 years of other people writing really good interesting of the moment. Competent books about how we live now like those are dime a dozen.
- [08:56]
B
Rebecca. Yeah, there was a book last year called Rejection by Tony Tulamuda that I expected Flesh to be more like that. That book felt really risky with short stories about largely incels. It was very edgy, really surprising. It also got nominated for some awards and made its way onto some best of lists and that book did feel fresh and new to me. I didn't get that feeling from flesh. It's hard to sell readers on a book that's going to make them feel alienated from themselves and the main character, even if that's the thing artistically that the author is trying to do. That's just.
- [09:35]
C
A. It's like Kafka and like two other people that do that that you know, like really endure over time. I think for a Booker PR winner that had other like secondary buttresses to their candidacy, I think yellow is appropriate. But I'll.
- [09:48]
B
Be. I think so.
- [09:48]
C
Too. But anyway, let's move on here. This news came out this week. The National Book Award winner the True True Story of Raj the Goble and His Mother by Rabi Alameddine. A tragic common note. Neither of us have read this, so we've done our research. We've talked about it six decades. About a 63 year old high school philosophy teacher in Beirut, Raja, who described himself as the neighborhood homosexual, loves book solitude and long walks. He lives with his 80 something year old busybody but busybody mother who wants to know every detail of his life. From there he gets an invitation to get to go to an all expense paid writing residency in America. But it turns out wherever you go, there you are. As Emerson says, your giant goes with you always. And this time forces him to look at the experience he's been trying to forget. So this was really popular. Not really coming into this. Alameddine had a popular book 10 years ago called Unnecessary Woman. This does not have much heat on Goodreads, which again is the only prox we have for actual people buying and reading the book. We don't have sales data or really anything else is a flawed metric. Except for all the others, as Churchill would have said about it, we have not read this. I feel like this is probably a really good read and book clubs are really going to like this. Yes, but. But without having read it, it's hard to me to make a better case for it than.
- [11:10]
B
That. Yeah, I think this is probably a red light for me. PW called it a ravishing performance, but did not give it a star. It didn't get a star from Kirkus. There was not a New York Times review, although Elammadi did. The New York Times by the Book column wasn't his first time at the National Book Awards, though An Unnecessary Woman, which you mentioned from 2014 did make the short list. I think that these books live in kind of a dreamed of crossover zone where you can get both critical acclaim and commercial appeal. Except the commercial appeal actually looks pretty Limited because even an Unnecessary woman, which is 10 years old, only has 15,000 reviews on ratings on Goodreads, which compared to some of the other authors that we're going to talk about, is very low. And I totally agree. I think it will do well with book clubs. It has that kind of flavor to it. Folks did really love An Unnecessary Woman, but book club books have a hard time standing the test of time because there are relatively more of them than there are of other types of fiction. That's a zone that a lot of writers are trying to reach. So I'm gonna make this one red. I think I would be really surprised 25 years down the line to find this one still in the.
- [12:23]
C
Conversation. And for people don't know the National Book Award, I know less about the booker judging, but it really is a handful of people that read a bunch of books and like something. So it can. It means what this group of people thinks. And the sticker that these book gets has provenance and import, but it doesn't represent a groundswell of critical acclaim necessarily. And you can certainly go back at any of the awards, maybe save the Nobel and look at who won that year, what book. And you go back more than four or five years and like, what is that book? What is that thing? And it does happen. I think our next candidate, though, Rebecca, may be my first green if you want to take a.
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B
Crack. I agree. This is one day everyone will have always been against this by Omar El Akkad, which won the National Book Award for nonfiction. The title of the book is pulled from a tweet that Akkad sent in October of 2023. Quote, One day when it's safe, when there's no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it's too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this. Obviously about what was happening unfolding in Gaza at the time. The tweet has been viewed more than 10 million times now. It's an indictment of America's response to the Gen in Gaza. El Akkad was born in Egypt. He grew up in Qatar and in Canada. Now he lives in the U.S. so, like really a citizen of the world. And he grew up believing in the American promises of freedom and of justice for all. Previously, he's been a fiction writer. This is his nonfiction debut. After spending 20 years reporting on the war on terror and Ferguson and climate change and Black Lives Matter protests and a lot more, this was one of the most highly anticipated books of the year. It's absolutely a reflection of our current moment as National Book Award winners often are. And our own Sharifah Williams described it as a time capsule recording the visceral horror many of us in the US and Western world at large felt as we bore witness to and were complicit in genocide. I do think this one is agreeing. This is a document of the last two years in global history in a way though, a document of the last 2000 years and more in geopolitics. And Akkad has established himself as a really important.
- [14:29]
C
Voice. Yeah, I mean these books about a historical moment written with this kind of seriousness, credential and uptake can stick around. And this is a world historical event and this is one of, if not at this point, the signal clarion call for response and accountability. And I think it has a. I think it has a chance. Like our green here is no guarantee about anything. And it feels almost silly to put a book about something so serious in this, our little game. But having said that, this is the kind of thing that these socio political moral indictments or you know, sort of muckraking of the soul can stick around and become documents that people use for century, decades into centuries to understand what happened, what people were thinking, how it happened, and what contemporary responses were. Kirk's prize for fiction is an interesting one. Neither of you or I've read the Slip by Lucas Schaefer, but if you're going to, you should be buying low in the betting market for any of these. But you often get extremely good odds on like audacious debut novels that are kind of shaggy and weird because people don't know what they are. And again, the base case is nothing will happen. But also if something does happen, it's often the first book by a new voice that becomes really important and people will talk about that. So this one, the main character is a 16 year old who goes to a boxing gym in Austin, Texas and he's visiting his uncle and then he, he's gone, he disappears and then someone else disappears and a decade later, an investigation response. These kids don't show up and something happens about what was going on at that gym. So again, another book about what's wrong with the fellas here, Rebecca, I think, and the comps, anyone can play the comp game because you can pick any book that's like book about people that survive. But the comps were Franzen, Roth, John Irving, which I can kind of see. I want to get to this book before the end of the year because it stuck around enough and I think enough of the kind of people who like the kind of books I like have said something about it. But I I'm willing to give this a yellow. What do you think about.
- [16:36]
B
That? Yeah, I'm giving this one a yellow as well. Like publishers notoriously play fast and loose with comp titles. Everything has been the next Gone Girl for like the last 20 years. But when the reviewing bodies like Kirkus come out and say actually these comps to Franzen and Philip Roth and John Irving are earned and well deserved, that's something that makes me pay attention. Those are also people who have had decades long important careers. And so I do think that that might be a nod to the idea that with this debut, Lucas Schaeffer enters himself into a public conversation that he's likely to be a part of for a while. This I got a press release for this book this week since it just recently won the Kirk is calling it the antidote to the media manosphere. It's like this concern with masculinity is really permeating not just fiction and what people are writing, but also the ways that we're interpreting what's important in fiction right now. I think a yellow for this is totally.
- [17:33]
D
Reasonable. Today's episode is brought to you by HTP Books, publishers of the Bond that Burns by Briar Bolan at Bloodwing Academy. Blood is currency, but a dragon's legacy is priceless and as dangerous as fire. When Major accidentally awakens a legendary dragon, she's hunted by ruthless high bloods and entangled in a forbidden bond with her rival Blake Dracarrow. As secrets unravel and desire ignites, she must navigate betrayals, deadly magic and enemies to lovers tension in a world ruled ruled by vampires and dragons. Can she seize her destiny or will the flames consume them both? Now this world is one full of blood and dragons. As we mentioned, there are secrets that are deadly and survival means playing a dangerous game. Now let me tell you why readers can't stop talking about it. There's slow burn, tension, explosive payoffs, and a love triangle twist that fans say was tensioning as it should make sure to pick up the Bomb that Burns by Briar Bolan and thanks again to HTP Books for sponsoring this episode. Today's episode is brought to you by Poisoned Pin Press, publishers of All Eyes on Him by Ilana Xander from number one best selling author Iliana Xander comes a chilling psychological thriller perfect for Fans of Freda McFadden. When Natalie's best friend is found unconscious after leaving a club with a stranger, Natalie is desperate for answers. And then she sees him on the COVID of a magazine dubbed man of the Year, no less. Turns out he's rich, he's powerful, and she thinks he's a predator. Determined to expose him, Natalie takes a job as his housekeeper. But the deeper she digs, the darker it gets because the last housekeeper vanished and Natalie might be next. She thought she was setting a trap, but what if she's the one caught in it? Xander's writing has been compared to that of number one New York Times best selling author Freda McFadden. And even better is that this gripping thriller hits shelves just in time for the holidays in a stunning deluxe edition complete with designed edges, making it the perfect gift. Because we love a designed edge. Over here, make sure to pick up all eyes on him by Iliana Zander. And thanks again to Poisoned Pin Press for sponsoring this.
- [19:52]
A
Episode. Coca Cola for the big, for the small, the short and the tall. Peacemakers, risk takers for the optimists, pessimists for long distance love for introverts and extroverts, the thinkers and the doers for old friends and new Coca Cola for everyone. Pick up some Coca Cola at a store near.
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C
You. I like your grouping here of crossover stars. I've read one, you've read one and one of them either have read.
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B
Two. I'm not lying, I've read.
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C
One. So why don't I start with the one I've read, which is Flash by Flashlight by Susan Choi. It's a multi decade chronicle of a disappearance. Someone disappears on a beach and the long ramifications thereof, especially through the family's eyes. And then we get later spoilers here a little bit that this person is in prison in North Korea and has been a part of the authoritarian complex. There's and has been trying to wind his way out and back but it's mostly about this particular time in history, this particular historical moment. It's based on a series of true disappearances in which North Korean the North Korean government kidnapped people off beaches in South Korea to try to like turn them into spies or get information. Very strange and disturbing situation. Susan Choi's earlier book Trust Exercise won the National Book. Was it the Pulitzer national yes.
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B
It was the National Book.
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C
Award. National Book Award. I read and liked this book. I thought it was 100 pages too long, but it's been long listed and shortlisted for a bunch of different stuff and other people have liked it. So again, my own taste is only my own. I like the book. I don't know, I Don't know that I can do what's written with.
- [21:46]
B
Sharifah. Yeah, that's over in the Book Riot podcast feed. A lot of these actually, we have book club conversations about. We'll mention those as we come through. Susan Choi, notoriously divisive among readers. People seem to like, really love her books or really not love her books. It was the same with trust exercise. I think this is a yellow for flashlight. But she hangs.
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C
Around. So like what she does like. I saw her at McNally Jackson book. They had like the star, like they built a little like shrine thing. Like trust us on this.
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B
One. So I put a green on Susan Choi's name, but a yellow on the.
- [22:19]
C
Title. Well, that's not the game, Rebecca. Come.
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B
On. It's a yellow. We're going with a.
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C
Yellow. Okay.
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B
Yellow. The one that.
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C
I've. Oh, you do.
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B
One. Yeah, yeah. Is A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar. Set in near future, Kolkata, India. The story takes place all over the course of one week during which the main family that we are following are preparing to come to the United States as climate refugees. One night a thief breaks into their house in search of food and his life becomes entwined with theirs and results in tragic and unexpected consequences for everybody involved. I was really impressed with this. It was a finalist for both the Kirkus and the National Book Award. I think it should have won the National Book Award. It was also selected for Oprah's Book Club, so talk about living in that zone. Of both critical and commercial acclaim. It was one of two works of climate fiction that were shortlisted for the National Book Award. The Antidote by Karen Russell is the other one. So like, if we've got some themes this year, it's maybe masculinity and.
- [23:15]
C
Climate.
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B
Yes. It was also on Barnes and Noble's list of best fiction of the year, on a lot of best of lists. Only about 3,800 Goodreads ratings, though it only came out in October. So like it hasn't had as long over the course of the year to accumulate ratings. But this one, the story of this one has been a little bit quieter even though it has had all this recognition. I mean, I think a yellow.
- [23:38]
C
Is really the most thing. And for the next one too, the Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai. I think we have to yellow as well. Neither of us had read this though. I'll say this, I don't. That though that subjunctive, that doesn't help me. That doesn't do anything, that subordinate clause, because it has no relationship to me having not read my own experience of this book so far this year is that I underrated. It's important for another exercise that we did and a bunch of people responded and emailed it and said what about this book? And then a bunch of people have checked it off the list though. Again at 4300 Goodreads ratings, it's not flying up the charts. It's been 20 years since Desai wrote or at least published Inheritance of Lost made on a lot of short lists, Amazon's top 20 and Barnes and Noble. So it's going to be on tables. It's going to be available for people to buy at least for a while and decides more name Richard than I thought. That's a long way of saying yellow Rebecca, I think is what we're.
- [24:31]
B
I was actually gonna make a case for Green here because we'll make the.
- [24:34]
C
Case then what are you waiting for A different podcast where we talk about this stuff. What are you waiting.
- [24:37]
B
For? Because of what we said at the top that it's gonna be hard to find 10.
- [24:41]
C
Greens.
- [24:41]
B
Okay. And Desai is so beloved. The Inheritance of Loss has had a 20 year lifespan and folks were so excited to see her come back that even like it does only have 4300 Goodreads ratings. But it's also not been out for very long. It also just came out a few weeks ago as we're record this and her books live in paperback. Like this will come out in paperback. It will be read by a bunch of book clubs and then I think it's sitting on Barnes and Noble paperback favorites probably for decades to come. So that's my case for Green with all of the previous.
- [25:15]
C
Caveats. Let's do Green. If we have to, we can come back to it. Our next section is book bestsellers in book club. Let's let me try to yoke a couple of these together. Let's do a couple of genre things that have broken out this year. The first one up is the Buffalo Hunter. Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones. Jones has been writing for a long time. He has a lot of books under his belt. This one seems to have gotten more acclaim and sales than anything else before. It's written in diary form that a Lutheran pastor discovers in a wall. And it tells the story of a chain of events leading back to 217 Blackfeet dead in the snow. And then what happens? These interviews by this Blackfeet named Good Stab. And apparently he did some stuff in response to that. It's a horror title I interviewed Stephen Graham Jones anticipation of this book. I found him lovely and super fascinating. But I'm too much of a chicken to read horror books. But this has popped up in a lot in a lot of places that horror often doesn't in.
- [26:15]
B
Jones. That's.
- [26:16]
C
Right. Is again, there is no Stephen King, but there's some authors on our list. And I'll say V E Schwab is one of those people that are starting to have a body of work with an in genre that do a lot that people have become a brand name of their own. And this feels like an inflection point of a kind for Jones's sales and awareness outside of the horror community in which he's been really well regarded for quite some time. Yes, but I'm wanting to put green. I find myself wanting to put green on.
- [26:42]
B
This. I want to put green on this as well. Like it made Publishers Weekly's top 10 of the year and that is a traditionally idiosyncratic and surprising list. Not a whole lot of big bestsellers make that Publisher's Weekly list. And I think it reflects that Jones is in pretty rarefied air now of being a beloved genre writer. But who is having this breakout? Also Barnes and Noble's best horror of 2025. It was highly anticipated. Jones writes really quickly. There's a new Stephen Graham Jones book almost every year and this one already has 29,000 Goodreads ratings multiples on top of some of the award winners that we were just talking about. So yeah, definitely a green for.
- [27:23]
C
Him. The other one that I have in the sort of breakout genre here and this is one we were looking forward to in 2025 and I know you've read it. This probably I think has a very good case to be green because I believe it's going to be an adaptation that the Obama's production company is heading up. It's King of Actions by SA Cosby. Can you talk about this? You read.
- [27:44]
B
This? Sure. This is a Godfather inspired crime epic that's set here in Virginia where I live in the American south about a black family. Main character has had a successful career in Atlanta, gets called home to help deal with his family. His father is ill. His father had run the only like or the best funeral parlor in town in their small town. And he discovers when he gets back that his brother has gotten involved in some shady dealings and he's got to try to in trying to help his brother get out of the shady dealings they both get further like drawn into the world of crime. It's really gritty. The Godfather comparisons. Like, there's a lot of violence on the page, but it reads like a house on fire. Cosby is Wonderful made Amazon's top 20 books of the year. It was a finalist for Barnes and Noble's book of the year and it made their best mystery thriller list. As you said, it's an Obama favorite. It's going to be produced in an adaptation by their company and almost 40,000 Goodreads.
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C
Ratings. Feels like a green to me too. I think it has a real.
- [28:47]
B
Chance. The only knock against it is that genre hits have a hard time like their thrillers. Crime thrillers are really popular. There's a lot of.
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C
Them. You've got to be like Gone Girl and really like be a phenomenal or the.
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B
Godfather. So I think yellow is.
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C
The. Yeah, you're probably right. That's a good point. Yeah. If. If Buffalo Hunter. Hunter is Green, it does feel like that's has a notch better chance than King of Ashes just, just from reading the. The tea leaves there. I'll do one that I read. Wild Dark. These are in. These are book club favorites, kind of. So they've been passed around quite a bit. Wild Dark shore by Charlotte McGonaghe. This is the third of her novels. She's an Australian writer. The other two books were very well regarded. I think this one is really broken out even beyond that. Like the floor was really high for this and she's really punched through a ceiling here. So it's another client, excuse me, climate book. But it's got a mystery about it. Like a woman washes up on this remote island up in the Arctic Circle and there's like this small family that's like they're tending this place and it throws a bit of a monkey wrench in their life. It's. It's actually quite a bit more literary than it is than people might expect or might expect for something that's gotten read this much. But I think a certain kind of reader really responds to Makani and I think I'd throw myself into that club. And then it's also gotten some of the other retail sales focused awards. The Amazons, the Barnes and Noble Best Fiction of the Year. I think Makani is a. Is a goer and I feel like this one has brought her to a new level. The thing that gives me pause is it is it has it borders into mystery and it's a cool and memorable reading experience. But is it.
- [30:35]
D
Special?
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C
Special? I just have a hard time getting it over the line. It's I have a hard time it's at least.
- [30:40]
B
Yellow. It's a.
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D
Yellow.
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B
Yeah. It's not an obvious red. I have a hard time getting it over the line too because I think the mystery elements that made it more readable and maybe gave it crossover appeal to more genre type readers to me lessened the impact of the literary qualities of the book. I think that the mystery components were a selling point for a lot of readers, but they were a discounting point point for me as a literary person. I.
- [31:12]
C
Wanted. Yeah, I can.
- [31:14]
B
See. I wanted this to feel more like Stonyard Devotional by Charlotte Wood. Like to dwell in this like quiet literary strangeness. They're on this island near Antarctica. They're tending a seed vault. The seas are rising. There's plenty to do. Without a mystery. I didn't feel like the mystery.
- [31:34]
C
It was to me it was a broadcast stranger or like. More I don't know to like. To think about like a CPAM Zhang novel or something. Like something is really going on here and it might. I. I think the sales indicate that people like it as a reading experience. But I think there's something. I think you're onto something where it may be sanded off its long term sharpness. Right. That will keep people coming back and back. But I wouldn't be shocked. But I agree with you here. Two more sort of general purpose. That's. I don't mean to slag it like this, but these got read by so many people that's almost.
- [32:07]
B
Hard. Swiss army.
- [32:07]
C
Clearly. Swiss army, yeah. Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Reid of course has. Was the OG Booktop phenomenon. He's questioning even before Hoover. And this is a lesbian love story set at NASA the 1980s. People love Reid. I've been advised that I would like this book. It's a really fun book. I think a lot of people are gonna read it. But if the ultimate litmus test we're doing here. Does this feel like something we're going to talk about on this show in 10 years? Boy, it seems hard to say that. I think we might talk about a read book as representative like her commercial success. But would we pick this one? I don't think so at this.
- [32:45]
B
Moment.
- [32:46]
C
Yeah. Daisy.
- [32:47]
B
Jones. I think I would pick Daisy Jones. That's my favorite of hers that I've read and I've not read the whole Taylor Jenkins Reid pantheon. I'm missing a couple. I really liked Atmosphere, but Daisy Jones one still remains my favorite because it did do something that felt different. Like that fictionalized oral history is not a completely New invention, but we get less of it. This was Audible's best book audiobook of 2025, though it's on Amazon's top 10among Barnes and.
- [33:15]
C
Noble. We have to at least yellow, but this might be one that turns green because our hands are sort of.
- [33:19]
B
Tied. I know we might have painted ourselves into a corner by picking saying 10 have to be. Have to.
- [33:23]
C
Be. Well, I mean, that's it. We're, you know, we'll see what we're.
- [33:26]
B
Coming. We can change the rules on the fly. We're in.
- [33:28]
C
Charge. Well, then we, you know, I think it tells, you know, it tells people that this is a hard thing and what kind of a year it's.
- [33:34]
B
Been.
- [33:34]
C
Yeah. Buckeye by Patrick Ryan. Neither of us have read this, though we've been seeing the talk about it for a while. A multi generational talk about two families, the Midwest from World War II forward. Amazon's number one book of 2025. I do take their, I take their picks seriously, but not determinedly because they, and I've talked to the editors over there and they're very sharp readers who care about books. Their goal is a little bit different than what we're doing, which is they want people that see that book to pick it up and really be glad that they read.
- [34:03]
B
It.
- [34:04]
C
Yes. And I'm not slacking that. That's a really honorable thing, especially if you're the world's the largest bookseller that's ever existed in the history of the world, which is a funny thing to say, but it's, it's so true that we sort of forget it. And that is not about anything that has its own limits because books like this, generational sagas in the Midwest from World War II forward have been something people have been writing since about the end of World War II till now. And we get a book like an Anne Neapolitano or Catherine Newman that people like and does well and pick it up and have a good time and then is kind of gone and after a few years because another one comes and does the same trying to do the same.
- [34:39]
B
Thing. I think one of those is we'll. We'll still be talking about in 25 years, but which one it's going to be is wide.
- [34:47]
C
Open. Yeah, I think I'm going to read this. I mean, that's a weird thing to do, but I just don't, I just don't see it, Rebecca. I just.
- [34:54]
B
Don'T. Yeah, no, I agree. And I mean, you know, Amazon and Barnes and Noble both have the factor also of these they're surfacing these lists in time for holiday season. So it's will you be glad you read it? But also can you buy this and gift it to someone? And does it sort of have that Swiss army appeal? And for something to be that widely appealing, it needs to be somewhat sanded off. And usually it's the sharp things that that makes something last.
- [35:21]
C
Longer. Or you have a compelling hook. And Mona's Eyes by Thomas Schlesser has a really good hook. This is Barnes and Noble's book of the year. We started seeing it pop up in some place and like what is this thing? And then. And then it came out that at one it's a novel. A young girl and her grandfather race to see 52 works of art in 52 weeks as her eyesight is failing. It feels to me a little like combination of Elegance of the Hedgehog plus Tuesdays with Maury and I don't know that we would cover this book on zero to well read for sort of art reasons. But I can see it from a this was a durable hit. This was a phenomenon. It's kind of an interesting oddity, a curio. And if it sells over time like some of these books can I could imagine us talking about. This is like, look at this thing. It's a work in translation originally from French. So I'm kind of interested. This is a.
- [36:10]
B
Candidate. I'm going to make it a yellow as well specifically for those reasons of like Elegance of the Hedgehog. Same publisher, by the way. But that book was a big sort of cozy literary hit in its time and I've considered Elegance of the Hedgehog for zero to one totally because it had such a big moment that one felt Elegance of the Hedgehog felt a little more organic where Mona's Eyes, like Barnes and Noble has sort of put this in front of readers. It is a bit of an indie darling. I said I think on our book Riot Instagram that I thought this book had sort of just come out of nowhere and an indie bookseller was like, no, you just had haven't seen it. But indie booksellers have been celebrating this book and trying to bring it up to awareness and Barnes and Noble has paid some attention to that. But if it catches on and I'm going to be watching to see if Mona's Eyes starts showing up on bestseller lists, then it could be something that has enough of a moment that it merits coming back and doing some kind of zero to well read type treatment of it down the line. So I Think a yellow is safe.
- [37:08]
C
Here. And when I talk about something, does something special. One of those things you could do is have a really good hook. Like you can say in one sentence, like, that's interesting. You don't say anything else about it. And that's, that's enough sometimes for it to have a.
- [37:21]
B
Viral. It's also like a highly adaptable hook. Like, this is a two hander Oscar, baby, for sure. Right? Some precocious child actor with like a charming European version of Tom.
- [37:37]
C
Hanks. Yes, sign me up. This, this last one, you did a good job here peeling out some time for a breakout hit. This is a book I know you liked. It also got crowned by Barnes and Noble as the winner of its Discover Prize. What do you want to say about Maggie? Or A man and a woman walk into a bar by Katie.
- [37:53]
B
Yee. This is also a really fun book. It's about a woman who finds out that her husband is leaving her for a younger woman and then she finds out that she has breast cancer and she names her tumor after the husband's new girlfriend whose name is Maggie. So it's sharp, it's funny. She's using humor to cope. She's also reaching for connection to her Chinese heritage and she's trying to instill some more awareness of Chinese heritage and folklore in her kids through the form of these bedtime stories that she tells on the page, which make the book like that's a little something different that happens on the book. She's trying to keep herself tethered. Her best friend is also really sharp and funny. This to me feels like the entrance of a new voice that I'll be paying attention to. Folks who like this kind of domestic, like literary, domestic fiction might recognize the names Jenny Offill or Rachel Kong or Wakey Wang. I think Katie Yee is in that same zone. I don't know that this book stands the test of time. It has some debut novel problems as well, but I was happy to see it win the Barnes and Noble Discover Prize as a like sort of a spotlight that shines on a book or shines on an author and says, this is one to watch. Honestly, this, as much as it saddens me, I think this one is a.
- [39:07]
C
Red. Yeah, I think it has a. It has a hook where you get two sentences in, you kind of understand it, but maybe a little too odd in its own kind of quirky way. Pop culture juggernaut. So there are some books that just sell a bunch and like a prize winner that is no guarantee of anything. Except that maybe you should be considerate. It puts it in the conversation for something that are going to return to. I mean the Big Book of the Year came out early in the year in terms of sales attention, special editions at Target with people around the line. Rebecca, this is the second or third week of January. Yes, it is. Onyx Storm, which is the third installment in the highest profile romantasy series out there. The Court of Thorns and Roses preceded it. But in terms of awareness, this is the standard bearer for the idea of romanticity as a genre which has become the hottest in terms of sales genre that I have seen be created and get its own name and special section in our whole careers. The only knock against it is it's the third one and it's hard to know what to do with the middle. And there's two more coming. It's gonna be a while. These first three came out hard upon each other. Yarrows is like crying uncle a little bit as she is of course should be doing to keep herself saying, you and I have read 4th Wing. This is not our cup of tea, which doesn't mean anything. I don't think in 10 years we were going to do one on Onyx Storm. I think in 10 years we absolutely will be doing one on 4th.
- [40:39]
B
Wing and say I totally agree. Yeah, I think Onyx Storm as a standalone third book in this series is a Red. But that we will be Talking about the fourth wing phenomenon in 10 or 20 years in the way that now we're still talking about 50 shades of gray. And then.
- [40:53]
C
Twilight. We did Twilight. It's like right in.
- [40:54]
B
There. Like it's at some point there will be a Twilight episode of this or there has been a Twilight. At some point there will be a 50 shades of gray episode of this podcast, but we'll be doing the first book and sort of talking about the whole series. And when we when it comes time to talk about Fourth Wing, that's what we'll be doing as.
- [41:09]
C
Well. I think we can move through the first two using almost precisely the same logic, which is Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins and the Secretive Secrets by Dan Brown. Sunrise and the Reaping, of course, is the second prequel to the original Hunger Games series. And this the hook here is it is the story of the Haymitch Abernathy Hunger Games. Do you know which Quell is that, Rebecca? Is that the second Quell for you? Quarter Quell? Which one? I'm giving you a hard.
- [41:37]
B
Time. I haven't read this one.
- [41:38]
C
Yet. The movie trailer actually just came out yesterday as we record it's the second most rated book on Goodreads this year here after only Onyx Storm. Here's another thing. You have to have looked at Goodreads for a long time. Like we have to recognize that a 4.51 rating on Goodreads is materially different than like a 4.2. Like that. That many like you get above a 4.5. People really like this book. The reviews have been great elsewhere. And to bring it into my own house. Both of my kids actually no, just one of my kids have read it and loved it and I thought it was really, really good. I think it's been a terrific movie. But we will be doing the Hunger.
- [42:14]
B
Games. Yeah, yeah. The movie of this is coming out next fall. That is very likely going to be the hook for us to talk about the Hunger Games itself on this.
- [42:23]
C
Podcast. If we get to 2000 episodes and we need to mine like these, these durable ips, maybe we'll get to.
- [42:29]
B
Sunrise. What a great.
- [42:30]
C
Problem. That would be a wonderful problem to have it and not a bad gem to find down there at the bottom of that mind with that pickaxe. We're have to done to get there. And then Secret Secrets by Dan oh, I'll take this one because you've read the next one, so why don't take this one real quick. Dan Brown has another book out and it's Dan Brown doing Dan Brown things, this time on the nature of consciousness. Also this time with brand.
- [42:51]
B
Integrations. Oh my.
- [42:52]
C
God. I don't think that's confirmed. Do we. Do we have.
- [42:55]
B
This? We don't have it confirmed except that in the acknowledgments. Dan Brown, thanks people for helping find so many great, great synergies. And there are like, there's like a Starbucks mention. There's a bunch of men's clothing brand mentions. We don't know which.
- [43:09]
C
One. Marriott gets huge shouts about the.
- [43:12]
B
We don't know which brand mentions are paid placements, but I feel confident that some of them.
- [43:17]
C
Are. Which is weirder that he talked about Starbucks and Marriott that much without a brand deal or that he had a brand deal to do it? I can't figure it.
- [43:25]
B
Out. Or even just how clunky they are. Like, I was reminded recently of how awkward the product placement is in the Truman show where Laura Linney like turns to the camera and is like we're having a deep conversation, but now a moment for laundry detergent. And like it kind of feels like it intrudes that way in the Secret of Secrets. So it's, it's not.
- [43:45]
C
Natural. And despite all that, we still had a grand.
- [43:48]
B
Time. We had a.
- [43:49]
C
Great. I both enjoy reading Dan Brown. We book clubbed it on the BR podcast. But if we ever do Dan Brown, I think this is like maybe one of the first couple, but I don't think.
- [43:58]
B
So. This is my, I think, second favorite after the Da Vinci Code. Yeah, but it has. I've enjoyed it more upon reflection. And folks, if you want to hear us go like really long on the Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown, that book club episode is over in the Book Riot podcast feed. We had a great.
- [44:14]
C
Time. Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan are back in Disney's Freakier Friday, now streaming on.
- [44:20]
B
Disney. We Switched bodies. I am freaking out right now. I think I just peed a.
- [44:26]
C
Little. It's an absolute riot. And the only thing that can.
- [44:31]
B
Be described as so much weirder than the last.
- [44:33]
C
Time. What last time? It's the.
- [44:35]
A
Frequel. You.
- [44:36]
B
Ready? We've been waiting for that absolutely.
- [44:39]
C
Slays Disney's Freakier Friday, now streaming on Disney. Rated.
- [44:44]
A
Pg. Toast the holidays in a new way and raise a glass of Rumchata, a delicious creamy blend of horchata with rum. Enjoy it over ice or in your coffee. Rumchata. Your holiday cocktails just got sweeter. Tap or click the banner for more. Drink responsibly. Caribbean rum with real dairy cream. Natural and artificial flavors. Alcohol 13.75% by volume 27.5 proof. Copyright 2025 Agave Loco Brands, Pojoaquee, Wisconsin. All rights.
- [45:11]
C
Reserved. Limu Emu and Doug Here we have the Limu Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty.
- [45:25]
B
Mutual.
- [45:27]
C
Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally.
- [45:30]
B
Doug. Uh, Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching.
- [45:33]
C
Us. Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you need@libertymutual.com Liberty Liberty. Liberty. Liberty Savings Fairy. Underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates. Excludes Massachusetts. All right, you read this one with Sharifah and.
- [45:46]
B
Vanessa. Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V. E Schwab, which was blurbed as the Toxic Lesbian Vampires are here. The story connects three women over five centuries and across continents. Is about vampires. Is about sexuality and relationships and all sorts of other things. We expected this one to be a big crossover hit, that literary people would pick it up, that genre readers and fans of VE Schwab would pick it up. It seems to be doing very well so far. It has 120,000 Goodreads ratings. And I got to book club this one as well with our colleagues Vanessa Diaz and Danica Ellis over on the Book Riot podcast. Probably a red. Like it doesn't do any. It doesn't do any new things really. Vampires are historically like those stories are often concerned with sex and subversion. This is a different take on it. But Schwab has read her vampire history very clearly and is trying to work in that tradition. So yeah, I think a.
- [46:48]
C
Red. Yeah. I think at some point one of these VE Schwab books and she has a lot of interesting ones that have have broken out and like been really big within the reading community. One of these days one of those are going to be adapted and whatever one that happens to may be a candidate for us to talk about someday. Because I think she's a super interesting writer. I have her and Bardugo and Quang kind of in the multi genre brand name author of the rest of our lives category. And I'm going to trans and that's. I'm going to transition into katabasis.
- [47:18]
B
Biology. Nice.
- [47:19]
C
Segue. Which is. I think we knew this book was coming out in 2024. It was our mutual pick for could be book of the year. It's done quite well from the poly genre. Wunderkind. Wunderkind no longer. I mean she's a little bit older now. She's still quite young. But she wrote the Poppy War series when she was a teenager and she's turned into a commercial fiction juggernaut. Babble into yellowface then. This is a Dante inspired academic odyssey through the underworld. That's really about the skewering of academia. That seems to be its biggest a goal here. And if not attacked on Love story, a secondary love story. Also a long chapter about Crohn's disease. If you've been looking for that. It's done quite well. But I think it's underwhelmed slightly on the whole. I think there's a chance we come back to this because I've said before this represents maybe not the apotheosis but it could be the peak of book as object moment where it's got this gold embossed list. Like the getting a galley was like a galley brag moment. We haven't had one of those whiles a look at this. We got it early. Sprayed edges. There's a map in there. This beautiful cover. Huge publicity campaign. This was gonna be when the commercial fiction world and the booktok world gets together and we all were all Reading the same book at the same time and it just didn't quite.
- [48:39]
B
Happen. Yeah, it just didn't quite happen. In trying to do several things, it didn't do any of them as fully as the fans of those particular things wanted them. I think, like, the literary references feel similar to like the volume of literary references that we get in the Secret History by Donna Tartt. And then there's all of the genre adventure Journeying through hell and like, romantasy elements that also, like, didn't go as hard as the people who came for a romantasy wanted. So I think in trying to revisit two audiences or like with two potential audiences, Kuang could have reached, I don't want to assume her intentions there. Neither of those audiences was fully satisfied. It's like compromises were made on both sides. 75,000 Goodreads ratings. Nothing to be like, nothing to sneeze at. But when you look back up at Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, which was sort of neck and neck with Katabasis early in the year for which of these is going to be the literary genre hit, Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil is ahead of it by.
- [49:39]
C
45%. I would have lost the deed to my house if that was that Kitaba said would have 50,000ft of ratings on.
- [49:47]
B
Goodreads. Yeah, I'm like, we did a fantasy book, like a book fantasy league with some of our colleagues and I like, we were all sad except for Sharifa, who got Katabasis. I took Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil in the second round and by the Goodreads standard, at least that worked out better for me, which is a total.
- [50:05]
C
Surprise. And I don't remember having seen it on a lot of these end of year roundups katabases. I think it's on some it's not, you know. Well, at least it's included. It may not be anyone's book of the year, but a lot of people have it among their.
- [50:16]
B
Finalists. I think yellow is right for that.
- [50:18]
C
One. Why don't you go. So we have three ones to watch. So these are smaller books, literary titles and non fiction here. Why don't you start with the non fiction? Because you never know with current event issues, like what's going to be be the book that people look back on to reference this moment we talked about one day everyone will be against this as a contender. I think because the AI story is moving so quickly, it's hard to bet on this because the river is moving so quickly. But you really liked searches by Vahanivara and I still want to get to it, though I don't know that I.
- [50:47]
B
Will. Yeah, it searches Selfhood in the Digital Age by Vahini Vara. It's another book that's wildly of this moment. If you aren't familiar with it, Vara wrote an essay in 2022 about her sister's death that she co wrote with ChatGPT and like and wrote about that. It's very meta. The essay went viral. ChatGPT was very new and this is a book length exploration of what makes us human in an age when machines can appear to create art or when at least that's the thing that we're being told that machines can do. So she feeds her manuscript into Chat GPT. She asks it for questions and feedback. At point one, one point she's like, I'm going to write a chapter about this. Why don't you go write a chapter about it also? And we get to see the side by side of her how a human processed this thing versus how a machine that can really only reproduce ideas did it. It's really potent. Very interesting. It was a PW Top 10 book of the year this year. I'm going to give this one a yellow. I think we will see some book about technology that we're still talking about in 25 years, but if I had to put a bet on that right now, it would be last year's big book, the Anxious Jenn Generation by Jonathan Haidt. I think that is has a better chance of being the book that we look back on as having represented a turn in the tide about how we all relate to.
- [52:08]
C
Technology. The other one about AI this year that we maybe could have put on the list is if anyone builds it, everyone dies about AI. And that's either going to be very right or very wrong. And depending on which situation, in either case it's going to be a notable book of 2025. My favorite book of the year, and I know one of your favorite books of the year as well is Edition by Katie Kitamura. Had a chance to talk with her. We book clubbed that on the Book Riot podcast too. She's three for three in my book of the novels that she's come out. This is not for everybody. And for a book like this, that almost has to be the case for it to be a book that we talk about in 10 years because it needs to do something strange, weird, innovative, something that continues to inspire, provoke and confound. And that certainly does. The second part of this I really don't want to spoil this because. Because no one has really read this yet compared to a lot of the books we're talking about. It morphs from a still steely, incisive relationship story to a pretty wild and transgressive mind warping experience. Like you're not sure what it is you're reading. And that's rare. I felt things reading this book that I don't feel when I read books that often. And that's special and special matters. It was a finalist for the Booker Prize. So this is no like dark Horse, deep cut like indie or university press title. We did a book club, one of your favorites. I'm putting this as green right.
- [53:23]
B
Now. Yeah, I want to put this as green.
- [53:25]
C
Also. And if I'm wrong, I'm.
- [53:27]
B
Wrong. It's rare. Like we have a lot of overlap in our taste and we like a lot of the same books, but it's rare that even in a year where we've read a lot of the same things, we have the same favorite book, right? And we have spent this entire year because Audition came out pretty early. Like arguing over who was going to get to be the one who talked about Audition in the various places. Like who was going to blurb it for Book Riot's Best of who was going to get it in our Best of the Year so Far podcast. I don't remember the last time that we had that over one novel. And some of that too is a function again of that there hasn't been one big Book of the year. Even last year with James. We both really loved that book, but we just kind of took it off the board of obviously James is the book of the year, so we'll fight over something else else. Audition feels, I mean like it's such, it's such a work of art. And Kitamura is an artist and she's on the edge of something and willing to be weird and strange and to like to push readers in a way that I think that kind of exploration has a better chance of enduring than something that's a predictable sort of middle of the road commercial.
- [54:36]
C
Fiction. You've got one more here. Wilderness by Angela Flournoy. And I've got one that we didn't put on the board that I'm going to mention I just thought of. But I think you'll agree we should at least consider.
- [54:43]
B
It. So the Wilderness by Angela Flournoy, long awaited second novel from Flournoy, whose book the Turner House In I believe 2015 was very popular and beloved. She was a Breakout writer. This follows a group of black women friends over the course of several decades, like they are growing up in America. And the book is about growing up and about America and about being black in America. It rings bells of climate concern, of what it's like to live in cities, urban life and the long impact of traumatic events. It also is overtly inspired by the parable of the Sower by Octavia.
- [55:20]
C
Jerry. Well read loves that. That moves it from yellow to green almost immediately. Like, I think the AI in my Google Doc won't let me make it a yellow on this.
- [55:28]
B
Document. And I think it's a green also, because Flournoy does take this into a new direction. She moves into the future like it's not just friends growing up, it's friends growing up in up to beyond where we are right now. I think the book goes into 2028 and it feels very possible and very prescient in the same way that Octavia Butler feels possible and prescient. Like she's also just like Angela Flournoy's name definitely has green on it. But. But this book feels like such a level up from the Turner House, which was a more straight ahead, sort of commercial, upmarket commercial.
- [56:05]
C
Book. It was much more recognizable. The Turner House. Oh, this is a good version of this thing that I.
- [56:10]
B
Know. And I wonder if one of the reasons that we haven't seen the wilderness like break out quite as much as we expected is that it's weirder than people who were coming for the Turner House were expecting to get from her. But I love to see that happen when a writer takes a turn for the slightly weird and is willing to go a little bit, bit speculative or to do something different that isn't guaranteed. Like this is thorny and it's political and I like to see a writer embody that space. So I am giving her a.
- [56:37]
C
Green. I think that's right. And I say here, I think she's among the top 10 to 20 literary writers who are on their second book. And that's like, it feels like a very small thing to say. But also the first book was widely acclaimed and this one, I think if we're going to talk about a flournoy book in 10 years, which I think there's a good chance of the two already, it's going to be this one one. So I think that's warranted green too. This might also warrant a green because if you win the Nobel Prize and you're alive, well, you have to be alive to win the Nobel Prize. But it came out in January and when you were talking about edition saying it came out.
- [57:05]
D
Early. Oh.
- [57:06]
C
Wait. We do Not Part by Hong Kong came out this year. Which a book we really love.
- [57:10]
B
To. We both did love that.
- [57:11]
C
Yeah. My question is not if this one's worthy. It does all kinds of things that I want art and writing to do. I learned a lot. I felt a lot. I had to think certainly a brain on activity if there ever was one. Evocative, moody, strange and beautiful. My only question about green versus yellow here is in 10 or 20 years, I'm sure you win a Nobel Prize. You're automatically in the conversation for us to do a pod about you at some point. I don't think it's a clip the vegetarian though, because that was such a phenomenon. That's the book that got her to this place. So I don't think I'd green. We do not.
- [57:41]
B
Part. I.
- [57:42]
C
Agree. But it's certainly worth being in.
- [57:43]
B
The conversation on Hong Kong is. We do not part is wonderful. But if you're doing the one episode of Hong Kong. You have to do the.
- [57:50]
C
Vegetarian. You have to do the vegetarian. That brings us to the end. Let's do a quick. I'm gonna. Could you count while I talk.
- [57:56]
B
About. I did.
- [57:58]
C
So. I already.
- [57:58]
B
Counted. I made a list while we were going. Would you like to.
- [58:01]
C
Know? Wonderful. How do we have.
- [58:02]
B
Eight? We have five. We have five greens. One day everyone will have always been against this. The loneliness of Sonia and Sunny. The buffalo Hunter. Hunter audition and the wilderness. And I think we should leave it there because we had 22 now 23 books total on this list. With the addition of we do not part. 5 out of 23 is like a top 22%.
- [58:25]
C
That's. I agree with.
- [58:27]
B
You. Let's leave top.
- [58:28]
C
Quartile. The exercise is interesting. If we have to go from. From 12 to 10, what's not as fun is like let's gin up an extra.
- [58:35]
B
Five. Yeah. Yeah. If we had to cut them down. But I think this is pretty reflective.
- [58:40]
C
Yeah. If you had to pick a yellow that you thought you know if there's a yellow that we had to pick one more. Which do you go with? This is very.
- [58:51]
B
Hard. I think if I have to.
- [58:53]
C
And supports your and support your thought that we shouldn't add any.
- [58:56]
B
More. Maybe. Maybe Katabasis. I think if I have to pick a yellow because of Bet on the.
- [59:08]
C
Phenomenon. Bet on.
- [59:08]
B
Quant. Right. Bet on the like most elevated version of spreadges and romantasy and like that people would be interested in that as here's what happens when you try to like reproduce and write into all of these phenomena at the same time. But I don't think we're getting like a 20 year collector's edition of Katabasis down the line because, like people are still adoring it at that point. But it's, I think, an interesting.
- [59:32]
C
Object. I wonder how the deal was. That's. It was immediate. Not immediately, but very quickly. A deal was struck to make this into a property and I don't remember what platform or, or whatever. I wonder how they're feeling about that right now. I think if I have to pick one, It's not easy. I think Mona, Mona's Eyes, just because it's a bit of a wild card and I don't like any of my surer bets, so I'll buy longer odds on Mona's Eyes that it's the kind of book that like, you know what? But this is. This has been read by people for 20 years and everyone loves it and it feels out of time. It feels timeless. And it's a book people give to their grandparents or kids and art lovers like it. Like again, I don't love my odds, but I think I'll go with Mona's.
- [60:23]
B
Eyes. I think that's good.
- [60:24]
C
Reasoning. All right, Rebecca, we did email us zero to well read at pod. Yeah, Zero to well read a pod. Damn.
- [60:31]
B
It. No, zero Reddit Book.
- [60:33]
C
Riot. We've done four hours of potting in a row. I'm fraying at the edges a little bit here. Please, if you have a chance, rate and review the show on Spotify or Apple podcasts. This has been really fun, Rebecca. Also, this is, I think, well, this would be our first episode in the feed that's not title specific. I can't remember the calendar. I think it.
- [60:52]
B
Is. It's one of.
- [60:54]
C
Them. It's one of our first episodes. It's not title specific. It's a bit an experiment for us. We weren't going to do as many episodes over the December into January season, but we're having a good time. We've got some women by the show. We thought we'd try something else. So if you like this kind of episode, this would be an easy one for us to do, I guess once a year. That help us with one episode a year format. Rebecca. But shoot us an email@zero to well read bookriot.com with that. I do. Thanks.
- [61:22]
B
Rebecca. Y' all have a good one.