Almost nothing happens in Gilead, but it is about everything: love, faith, family, community, friendship, morality, and mortality. It rings every bell on our list of the immortal questions art asks:

• What is the good life?

• What do I owe my neighbor?

• How do I know what I know?

• Is this all there is?

• How to deal with the certainty of death?

• What else might there be?

• What’s the deal with good and evil?

• Free will? Real or no?

That’s a rare feat, and it deserves the highest praise.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

How it Landed

Gilead was an obvious masterpiece from the jump, and the critics knew it. At the time of its publication in 2004, James Wood described Gilead as “religious, somewhat essayistic and fiercely calm…a beautiful work -- demanding, grave and lucid.” Kirkus called it “a novel as big as a nation, as quiet as thought, and as moving as prayer. Matchless and towering.” Publishers Weekly nailed it:

Robinson's prose is beautiful, shimmering and precise; the revelations are subtle but never muted when they come, and the careful telling carries the breath of suspense. There is no simple redemption here; despite the meditations on faith, even readers with no religious inclinations will be captivated. Many writers try to capture life's universals of strength, struggle, joy and forgiveness—but Robinson truly succeeds…

Robinson won both the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction for Gilead.

Listen on Spotify

The Long Tail

From what we can tell, Gilead has had a permanent spot on Barnes & Noble’s paperback favorites tables for the better part of twenty years. Indeed, that’s how I first discovered it.

In 2015, President Obama—a huge fan of Robinson’s work—asked her to sit down for a conversation when he was visiting Iowa. That’s right, a sitting President sent a fan letter so he could conduct an author interview. Those were the days. In a truly remarkable hour, they discussed Christianity, democracy, citizenship, and…Hamilton. A few months later, TIME would name Robinson to its list of the 100 most influential people.

In 2021, after the publication of Jack, the fourth and final book in the Gilead quartet, Oprah selected the whole set for her book club.

And in 2025, Gilead earned the #10 spot on the New York Times’s list of the 100 best books of the 21st century so far. We couldn’t be happier to have contributed two votes for it.

Etc.

Martin Scorcese has the film rights and is planning a series of adaptations to begin with Home, the second book in the quartet, with Leonardo DiCaprio set to play the charming, troubled Jack Boughton. We did a little dream casting on this week’s Office Hours, available for premium subscribers.

Become a premium subscriber

“This is an interesting planet. It deserves all the attention you can give it.”

That’s the #1 Gilead quote on Goodreads, and it calls to mind some favorite poetry.

I don’t know if Marilynne Robinson loves Mary Oliver, but their sensibilities are so similar and so central to my own spiritual framework, I’m not going to pass up an opportunity to talk about them together. As he reflects on the most meaningful moments of his life, Reverend Ames repeatedly circles back around to the importance of noticing, of seeing the beauty around us, of being disciplined about how we pay attention and to what.

Annie Dillard put it thusly: “How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.”

Mary Oliver spent decades putting it into practice.

• A poem titled “The Real Prayers Are Not the Words, But the Attention That Comes First” is a catalog of natural wonders.

• Lilies, plum trees, violets, and moss catch her eye in “Yes! No!,” which closes with “To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.”

• In “Sometimes,” she left us instructions for living a life: “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”

• And in Upstream, “Attention is the beginning of devotion.”

That’s life-changing stuff. Whether you’re on your first read of Gilead or, like me and Jeff, your fifth, I hope you walk away feeling a little more wonder for the beauty of the world and the power of the written word.

Ready to Listen?

Let us make it easy for you.

We’ve read and discussed dozens of books, from English class staples to cult classics to pop culture phenomena. We’ve climbed the Apple Podcasts charts and earned a spot on the list of Essentials in the books category. We’ve notched more than 600,000 downloads. And we’ve heard from countless listeners who are leveling-up their reading lives alongside us. In short, it’s been a hell of a ride.

What’s Happening

Zero to Well-Read is the most fun we’ve had in a long time, and as we continue to explore ways to reach new listeners and grow the community, we’ll be converting this newsletter to focus on ZTWR.

We’ll be sharing background info, author insights, favorite quotes, and other miscellany from our research for each episode. If that sounds good to you—and we sure hope it does—you don’t need to do anything. The goods will land in your inbox in fresh new wrapping soon. If not, here’s your heads-up to unsubscribe. The BR Pod isn’t going anywhere.

In the Meantime

While we set up the ladders and prepare for a little renovation, here are a few highlight episodes to get you started.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: This is the one where it all began. We pop some champagne and kick off the show with a conversation about how this book ended up on high school curricula everywhere, why that’s the exact wrong age to read it, and how it still echoes in today’s culture. Apple | Spotify

The Secret History by Donna Tartt: It’s the OG of dark academia, and it still hits. Sex, drugs, classical literature, and a little murder for good measure. This one was a ton of fun and includes a delightfully deranged tangent about Miss Piggy. Apple | Spotify

The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler: This eerily prescient dystopian novel opens in 2024, and WHEW, did Butler get a scary number of things right about life in the future. Her life was as groundbreaking as her work, and we couldn’t be happier to see this book breaking into mainstream literary consciousness. Apple | Spotify

The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson: This masterful history of America’s Great Migration reads like fiction in the very best way, and it deserves its place as the highest-rated nonfiction on the New York Times’s list of the 100 best books of the century so far. Truly an all-timer reading experience. Apple | Spotify

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee: This book is not what you remember from 8th grade English class. We talk about what aged well, what no longer resonates, and why so many readers today still cite it as their favorite book. Apple | Spotify

✅ Subscribe in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your app of choice to catch a new episode every Tuesday, and watch this space for more updates. Thanks for rolling with the evolution!

From classics to contemporary hits and social media sensations, we’ll tell you why these books are great, what you should know about them, what makes them weird and fun and strange, and why they matter. It’s the literary cocktail you always wanted to go to…as long as no one would ask you what you thought of Ulysses. The first season kicks off today, with a new episode each Tuesday. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and anywhere you get your pods.

If you like the show, please rate or review it, and tell some bookish friends!

This mile-long line from last year’s sale? Not for you. You’ll shop the sale Friday night while the getting is still great.

We had such a great turnout and so much at Powell’s earlier this year, we can’t resist a chance to go back! Join us July 9th at 7pm for a conversation about the best books of the year so far. Book Riot’s managing editor Vanessa Diaz will be joining us, along with Powell’s book buyer extraordinaire, Keith Mossman.

Bring a friend! Bring your whole book club! Definitely bring your opinions and personal faves! We can’t wait to meet you.

What about New York/LA/DC/etc?

We’d love to explore events in other locations. If you’re affiliated with a bookstore, book festival, or other literary event/event space, give us a shout at podcast@bookriot.com.

Several readers had heard of it because someone they know cares about it. A couple are reading it themselves. And one suggested that we should have known about it because booksellers and librarians knew it was coming and we really should maybe talk to more of these people because really we should have known.

Maybe.

The truth is, though, that I don’t care about this series, just as there are many, many books I don’t care about. This is not the same as saying I think they are bad, should not be published, the people who read them are somehow less than, or some other negative evaluation. I just don’t care. This is not to say that there might come a romantasy book that grabs my attention somehow, though probably the signal I would need would be something along the lines of “this is really doing something different.” Because for now, I feel like I get the genre, and it’s now how I want to spend my reading time.

But as someone who podcasts and writes and in general tries to cover books, my own taste cannot be the boundary of what I pay attention to? This is where the answer becomes more difficult. Am I trying to be exhaustive, a book nerd version of “all the news that’s fit to print?” Even formulating the question that way shows its absurdity: I cannot do. Rebecca cannot do it. Our entire staff cannot do it. The dozens of editors at the NYT book section cannot do it. Because there are too many books and books take a long time to read. It’s that simple.

So the last installment of an extremely-popular romantasy series needs to be about something other than romantasy is still really popular for us to get interested. This does not mean it is bad. It means that we are more interested in spending our time talking about other things. We note the big sellers and sometimes engage with them. We think about and are interested in talking about the genres and kinds of books that are on the rise and reshaping whole editorial strategies. When it comes to how we spend the next minute thinking or exploring, we are going to let our curiosity be our guides.

This is the only way it can be and not burn out. To cover a field so wide and unwieldy when you know you cannot take it all in for years on end, you have to balance what you should cover with what sustains you. If we somehow required ourselves to spend the vast majority of our reading and thinking and talking time on the popular stuff, we wouldn’t still be doing this. Heck, we probably wouldn’t have started. Ours is not a mandate to chronicle the whole, but to curate and consider stories and books from the reading world for people who care about books and reading, but not any specific book or story. The original tagline for the show was “what’s new, cool, and worth talking about in the world of books and reading.” Your criteria for “worth talking about” probably doesn’t line up exactly with ours. And it shouldn’t. But neither does it mean that if we don’t talk about something, that no one should. It just means our questions and interests lie elsewhere. And time, friends, is short.

We are still taking recommendations requests for our Moms, Dads & Grads recommendation episode. Email your requests (for a mom, dad, grad, yourself, or anyone) to podcast (at) bookriot (dot) com.

Recently on the Book Riot Podcast

The Classics You Actually Need to Read to Be Well-Read [Patreon]

5 Fascinating Stats About Modern Reading Habits, with Laura McGrath

Building a Fantasy League for Books [Patreon]

The It Books of April

National Book Critics Circle Winners, Censorship Cases on a Collision Course with the Supreme Court, and more

AUDITION by Katie Kitamura & and the Documentary BANNED TOGETHER

Americans Want To Read More Books. Or Do They?

The Spring 2025 Hot List Checkin [Patreon]

Talking Bibliotherapy with Emely Rumble

Last Thursday, Jeff and I gathered with about 75 book nerds—longtime listeners, brand new pals, friends, and family—for a live recording about the 20 most recommendable books of the century so far. We threw each other a few curveballs, Jeff’s kid’s got in on the action, and several attendees even shared their own recs. The vibes were immaculate, and the energy in the room was just. so. fun. We can’t wait to do it again, and we’re hoping to take the show on the road, as it were, to explore live recordings in New York and who knows where else. Holler back in the comments if you’d be up for a show in NYC this fall!

Head over to The Wheelhouse to hear the whole episode, and tell us: how many of the 20 have you read? What surprised you most?

On the Show

Will Romantasy Get a Shot at Big-Time Adaptation?

Who Will Win the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay?

Give Me Liberty AND Give Me Jeff

The It Books of March 2025

New York Report, New Harper Lee Collection Announced, Golden Ticket Strategies, and More

Book Club: The Antidote by Karen Russell

The Gilead Adaptation is Real, Meta Streisand’s Itself, Powell’s Event Debrief, and More Book News of the Week

Book Club: Death Takes Me by Cristina Rivera Garza [Patreon-only]

Live from Powell’s, the 20 Most Recommendable Books of the Century So Far [Patreon-only]

Coming Up:

• Traci Thomas from The Stacks podcast joins us to talk about what we love—and hate—about talking about books on the internet.

• The classics you actually need to read to be well-read

• English professor, literary critic, and data scientist shares the most interesting stats in the world of books and reading

• We dream up a fantasy league for books

  ---

Listener Feedback

Listener emails are in italics. Our responses (if any) in bold.

Hello!
I’m currently a uni student in the U.K. and *some* of the ebooks on my uni library website allow me to download the whole book as a single PDF; others allow me to download PDFs for each chapter. I can then use the “send to kindle with ‘convert’ in the subject line” hack to get those PDFs onto my kindle, without any DRM (so far as I can tell).

I would be happy to pay for a DRM free PDF of books so I could send it to my kindle - but obviously it’s not in publishers’ interest to offer these as they’re very easy to distribute illegally.

(I am in the subset Rebecca mentioned who buys my physical books in indies/Waterstones and my ebooks on Amazon).

More and more I am reading ebooks on the Libby app on my phone and iPad (you can’t get library ebooks through overdrive or Libby onto the kindle here in the U.K.) but it’s a much worse reading experience than reading on my kindle, because of the backlit coloured screen and distraction factors.

JO: Probably those ebooks that you are getting without DRM just don’t have it—some publishers allow their books to be distributed without it (Tor I think. Others too). Rebecca and I have made the switch to Bookshop for our ebook buying, but I agree that I would like an e-ink reader for these, as my iPad is great for many situations, but reading outside season is coming, and it sucks at that. There are a bunch of interesting devices that run Android, but I happen to know from little birdies that Android reading apps and Bookshop are still…getting to know each other.

Hi I’m fresh off a singular reading experience and here with a hot take.

I think there’s finally a book that you can mention as a read a like for the night circus with a straight face.

To be clear it is not as good as the night circus. And it’s doing some different things. BUT I think that for some people it might scratch that itch.

But I just got off the very emotional and immersive reading experience and so recency bias etc. I cried four times. Which is like four times as many times as I’d cried reading books this whole year. I’m not a cryer. And it’s not a five alarm snot bomb. It’s more a single poignant tear. (Is this scale anything?)

ANYWAY. It’s got the two magical beings engaged in sparring and magically building things together. It’s got beautiful prose and an air of bittersweetness. It’s got an epic magical sweep.

It’s less grounded in our world, and it’s less elegant and parseian and more like renaissance Italy. It’s grittier and it’s focused on grief and forgiveness rather than romantic love.

The book is City in Glass and it’s maybe my favorite reading experience of the year so far.

Love the pod,

(name redacted)

Ps. I was the “I’m afraid of literary fiction” question and I did it!! I did a Perceval Everett (The Trees) and it was FANTASTIC. I loved it. It was not at all what I was expecting at any point. I keep thinking about it. Thanks!

JO: Including this one for the rec (I don’t know it) and for the Everett can do anything confirmation from a new reader. You do those two things, your email gets in the round-up.

Hi Jeff and Rebecca,

I tuned in to the NBA award ceremony via Facebook and saw something that surprised me.

Look at the number of viewers. It bounced around the 80 mark…sometimes higher, sometimes lower. Briefly maxing out at 100 or so. Can this be right? I find it shockingly low.

For perspective, at the same time that the awards show was in progress, my favorite local clothing store was having their weekly Wednesday fashion showcase, also on Facebook. (I live in St. Albert, Alberta, Canada. Population 68,000).

JO: It’s a long look in the mirror when you realize just how little the vast majority of people care about literary fiction, which is the crown jewel in the NBA awards. I think you could make a good award ceremony that people would watch, but how many more? And to what end? Though this does make me wonder about a BR pod live-commentary feed folks could tune in for. I bet it would outstream the main feed.

Etc.

What’s on your mind? Email us any time at podcast@bookriot.com.

Sign-up for the Book Riot podcast newsletter below (or already be signed up!). That’s it.

Entries will be open through April 1st. Open to US & Canadian residents only. Must be 18 years or older to enter. Two winners will be randomly selected and contact via email to provide their preferred shipping address and to choose what kind of box they want. If you want to let us know ahead of time which box you are interested in, you can do so by going to the survey below.

Box Preference Survey

Aardvark Book Club is a subscription book box, and I must say the books look like just the kind of thing a whole bunch of BR pod listeners will be into. Check out what they do here, and thanks to Aardvark for working with us on this.

Recently on the Podcast:

Which Writers Could Most Benefit from a Signal Adaptation?

The Big 5 Are Indeed Big, First Major AI Verdict Comes In, Remembering Tom Robbins, and more.

Everything Romance with Jessica Pryde

Gaiman Sued, Blurbs Deprecated, and A Book Sales Check-In

The It Books of February 2025

Dark Horse Drops Gaiman, Ebooks Come to Bookshop, ONYX STORM is the Fastest-Selling Books in 20 years, and more.

Book Club — LIFE IN THREE DIMENSIONS [Patreon-Only]

Deals, Deals, Deals Winter 20245 [Patreon-only]

Book Club — We Do Not Part by Han Kang [Patreon-only]

Listener Emails

Listener emails are in bold. Jeff’s responses are in italics.

Regarding Barbara Kingsolver opening a rehab center, this reminded me of an interesting piece of history. Before reading Demon Copperhead (which, by the way, I did not love), I first read David Copperfield, and then a dickens biography by Claire Tomalin. In the biography, she talks in some detail about a project that Dickens founded that was a rehabilitation home for prostitutes to help them get off the streets. I would think Kingsolver’s effort must be in some way an homage to Dickens’. Thought you might find this interesting.

Good guess, I do in fact find this interesting. However, that is a very low bar.

I’m a MLIS student and wanted to offer some help for Rebecca as an occasional romance reader. Though I can’t help with some of the romance “hieroglyphics” she mentioned when searching for romance, like writing quality, I can recommend a site that is a go to for myself and other romance readers that was introduced to me when I started reading romance in 2024: Romance.io

It’s a social cataloging site built specifically for the romance genre and has copious amounts of user tagging that can help guide romance readers toward a good fit. You can browse lists, search by tags, or by specific book.

For each book, there is general information like overall rating and spice level but also specifics like time period, main character characteristics (job, body size, personality, age, etc.), tropes, gender and sexual orientation, kink and other sex types, and content warnings, to name a very few.

The only downside is that is user, not professionally, tagged and is not an exhaustive catalog of books. Information is only as robust as the number of people who have reviewed a book and input info and thus, newer releases usually have fewer ratings/information. The search engine often needs help by inputting both book title and part or all of the author’s name.

However, it’s a great source of information that I hope will help Rebecca and other romance readers. She can search for romance with nerds, multicultural characters, or older MCs! I hope this is helpful.

There have been other attempts at cataloging books according to kinds of content in them. There was one Small Demons that was incredibly ambitioius and cool. And I am not sure about the legality and still have philsophical questions, but an LLM tool with a robust data set (legally acquired, opted-in yada yada) could be EXTREMELY AWESOME.

On the "Books to Watch For" episode, you said something about VE Schwab signing all 500k first print copies of her new novel. When The Anthropocene Reviewed was adapted for print, John Green signed all of his 250k first editions, too. I know this because he wrote a bonus half-episode about it! If you haven't listened to the podcast or audiobook, I highly recommend both. I also expect it would be a great listen with teen/tween kids.

We got quite a few emails about marathon signing-sessions and the logistics thereof. My two cents: sign fewer books. Are there really people that are like “I am only buying this book if it is signed?” How many lost sales would occur if you only signed 10,000!

I'm catching up on the Impossible Questions, and I realized I have data that could help with one of them--the how many books are read out of obligation. Well, I only have data for me, so it's probably more like an anecdote with numbers.

I am a statistician with hyperfocus problems and poor impulse control so I track A LOT of data about my reading and have for almost ten years. So this is data about ten years of reading from one white lady in her thirties who lives somewhere in the mid-atlantic and is a power genre reader. (Actually I was the lady who felt like she "should" try more "literary fiction" so you can tell I have been thinking about this.)

Anyway, I tag every book I read with some combination of Veggies or Candy (or neither, or both). Literally to capture if I feel like reading it is a thing that I feel like is virtuous or I need to do to understand society, or more of a guilty indulgence in something I want to read. My parents always did say that it was a waste that I wasn't raised Catholic. Since 2014 I have finished reading 863 novels and novellas. Of those I've tagged 259 as "Vegetables." So that's almost exactly 30%. I tagged 406 ( 47%) as "Candy." I tagged 26 as both and 224 (26%) as neither.

Sometimes I wonder who exactly it is that listens to this show. And then I get emails like this.

Well, have you considered starting a podcast?

Earlier this week, Jeff and I spent an hour talking about Han Kang’s new novel We Do Not Part for a bonus episode that will be out soon. It’s a masterful and important work, and I left the conversation with an even deeper appreciation for it. This happens basically every time we make a book club episode. And it doesn’t matter if the book is a masterpiece, a disaster, or just kind of fine. Spending an hour or so talking in depth about a recent read with a smart person who knows me well and whose taste I trust (ah, therein lies the rub with letting other people make book club selections) unlocks a special kind of magic. It helps me think more expansively, consider new approaches and explanations for a work, and get closer to understanding which elements of my reaction are actually a response to the work and what is my personal ~stuff. And while it sure doesn’t hurt to have a conversation partner who spent a decade teaching young adults how to think about literature, I’m pleased to report that I’ve replicated my findings with reading partners who aren’t Jeff (but don’t worry, he’s still my favorite).

I feel like it shouldn’t have come as such a revelation to me that co-reading with one person was the solution to what I assumed was a lifelong incompatibility with book clubs, but here we are. As we’ve incorporated more opportunities to read together into the show, it’s been such a delight to discover that I’m not actually incapable of being in a book club, I was just working from too narrow a definition. To quote En Vogue like the elder millennial I am, free your mind and the rest will follow.

In the Feed

• Power Ranking the Books of 2015 (WAY harder than we expected it to be)

• Onyx Storms Rolls In, It’s a Very Bookish Oscars, and Making Your Own Book Fair, featuring

• Writers to Watch, 2025 Edition

• Dark Horse Drops Gaiman, Ebooks Come to Bookshop, Onyx Storm is the Fastest-Selling Book in 20 Years, and More (hitting public feeds Monday, available early & ad-free now to Wheelhouse members)

Coming Up

• Book Club: We Do Not Part

• The It Books of February

• Riding the Romantasy Dragon, with Jess Pryde of the When in Romance podcast

• Deals, Deals, Deals for Winter 2015

Misc.

I leave you with a tale of two indie bookstore displays: one for us, one for BookTok.

How’s your 2025 reading going now that we’re through the longest month ever?

The challenges of this are manifold, with the most confounding question being how to keep score.

Here, in an admixture of my own thinking and listener ideas, are a few ways I imagine you would score points.

1. Major book club selection

2. Longlist for major prize

3. Win of major prize

4. Announcement of adaptation going into production (not announced)

5. Finalist for Jeff’s It Books of the Month Selection (I promise to play fair)

6. It Book selection

7. Inclusion on major best-of-the-year list

8. top 20 best-selling new book of the year in its category

9. Adaptation nominated for major tv/film award

10. Adaptation wins major tv/film award

How many points each are worth is still a little foggy, but clearly winning is better than being nominated and winning a real award is not worth as much as being an It Book winner, coveted though it may be.

What do you think of that for a start?

The next bit is hard to: when do we pick? The fall’s big books aren’t announced yet, though they will likely be in the next few weeks as the fall catalogs come out.

Do we pick right then, when we know next to nothing about them? Or do we do a rolling sort of selection. This idea, from listener Mandy, I think is getting toward the right idea:

Here’s my idea. What if you start with no books in January and each Tuesday you can either add something that’s out that week if you’re under your limit or drop something to put a new release on?

So, I think what this suggests is that on some date in mid-Feb, we do an episode where we pick our initial list, say with a roster of 20 books. Then each week (realistically this will probably be monthly), we can swap one out for something else. This also would be cool if somehow listeners could manage their own teams somehow, but that might be for version 2.0.

I think we are getting warm here folks. Hope your 2025 is treating you kindly.

-Jeff

Recently on the podcast:

NIGHTBITCH is in the Wild. Is it Good?

The It Books of January 2025

More of Our Most Anticipated Books of 2025

Book Riot’s Most Anticipated Books of 2025, The Unbearable Whiteness of the Goodreads Choice Awards and…Jeff read ALL FOURS. And Jeff and Rebecca Both Read FOURTH WING.

Spring 2025 Adaptation Preview

The Neil Gaiman Story Gets Worse, Best-Selling Books of 2024, and The Price of Books with Kathleen Schmidt

And on The Book Riot Podcast Patreon:

The Winter 2025 Hot List Checkin

Surprise Fourth Wing Book Club

The Winter 2025 New Release Draft

I have indeed been between the years these last few weeks, mopping up the last of the 2024 books I didn’t get to at the time of their original releases and also getting the tiniest bit ahead on 2025. I went to create the 2025 tab in my reading spreadsheet and was surprised, as I am every year, to realize that it goes all the way back to 2013. That feels like at least two lifetimes ago. Who even was I then? In 2013, I started the year with a galley of Gulp by Mary Roach and ended with Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala, which I sobbed through on a plane. Both are reading experiences I recall vividly, and I can’t help but wonder if my last read of 2024, Sarah LaBrie’s wonderful memoir No One Gets to Fall Apart, and my first of 2025, Jonathan Evison’s The Heart of Winter, which feels like a spiritual sibling to I Married You For Happiness (a BR Pod Mount Rushmore title) will stick with me in the same way. Maybe. Hopefully.

If you’ve listened to our recent episodes about new releases coming in the first part of this year, you know Jeff and I are both feeling like winter is a little soft. What I want from a year in reading is to be surprised, delighted, challenged, and edified, and even the least exciting line-ups haven’t failed me on those counts. I have no doubt that in another dozen years, when I go to create my 2037 reading tab, I’ll be able to look back at 2025 and remember a few books that made indelible marks. That’s the magic, friends. May it be the same for you.

On the Show

If you’re still tying up the loose ends of 2024 from here in the in-between, we’ve got you.

• The Books of the Year

• Taking Stock of the Year in Adaptations

• 2024: The Year in Review

• The Books We Missed in 2024

• The First Ever Emergency Pod: On Obama’s Favorite Books of 2024

• The Best of the Rest: All the Non-Book Stuff We Loved This Year

And to look ahead:

• The Books to Watch for in 2025

• The Winter 2025 New Release Draft

We’ll be sharing our personal most anticipated books of the season on upcoming episodes, as well as looking at the season’s most interesting adaptations with some very special guests. In the meantime, if you’ve been wondering how the Nightbitch adaptation is, Vanessa Diaz joined me for a drop-in review.

And <trumpets> Jeff has read All Fours, and we’ll all find out together how that went! Dude won’t even send me a one-emoji indication.

Onward

What are you looking forward to and hoping for from your 2025 year in reading?

On the podcast:

The It Books of November 2024

Deals, Deals, Deals - Fall 2024 [Bonus]

The Black List

The Books Most Likely to Be on THE NEW YORK TIMES 100 Notable Books of 2024 List

Amazon’s Best Books of the Year, Goodreads Choice Voting, and More

A cautionary tale about using AI in the BR pod email this week. Related story: I used ChatGPT a few months ago just to see what it would return on the query “who are the greatest living American novelists?” Three of the seven it gave were dead. Facts are not the strong suit of LLMs for this simple reason: they do not know anything.

From BR pod listener:

Subject: My Obama Picks!

• "James" by Percival Everett (March 19, 2024)

• "The Message" by Ta-Nehisi Coates (2024 release date confirmed)

• "King: A Life" by Jonathan Eig (April 2, 2024)

• "The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store" by James McBride (April 16, 2024)

• "The Great Divide" by Anthony Marra (January 16, 2024)

• "Above Ground" by Clint Smith (April 9, 2024)

• "Knife" by Salman Rushdie (March 5, 2024)

• "The Late Americans" by Brandon Taylor (May 7, 2024)

• "Craft" by Angie Cruz (January 23, 2024)

• "Hello Beautiful" by Ann Napolitano (March 5, 2024)

• "The House of Eve" by Sadeqa Johnson (February 6, 2024)

• "In the Upper Country" by Kai Thomas (January 16, 2024)

• "The Exceptions" by Kate Zernike (March 5, 2024)

• "The Women" by Kristin Hannah (February 6, 2024)

• "Cahokia Jazz" by Francis Spufford (January 16, 2024)

Jeff’s Reply:

I think you have a couple of release dates wrong in there (HEAVEN AND EARTH, while a good pick, was on his 2023 favorite books of the year list.)

Listener’s Reply:

Yes, I tried to use Claude to make the list and he failed me so many times as far as release dates. He had the audacity to suggest the Barbara Walters book! But quickly reneged when I suggested James instead. 

Even when specifying paperback and hardcover 2023 vs 2024 baffles it.  

I was curious if you all would use some kind of AI system to filter answers and thank goodness for humanity, apologies for my AI submission!

Jeff’s Reply:

I like that you tried.

Moral of the Story: AI cannot podcast about books yet. Whew.

I’m writing to you today from the airport while I wait to board a flight to the midwest. My partner and I are navigating the kind of family emergency I’m sure many of you have experienced, one in which no one has died but there are significant changes and many difficult conversations ahead. I’m writing this newsletter today anyway, while I wait for this flight, because work is a welcome distraction and because there’s not really anything I can do until I get where I’m going. And I’m writing it because one of the great gifts of doing the podcast over the last decade-plus is the discovery that there’s room here to talk about so much more than just books.

Since May 2013, y’all have listened to me and Jeff talk about books and publishing, yes, but you’ve also come along as we’ve talked about parenting (him), meditation (me), management (both of us, forever), and a host of other personal experiences. We’ve been through election cycles and a global pandemic together. You’ve trusted us to recommend books for your closest loved ones and your trickiest questions, and you’ve returned the favor with recs for us. You’ve sent us travel tips and dad puns (and you know that dad is a vibe anyone of any gender can embody). You’ve allowed us space to evolve, you’ve taught us all kinds of things, and you’ve held us accountable when we’ve messed up. What began as content has led to real connection and community. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised; after all, what are books for if not the stuff of life?

We’re telling the truth when we say the podcast is our mutual favorite thing to make, and we are always looking for ways to make it more interesting and more fun and to connect with all of you who give us the privilege of being in your ears—and your cars, homes, offices, and dog walks—week after week. Just yesterday, we launched a dedicated Instagram account for the pod, and we sure hope you’ll come hang out with us and share it with your friends. Thanks, as always, for listening.

Catch Up On the Show

• National Book Award Finalists, MacArthur Geniuses, and The Corrections Bags Streep

• The Fall 2024 Hot List Checkin [bonus]

• What Are the 10 Most Interesting Questions in the World of Books and Reading?

• Han Kang Wins the 2024 Nobel Prize for Literature

• Book Club: Revenge of the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell [bonus]

• 35 Years of When Harry Met Sally

• James Kicks Off Book Awards Season, Taylor Swift’s Book Makes Waves, and TikTok’s First Slate of Titles

• Author Buy/Sell/Hold 2024 Edition

• Barnes & Noble’s Best Books of the Year, Interior Chinatown and Say Nothing Look Promising, and More Book News

Coming up: On tomorrow’s episode, Jeff and I will discuss the publishing data we most wish we had. We’ll run the year’s final round of Deals, Deals, Deals on Patreon next week.

Note: we were planning to see Nickel Boys after its release this weekend for a show next week. That will be delayed, and we’ll give you a heads-up when we know what’s going to be feasible. More time to read or revisit the book in preparation!

The details of our family emergency this week aren’t mine to share, but I do want to leave you with this: if there are conversations you’ve been putting off with your parents, kids, and loved ones—or even with yourself—about how you would want medical care handled if you weren’t capable of making the decisions, please have them before it’s too late.

And if you’ve read books or come across other resources that were helpful for navigating these conversations and decisions, please recommend them in the comments. Let’s help each other show up for the stuff that really counts.

Thanks, as always, for rolling with the BR Pod. We’ll be back in your ears tomorrow.

Because they are proof, or at least evidence, of a mind and soul at work. Or at least a mind and soul performing being at work. Much like a college bull-session about how there is no truly altruistic action because the ego is always lingering, the display of books is both for me and everyone that comes, or every could come, and be in a position to see them. I really don’t want to be the person who wants to show off what books they ostensibly have either read, want to read, or can’t bear to get rid of for some reason, and yet I am afraid that I am, and always have been.

Maybe I am not the college kid anymore that was so eager to be known as smart and well-read that I hoped people would ask about something on my shelf (yes I have read them all, and no I couldn’t possibly pick a favorite, how bourgeoisie of you to ask), but some remnant of that 19-year old is still there, both proud and petrified, to bare his literary and spiritual soul. For that’s what it has ultimately meant for me, this secular devotion to a gargantuan, conflicted, flawed idea of literature and ideas. My bookshelf no longer serves the purpose of performing, but of reminding—-a built-in mini-monument that is both rosary and catechism, which I hope will inspire me, my family, and yes anyone who might wander in and glance at them, to breathe a quiet amen.

Here’s what we’ve been up to on the Book Riot Podcast:

Notes from a Trip to New York, Recent Reading, and Amanda Litman from RUN FOR SOMETHING

Is It Good?: INTERMEZZO by Sally Rooney

Half-Baked Ideas, 2024 Edition (For Patreon members)

Booker Prize Shortlist, a new WUTHERING HEIGHTS Adaptation, and More Book News of the Week

The It Books of October

And the last thing for now, an update from Sophia about how recent It Books candidate are faring out the in the cruel world of publishing. Thanks Sophia!

Okay, now for the It Book Update... 

• The God of the Woods continues to be a huge hit, no surprise. It's over 100k ratings now, showing stronger growth than pretty much any other July title

• The All Fours momentum continues, too. 38% growth. This Strange Eventful History is still also showing strong growth, but its momentum has slowed a lot from last month.

• The Paris Novel grows 20%; James grows 23%. Both of those are much higher growth rates than other titles released around the same time. 

• Hidden This Month (less than 30k ratings and less than 10% growth):

• Anita de Monte Laughs Last (March 2024) - 27,011 ratings, 8% growth. Shocked this one's already off the list -- barely missed my 30k threshold. 

• The Morningside (March 2024) - 3,321 ratings, 8% growth.

• Parasol Against the Axe (March 2024) - 811 ratings, 7% growth. 

• Splinters (February 2024) - 3,769 ratings, 8% growth. 

• A Love Song for Ricki Wilde (February 2024) - 24,407 ratings, 9% growth.

• Greta & Valdin (February 2024) - 12,074 ratings, 9% growth. 

• The Book of Love (February 2024) - 5,202 ratings, 9% growth.

• The Great Wave (February 2024) - 163 ratings, 7% growth.

• Come and Get It (January 2024) - 29,765 ratings, 7% growth. Another one I'm shocked to be taking off the list. It's SO CLOSE to my 30k threshold, but I'm not making an exception! 

• The Showman (January 2024) - 1,261 ratings, 8% growth.

• Big Fiction (2023 Year in Review) - 150 ratings, 7% growth.

• Doppelganger (September 2023) - 18,590 ratings, 7% growth.

• How to Say Babylon (September 2023) - 18,582 ratings, 7% growth.

Tuesday morning, we were killing time between meetings and trying to decide what to do that evening. Jeff joked that we should hit the literary scene—longtime listeners know the bar for getting either of us out to an author event is high—but it was, after all, a Tuesday in New York at the start of Big Book Season, so I gave it a google just for giggles. Turns out, Rumaan Alam was going to be in conversation with Jennifer Egan (!) at The Strand for the launch of his new novel, Entitlement. Bar, cleared.

You probably won’t be surprised to hear that the event was terrific. Egan is a thoughtful, well-prepared interviewer (multiple pages of typed notes!), and Alam is an an engaging, funny, sneakily provocative speaker. I was already excited about Entitlement (I took it in the second round of our fall release draft, and you still have time to vote), and now that I’m more than halfway through reading it, I can report that it does not disappoint. Going out and doing things is good sometimes!

On the Show

Fall Adaptation Preview

The 2024 National Book Award Longlist, Good Omens Season Three ‘Paused,’ Rachel Kushner’s Creation Lake, and More

Power-Ranking the Books of 2004

The Nightbitch Trailer + Looking Back at the Summer New Release Draft [bonus]

Upcoming: Monday’s episode will drop later than usual due to post-travel schedule weirdness. In addition to the latest news, we’ll have an interview with Amanda Litman of Run For Something, who joined us to talk about how to get involved in local politics and fight book bans.

Midweek, look for a conversation about Intermezzo by Sally Rooney. Is it good? We’ll find out together.

Etc.

If you’re involved in planning book events or a literary festival, host a bookish podcast, or etc., we’d love a chance to show up! Email us at podcast@bookriot.com.

Have a great weekend, and we’ll be back in your ears on Monday.

Jones starred into two of my favorite adaptations, Field of Dreams and The Hunt for Red October (both of which are better than the books they are based on). Jones brings a similar warmly erudite solidity to each. I sometimes wonder of his most profundo of bassos cause us actually to underate him as an actor—at least those of who came to know him in the later part of his career.

On the podcast of late:

Breaking Down Obama’s Summer Reading List, NYT’s Article on Publishing Departures, Anthropic’s Legal Challenge, and More

Predicting the 2024 National Book Award for Fiction Longlist

The “It” Books of September 2024

NaNoWriMo’s AI Controversy, The Internet Archive Loses in Court, Recent Reading, and Other Book News of the Week

The NIGHTBITCH Trailer + Looking Back at the Summer Draft [Patreon]

The Fall 2024 New Release Draft [Patreon]

Jeff’s Notes for Europe [Patreon]

And now a few notable bits of feedback. Italics are listener emails. Bold is us (and in this case, me, Jeff).

here’s my two cents on why I suspect Scholastic is not involved with the Big Five +1 regarding the lawsuit in FL.

I’m not a lawyer - big caveat.

Because, as you both pointed out, Scholastic has such a financial interest in state sponsored book bans, especially in large population states like Florida, it’s probably the reason they are not involved and will play an impartial observer/supporter. As we’ve all seen over the last decade, common sense and acceptance of facts and data has been thrown out the window, even in the judiciary reaching as far as SCOTUS. These opinions are going to be based on emotions and fear mongering. I’d suspect the Big Five last little financial gains regarding these book bans, but Scholastic has the most to lose, so if there is a question of conflict of interest, the defense (Florida) will go after that with extreme prejudice. “Scholastic only cares about book bans and is suing us because they want more money. More money to indoctrinate YOUR children!” We all can see how this would go.

So, I’d suspect they are trying to stay out of it to allow the best legal case to go forward. I suspect the general counsel for Scholastic was heavily involved in making this decision with the GC’s from the Big Five.

Cheers y’all

Love the show.

JO: I think this email is wrong about the law, but right about a more basic thing. Scholastic is not interested in pissing any school boards or districts or Departments of Educations off. An amicus brief of co-plaintiff or whatever puts them square in the crosshairs for whatever the decision in this case is. I would think there is some safety in numbers—there will be a lot of zebras in this herd, making it harder to pick out one. That said, Scholastic hasn’t exactly covered themselves in glory in this book ban and censorhip matters.

Hello! September update time!

• Only 990 ratings on the Nancy Pelosi book so far -- I assume most readers probably aren't reviewing on goodreads, but that's way lower than I would've predicted

• The God of the Woods is huge - it was at 21k ratings at the start of August; it's tripled that and is now around 65k

• All Fours has surpassed Lies & Weddings in absolute number of ratings and it grew 65% over the month (sorry Rebecca)

• This Strange Eventful History grew 71% -- but it has an overall low number of ratings. Still, that's more growth (in terms of percentage) than any other May title, including All Fours. (Also, it's one of very few titles to see a higher % growth this month than last!)

• James is still growing at over 30%; we love to see it

• Hidden This Month (less than 30k ratings and less than 10% growth):

  • The Atlas Complex (January 2024) - 17,695 ratings, 9% growth

  • Dead in Long Beach, California (January 2024) - 717 ratings, 9% growth

  • The Storm We Made (January 2024) - 14,839 ratings, 8% growth (surprised to see this one off the list this soon; I thought it would be bigger!)

  • Same Bed, Different Dreams (November 2023) - 1746 ratings, 9% growth (guess the Pulitzer finalist status didn't do much for it)

JO: The lastest It Book Data dispatch from the ever-excellent Sophia. (Full spreadsheet here). Look at the Messud, growing faster than All Fours. My NBA finalist late-round flyer on it is looking choice. Also, never really occurred to me, though it should have, that serious non-fiction might activity on Goodreads may not be as correlated for non-fiction, espefically the more serious varieties, as for other categories. The God of the Woods is now not just the book of the summer, but one of the books of the year.

Hello Rebecca and Jeff, 

Thank you so much for all your work for Book Riot and the BR Podcast. I've listened to your show (and other BR pods) on and off for maybe ten years now, and you're some of my favorite hosts :)

My company recently moved to an open-office workspace, and I've been listening to podcasts, so I can't hear what's happening around me haha. I had a ton of BR backlist episodes on deck and I've had some random thoughts while listening I wanted to share with you:

1. Dad Books (05/29 Ep.) - This episode was pre-Kamala Harris announcement, but you mentioned the president's memoir is marketed as the ideal Dad book. Do you think a female president's memoir will be marketed similarly?

2. B&N, Tattered Cover, and Union Labor (06/23 Ep.) - I work in HR for a retail company, and I was curious if B&N’s stance on union organizing will change, especially with B&N employees in Denver and CO.  

3. Increased Book Buying - nothing specific, but I recently saw this article on  peak millennials (33 y/o) shaping the buying patterns of the generation https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/02/business/economy/33-year-olds-millennials.html

Anyway, feel free to respond to or share my thoughts and name on the pod. Or don’t, I really just love listening to you two. I hope you have a fab weekend!

- Michael 

JO: Will take these one at a time.

1. I do. If you look at the packaging of Hilary Clinton’s books, they look and feel like presidential memoirs. Add to that actually being president, at the first woman at that, and a Former President Harris (no jinx) book will be a huge deal.

2. I would not bet on this. Maybe there will be a carve out somehow for Tattered Cover, but B&N’s recent profitibility is not so robust that huge increases in labor costs are suddenly palatable.

3. Microgenerations are not a thing. I stared at the graph in that piece and if you squint your eyes you can maybe discern a sorta-kinda bump. I am skeptical of most “generational” attributions. What I am not skeptical of are scholars and researching trying to make a pet idea a thing, and Peak Millenial fits that bill. I have been around long enough to remember yuppies and dinks and bobos and how important they all allegedly were. Next.

The Shawshank Redemption at 30

The List of the Best-Selling Books in the UK from the Last 50 Years is Wild

We Saw It Ends With Us So You Don’t Have To

The Bookish Movies of 1999

Project 2025’s Impact on Books, Spotify Adds to Catalog, Soap Box Time, and More

And over on First Edition:

What’s Going on with Book Sales?

Democracy by the Book

My Reading Life

Alright, pictures!

18th Century Hand-Written Account of Witch Trials in the Czech Republic (Czech National Museum)

Monastery Library at Prague Castle Grounds

Thriller Section (not joking) at Luxor bookstore in Prague.

Franz Kafka Rotating-Head Statue in Prague. I cannot tell if this was cool or kitsch or what.

Killer Czech edition of Sylvia Plath.

Endearing and strange little sculpture on the side of a building in Budapest. Are these dogs reading along? Or not-so-subtly indicating that the kid has been reading long enough and let’s go outside already?

Dani’s English Bookshop. Up near the Fisherman’s Bastion in Budapest. One-room store full of used books in English.

Bookstore just called “Bestsellers” in Budapest. Respect the honesty.

Goethe statue in Vienna. Possibly the most coolly-commanding statue I’ve seen. “Yea I wrote that story where a dude sells his soul to the devil. You will not out-metal me.”

The truly jaw-dropping City Library in Vienna, built by Prince Eugene of Savoy, who was a total badass.

Spiral Staircase at the Antiquarian Bookstore in Heidelberg, Germany.

Eating Gelato. Not book-related, but come on. Look at them. Good trip.

It hit me this morning that here in the first week of August, we are equidistant from the first “best of the year so far” lists, which started appearing in April (April!), and the Best of 2024 collections that will likely show up around Halloween. Time is just a construct, after all, and SEO waits for no man.

Jeff and I have talked about so many variations of these lists on the show over the last few months, along with the distinctions between between “best,” “favorite,” “important,” and insert-your-own-superlative-here that the words have started to lose meaning. What even is a book? And why can’t I ever remember what I’ve read recently when someone asks? It’s hot, and I’m high on a potent combination of political hope and Olympics excitement, so it’s your turn, friends. Hop into the comments and tell me (and each other!) about the highlights of your reading year so far.

Leave a comment

On the Show

• Book Riot Pick Their Favorite Books of 2024 So Far

• The Best Books of the 21st Century

• Building the Best Books of the Century, with Gilbert Cruz, Editor of the New York Times Book Review

• Our Ballots for the NYT’s 100 Best Books of the Century [bonus]

• The Readers’ List of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century, Predicting Obama’s Summer Reading List, and More

• Book Nerd Movie Club: The Neverending Story

• Harris Book Sales Spike, the Hugos Catch Some Bad Cheaters, and More Book News

• Listener Mailbag & Personalized Recommendations [bonus]

• The It Books of August 2024

• Deals, Deals, Deals for August 2024 [bonus]

Coming up: on Monday 8/5, we’re talking about Project 2025’s impact on books and education, and Jeff has a glorious (unrelated) soapbox moment. Wednesday will bring our power ranking of the book nerd movies of 1999. There were a lot of bangers, and we had a great time talking about them. I’ll give you a little clue:

Etc.

I knew it would happen eventually, and here we are: a decade of talking in soundbites for the podcast has led to being the last millennial to learn how to TikTok. Next up: get better at picking the cover images for videos. Follow Book Riot on TikTok for breaking news and bookish shenanigans from people who are funnier than me.

@bookriotThere’s a lot of scary shit in #project2025, and some of it dircetly impacts books and reading. #booktok #election2024

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Now let’s hear it: what are the best books of your reading year?

The dog days have arrived here in Virginia, and while that is terrible news for my general comfort, it’s pretty great for getting a lot of reading done. Over the weekend, I finished Charish Reid’s Jewel Me Twice, a second-chance/enemies-to-lovers romance that is a sexy, heist-y good time, and plowed through Liz Moore’s 1970s summer camp thriller, The God of the Woods. I also saw the new Yorgos Lanthimos flick Kinds of Kindness, and I’m probably going to need all week to decide if it was good or just intense. If you’ve seen it and have opinions, hit me in the comments.

You’ve heard me and Jeff tease a cool thing we were asked to participate in a couple times on the show, and the reason this newsletter didn’t come out on Friday as scheduled is that I was waiting for the cool thing to be unveiled today. We were among the 500+ “literary luminaries” asked to contribute to the New York Times’s ranking of the 100 best books of the 21st century! They’re revealing 20 titles each day this week, so you can peep #100-80 now and check back every day through Friday for the whole shebang. Jeff, Sharifah, and I were so honored to be included, and folks, narrowing it down to 10 books was a damn near impossible task. My off-the-dome longlist had more than 30 titles.

Jeff and I will be sharing our lists and talking with a special guest about the process in an episode next week. In the meantime: the NYT limited us to 10, so that’s all you get, too. Name your 10 best books published since January 1, 2000.

Leave a comment

On the Show

• Barnes & Noble Buys a Beloved Indie, Book Sales Are Way Up, Real Data on Diversity in Published Books, and More

• The Books of the Year…So Far

• Our Favorite Books of the Year So Far [bonus]

• JAMES Adaptation News, Whither Political Memoirs, Freida McFadden is Here to Low-Key Dominate Book Sales, and More

• The It Books of July 2024

• Inside the ALA Convention, Barnes & Noble’s Comeback, and Summer Reading Picks

Coming up

📫 No bonus ep this week while Jeff is on vacation. We’ll be back in the Wheelhouse feed next week with a Hot List checkin, and we’re prepping for a mailbag episode. Questions for us? Drop them in the comments or send to podcast@bookriot.com.

🐕 Don’t forget to pick up a copy of The Neverending Story and join us for a journey back into childhood book trauma on July 24th.

🎧 And if you haven’t joined us in The Wheelhouse yet, remember that members get access to the full catalog of back-episodes. It’s a TV wasteland this summer, so let us keep you company instead!

Talk Amongst Yourselves

We’re looking for Top 10s of the century. We’re looking for movie opinions. We’re looking for summer TV and streaming recs. We’re looking for whatever y’all want to talk about.

Stay cool out there.