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Book Riot - The Podcast

Jeff and Vanessa celebrate Book Riot's 15th anniversary by announcing a listener mailbag and previewing upcoming podcast content before diving into recent

Key takeaways

• The 2024 MacArthur Fellows include writers Brian Washington, Laylee Long Soldier, and Maza Mengiste, showcasing diverse voices exploring colonial violence and historical fiction.
• Center for Fiction's debut shortlist features titles like Emily Natwood's A Real Animal and Nafissa Thompson Spires' The Four Wives and Five Deaths of Richard Milford.

Main topics

• MacArthur Genius Awards
• Center for Fiction debut nominees

Notable quotes

"We just don't have anyone like Capote."

Conclusion

The episode blends industry updates, cultural commentary on reading ha

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:04) This is the Book Riot Podcast. I'm Jeff O'Neill, sitting in for Rebecca while she is enjoying some much-deserved PTO as our managing editor, Vanessa Diaz. Vanessa, what's going on? Speaker 4 (0:15) Here I am. I always only get to see one or the other of you. It's been a while since it was all three. Like, hello, it's Jeff's turn to hear me. Yeah, I bagged out Speaker 3 (0:23) the other, not bagged out, I wasn't feeling well when you did the Capote. Also, I didn't realize with this. topic of that was going to be and i did all the research for the annotated truman capote show so i would have been a buzzkill anyway i think Speaker 4 (0:35) that's actually true i'm glad it worked out the way it did not for your science no Speaker 3 (0:40) vanessa uh was joining rebecca to hit her with the even even knowing what i know now and going back and listening to it and and reminding myself we just don't have anyone like capote do we know one even close no Speaker 4 (0:56) There is, I think, a Broadway production right now with Jesse Tyler Ferguson playing Capote that I'm interested to go see. Just because once I got into that Capote bag, I walked away with that saying, we just don't have anyone like him. And I kind of want to spend some more time with that weirdo. Speaker 3 (1:09) Like a real literary gossip. And who could write a sentence and had chops of their own. It's just very rare at the same time. Okay, before we get into the rest of the show, some news and announcements to make you aware of. We're doing a 15th anniversary mailbag with you, I believe, are on that, some other staff. So shoot us questions about books, reading, what you want to know. Nothing is really off topic for a submission that does not guarantee that we will talk about it. There's a link in the show notes at bookright.com slash listen or just in the podcatcher right there. Coming up in the Patreon feed for this show. Speaker 3 (1:48) I guess it's in front of this foyer technically, but Rebecca and I just recorded on Exit Party yesterday by Emily St. John Mandel. That'll be in Speaker 1 (1:55) the Speaker 3 (1:55) feed real quick if it's not already by the time. We're recording out of order because, Rebecca, we did a couple things to catch up on Zero to All Red on this show, so I'm a little unclear about when everything is happening, but that is coming sooner rather than later. Rebecca and I recorded kind of a 15th anniversary episode of this show, but we really kind of focused on this pod. And so... will this be out? No, it'll be a preview of things to come. I, you'll appreciate this Vanessa. Um, I, what I did is I got the project podcast agenda of what you are looking at right now. You being Vanessa Diaz, not other people. That would be weird. Um, it is 695 pages long going all the way back to episode one. And I did 15 random.org. numbers from one to six, six 94 and just picked a story off the page to talk about for a few minutes. And I think it was really a monster. Yeah. It's Speaker 1 (2:46) a, Speaker 3 (2:46) it's a, it's a disaster. Actually it's a Google doc and it actually takes a little time to load. Uh, usually Google doc just snap open, but it's like, Oh God, I got to open this to him. No, it's Speaker 4 (2:55) a Speaker 3 (2:55) beast. Um, so look forward to that. We did some other stuff there. Um, zero to well read has a great good fortune of being finalists for a couple, for a podcast award. in two categories is the Signal Awards, which is actually a real podcast award body deemer of things. For best podcast in arts and culture and best new podcast. If you like this show, you like that show, you just want to throw us a bone, there's a link to vote for both of those in the show notes here, bookriot.com. listen, that would be tremendous. Good Lord, I think that's it. Then you're going to be back with Rebecca when I'm gone. Kind of a transition here for a few minutes. All right, I think that's everything we wanted to tell you about before the actual sponsor, which is going to happen right now. Speaker 1 (3:47) This podcast is supported by Warby Parker. I've been wearing glasses since I was a teenager, and I've been a Warby Parker customer for more than 10 years. And now that I need progressive lenses, my glasses are an even bigger part of my everyday life. I recently did the math, and I realized I spend about 80 % of my waking hours wearing them, which means I have pretty high standards. My glasses need to be comfortable, obviously, and I also want them to be cute. I like bigger, fashion-forward frames, and it can be surprisingly difficult to find those in proportions that work for my face. My newest Warby pair is the in emerald crystal, and they really hit the mark. They're oversized, this gorgeous translucent green, and they're comfortable enough to wear all day, which I quite literally do. Warby Parker has a huge selection of styles, plus virtual try-ons so you can see frames on your face from the comfort of your phone. Prescription glasses start at $95, and they have more than 300 stores across the U.S. if you prefer to shop in person. After more than a decade, there's a reason I keep going back to Warby Parker. I can find glasses that feel like me. Right now, buy one pair of glasses and get 20 % off any additional pairs at warbyparker.com slash bookriot. That's 20 % off any additional pairs when you purchase one pair at warbyparker.com slash bookriot. Speaker 1 (5:07) This episode is sponsored by Harper Audio, publisher of Babe Elaboratio by Harry Connick Jr. Stick around after the show to hear an excerpt from the audiobook edition. Babe a Laboratio, Harry Connick Jr.'s debut book, pays a heartfelt tribute to his mother, lovingly known as Babe. Written to accompany his first-ever Carnegie Hall performance, Harry unpacks the emotional journey of his composition, revealing the memories and musical significance hidden in the measures of his orchestration. Featuring personal photography and measures from the score, Babe a Laboratio is a tribute to Babe, a celebration of music, and a meditation on the power of a mother's love to shape a life forever. The audiobook is the perfect way to experience this story. Harry explores the musical ideas and significance behind Babe Elaboratio, allowing listeners to experience the relationship between his memories and the composition itself. And the audiobook also features the accompanying original score that Harry Connick Jr. played at his first Carnegie Hall performance in honor of what would have been his mother's 100th birthday, fulfilling a dream she had had for him since childhood. Again, stick around after the show to hear an excerpt from the audiobook edition of Babe Elaboratio by Harry Connick Jr., provided by our sponsors at Harper Audio. Speaker 3 (6:28) Hey Speaker 1 (6:28) folks, Rebecca here with some big news and a quick request for a way that you can help out the show. We are really thrilled to share that Zero to Well Read is a finalist for the Signal Awards in the Best Arts and Culture and Best New Podcast categories. Listener's Choice Voting is open through October 15th, and we would be super appreciative if you would take a minute to vote for us. Book Riot is a small, independent media company, and Jeff and I do all the reading and the research for the show ourselves. We have support from our colleagues who edit the show and create promotional content and that's it. There's no corporate backing or big behind the scenes production crew. We are so honored to be nominated and a win in one or both of these categories would help Zero to Well-Read gain visibility and remain competitive and stable in this landscape that is ruled by celebrities and major networks. Please go to vote.signalaward.com and search for Zero to Well-Read to cast your votes for us in Best Arts and Culture and Best New Podcast. That's vote.signalaward.com. Listener's Choice Voting is open through October 15th. Thanks so much, and we'll see you on the pod. Speaker 3 (7:36) I meant to ask you, I guess we'll get some of this 15th mailbag stuff, but when was your first year of BRDS? My first year was Speaker 4 (7:43) 2019. All right. Speaker 3 (7:46) So we're seven years? Yeah. Seven years. Wow. Yeah. Speaker 4 (7:49) Okay. So that's a good long run. Yeah. No, it's, I mean, a little, almost half-ish. Almost half. Yeah. Yeah, it was interesting to spend some time with that content, knowing how much of it I was around for just as a casual listener and how much of it I was actually on staff. I was like, ooh, I wish I would have been on Slack for some of that stuff. Well, because you're right. Because I Speaker 3 (8:06) think you are assembling a thing we're doing about the literary controversies that we have seen. When does that come out? Speaker 4 (8:11) The first half of it is actually already out now. We can drop a link to Speaker 3 (8:13) that Speaker 4 (8:13) in show notes for folks. Yeah, that is out. It's a honker of a doc as well. So it made sense to split it up into two. So we've got, yeah, like 10 and 10 basically. And yeah, I have very vivid memories of where I was for some of that stuff and then for others, not so much. It was a cool kind of project to hop in that time machine. And the gamut of topic is very fun. Some of it is real bummer and some of it is, oh, that? Okay, cool. So yeah, definitely give it a look. Speaker 3 (8:42) I guess to preview and also make some content of that content, I wrote about one of the controversies for that, which was... Speaker 4 (8:50) I Speaker 3 (8:50) think it was 2015. I can't remember. The years are a real mess, especially in those pre-COVID years. It's been a while, I think a decade plus, where BookCon, which still exists in a current form, Speaker 4 (9:01) grew Speaker 3 (9:01) out of Book Expo America, which was the trade show. But this was a fan-facing thing that happened after Book Expo. We had a bunch of authors come in and yay, yay, sign books and do panels. And they released a lineup of 30 humans and one non-human that would appear on the show. And they went 30 for 30 white folks on that list. The one non-human was Grumpy Cat because that was a thing that was happening at the same time. And that became a flashpoint for conversations that had already started around diversity in publishing. And I believe, I think Kelly wrote in the blurb for that, that we need diverse books, which continues today, came out of, if not that moment shortly thereafter, like, listen. There's got to be some more organized response. This sort of thing really wouldn't happen anymore to this degree. But it was so glaringly obvious. There's no, I just want good stories in defense of that. It was also the one time I have been quoted in New York Times. Speaker 4 (10:02) Hey! Speaker 3 (10:03) A tweet of mine, which I said there are more cats than people of color in the New York Times. And they picked that up. And it was true. And so it's stuff like that. Stuff that you would never imagine happening now and then for good and for ill at the same time. Anything jump out to you on that list, Vanessa, that may be worth shouting out as a teaser to go people to click on the link and read it? Speaker 4 (10:25) Yeah, I can go generic, which is just that there's been a couple of big shakeups when awards just straight up weren't given out for two very different reasons. And seeing what those two different reasons was, was I was like, oh, oh, yes, that's a thing. There is a... sexy merch thing that I got to write about about a thing that popped up in a romance box. Speaker 1 (10:46) I Speaker 4 (10:47) can't even say the word like on the mic, I don't think. But the thing about that that is the most interesting is that the kerfuffle around it, as Danica Ellis commented, probably wouldn't be as big of a kerfuffle now. And as they put it, it's probably, you know, thanks to book talk, if nothing else, it's like the era of spice has so far changed, you know, with what people were willing to. Speaker 3 (11:06) Yes. Speaker 4 (11:06) Yeah. But they saw it as like too spicy, basically. And so it was really funny writing about because it was it took over the Internet for a solid few days and maybe even more than that. And people were all up in arms about this piece of soap that is very interestingly shaped in a way that I just don't see people getting that like bent out of shape about now. And it was like, oh, things have changed. Speaker 3 (11:27) Yeah, I think our collective spice tolerance has changed. It's like, you know, as people grow older, they put more hot sauce on their eggs because they can't taste it anymore. I think that it needs to be spicier than that now. Look, Speaker 4 (11:37) you don't need to come for me. Speaker 3 (11:38) Yeah, I know, right? Hey, listen. Look, the light is slowing going out. I don't know what to tell you. That's what's happening here. Speaker 4 (11:45) But yeah, it's Speaker 3 (11:46) a Speaker 4 (11:46) really fun document. And the other half of it will get dropped sometime next week. Especially if you've been a listener to this show, I feel like you'll get a lot out of it because there are things that you will actively remember us talking about. There's some links to pieces and podcasts. It's a good time. It was actually really fun. I'm Speaker 3 (12:02) sure Speaker 4 (12:02) we Speaker 3 (12:02) talked about almost all of these on the show because they would have risen to the level of stuff that would make the show. Anyway, check that out there. Some listener feedback. We asked last week about... in the It Books of October because the Brightness by Chad Harpook was one of the contenders. They're like, does anyone remember The Art of Fielding? And we asked, and people responded. So it's hard to know Vanessa with email. Does that selection bias what's going on? But I think we got a good half dozen to a dozen people saying, I remember, I liked it, I'm kind of interested in the brightness. Mostly what we got is I remember the art of fielding and kind of liked it. And we'll see about the brightness, which I think is a tough look for the Speaker 2 (12:39) brightness at this particular time. So anyway, Speaker 3 (12:42) there's that. All right. On to news of the week. I think the big news of this week, I wrote about it for the flagship newsletter today briefly. The 2016 MacArthur Fellows were nominated or announced. You won. There's no long list for this. You just get a call. Speaker 3 (13:00) You may know those better on the internet as the Genius Awards. I've long since thought, whoever thought of this, I hope they were like paid dark social for the MacArthur Foundation because it stuck. And Rebecca and I have said that, of course, the Nobel is the number one if you got to win something. I think I'm choosing the MacArthur Genius Awards second. It's a pretty penny too. So it's what, 800K? Did you look at the thing? I can't remember. I believe it's 800K. And there's usually a few, right? It runs the gamut from, I don't know. It's not really a continuum, but there's artists, there's scientists, there's thinkers, there's poets, there's dancers, there's musicians, historians inside the Academy and out. We always pay attention on this show to the writers. Like a lot of these people have written books as part of the work, but the people are known predominantly for being writers. I think for listeners to this show and maybe just me and Rebecca specifically, Brian Washington was a nominee here. wrote palaver and other wonderful things a writer i really really like if you had told me vanessa already had one i'd be like yeah that makes sense um but also made sense Speaker 1 (14:03) to see it here Speaker 3 (14:06) Also a poet, Laylee Long Soldier, a name that was unknown to me. She is a member of, let's see, is she a member? I was trying to look at the tribal affiliation. I'm trying to get this right. I don't see it in the long list, but she writes about colonial violence inflicted on Native Americans. Her collection of poems, Whereas, is... shout it out specifically here. So if you're interested in that, I looked at poets.org just to see what was publicly available. And she's doing a lot of interesting thing with shapes and forms and like the actual geometric shapes and things crossed out and blank spaces. And the poem as object is super interesting. The prose poem 38 is shouted out in the MacArthur citation and that's available to read. I linked to it yesterday, 38. I very much look, recommend it. It is about the hanging of 38 Dakota men in 1862 after a quote unquote uprising. Speaker 4 (15:07) So Speaker 3 (15:07) there's that. I didn't know her work before. And that's one of the great things that this can do. And then lastly, a novelist, fiction writer, unread by me, though I'd heard of. Had you ever encountered the work of Maza Mengeste before, Vanessa?