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The It Books of April

2025/4/2
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Sierra, let's get moving.

This is the Book Wrap Podcast. I'm Jeff O'Neill. And I'm Rebecca Shinsky. And I'm back from vacation. Long travel day yesterday, made longer by delay. So I'm going to try to keep my energy up, Rebecca. But it is April. The sun is shining. The flowers are blooming here.

And I've got a pretty good list of books today to get started, I think. Yeah, I feel like spring got sprung and that came for the bookshelves as well. Like we are into new release season is feeling exciting now. Yeah, let's see. Programming notes. Moms, dads, and grads recommendation requests. We're accepting them now.

doing people to email or where do they yeah podcast at bookriot.com and for those of you who are always like how do i email you that is the email address we say that's right put mom's dads and grads request in the subject line so that we'll know to look for it of course our wheelhouse members over on patreon get priority they've already got a form and we have a few requests coming in there and

And then let's see, next week, midweek, we're going to talk about Audition by Katie Kitamura. That'll be freshly out. And we'll be checking in on the hot list at the end of next week in the Patreon as well. A couple of interesting things coming up. Week after next, we'll have a whole episode dedicated to bibliotherapy with Emily Rumble, who is a clinical social worker who uses bibliotherapy in her practice.

in the Bronx. I had a great conversation with her last week and you get to take a midweek episode off because it went so well that we filled not just like a B-splot, but an entire episode. That's the nicest thing I've ever heard. Welcome back from vacation, Jeff. Let's see. On first edition, I did talk to Katie Kitamura. That episode will be out on first edition next week.

My Conversation with Emma Petit is out now. That came out on Thursday. You've all heard me talking about that. And then, let's see, coming up on...

I'll shout out other stuff coming out when we get there. Thank you all so much for the emails about white light and the interview over there about phosphorus. I think people heard me being not teased so much as jauntingly seen in my discussion of my interest in phosphorus and white light. So that was very cool to see over there. Thank you. I'm just checking in. I saw a lot of good conversation and feedback around our episode with Laura McGrath and our Patreon episodes about phosphorus.

the classics to read, the books to read if you want to be considered well-read. We probably have enough to do like six more of those, like the top 50. And that was really cool. I think we could make some hay out of that. Yeah. So, all right. Without further ado, let's do a sponsor break and get into the books of the month.

This episode is sponsored by Heartbreaker by Mike Campbell. Stick around after the show to hear an excerpt from the audiobook edition provided by our sponsors at Hachette Audio. A fast-paced, tender rock and roll memoir for the ages, Mike Campbell's Heartbreaker is part rags to riches story and part raucous seat of the pants adventure, recounting Campbell's life and times as a lead guitarist of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

The audiobook is read by Mike Campbell himself. Petty and Campbell wrote countless songs, including some of the band's biggest hits, like Refugee, Here Comes My Girl, You Got Lucky, and Runnin' Down a Dream, among many more. But few know of the less-than-glamorous background from which Campbell emerged, a hardscrabble childhood on the north side of Jacksonville, often just days ahead of homelessness, raised by a single mother who was struggling on minimum wage.

Campbell opens up within these pages or within this audio book for the very first time, revealing himself to be an astute observer of the triumphs, tragedies, and absurdities alike. This is great for fans of music memoirs, Tom Petty, and even non-music fans who are looking for inspirational backgrounds of success stories like Mike Campbell. Stick around after the show to hear an excerpt from Heartbreaker by Mike Campbell.

Today's episode is brought to you by Splash Tide Publishing, LLC, publishers of Bleeding Roses by April Savage. The Romans are slaughtered while trying to colonize Dacia territory. This thrusts the elite Axios and famed hero Nestor into a painful realization that their fallen were not killed by humans. They embark on a journey to save their beloved commander Titus and the army who undertake a mission to avenge their fallen. Now,

Now, Axius believes the Dacian queen, Phasalike, holds the key to uncovering the truth about the killers as a plot seeking to undermine Rome from within is discovered. As they confront their worst fears, they realize this bloody war is already spilling into the streets of Rome, but the beast and Dacia want more than Rome, they want the world.

So it turns out Daisha has hidden an ancient power able to turn humans into something that's not so human. Maybe a little wolfy, if you catch my drift. Make sure to check out Bleeding Roses by April Savage. And thanks again to Splashtide Publishing LLC for sponsoring this episode. Today's episode is brought to you by Camcat Books, publishers of A Dagger of Lightning by Meredith R. Lyons.

45-year-old Imogen has always struggled to fit in, but that doesn't mean she's ready to ditch the planet, like, altogether. Like, she still has some things going on, you know? But then she gets kidnapped by an alien prince in disguise, and there's nothing she can do to stop him. He has, after all, powerful abilities, and he's used to getting what he wants.

On top of all of that, the prince is convinced that Imogen's new powers, once she's transformed, will help protect his country. With the help of the prince's much more tolerable brother, Imogen starts to get her feet back under her. But if Imogen can't find a way to fight for herself, she'll become a pawn in a world that has already decided what she's going to be.

Now, this is an exciting genre bending book that combines beloved tropes from both science fiction and fantasy with a steamy, swoon-worthy romance between the two main characters. And this is perfect for people who love a little romantic in their lives. Make sure to check out A Dagger of Lightning by Meredith R. Lyons. And thanks again to Camp Cat Books for sponsoring this episode.

Rebecca, a couple of programming notes on this. I have 11 instead of my normal 10. Okay. I don't know why. And none of them are clumped? So it's just an 11 book? No clumps, just 11. This one goes to 11. I do have four entries into the Stephen King zone for the month. Okay. They're notable releases, but they're not at books because of reasons. So there's a way of looking at this where you have seven? Yeah.

No, no. I have an additional four. I'm going to get them out of the way right now. Oh, an additional four. I see. I just left them out. There's a way of looking at why I have 15. Okay. Oh, we should pause and explain to folks who are new this month how this works. Yes. So every month I make a selection of generally 10, but for this month, 11. Books that I think are interesting and candidates for the It Book of the Month. The It Book is trying to discover, describe a book that does more than one of the following things. Or if it does one of them, it has to really blow it out of the water.

People are going to be buying it, like huge sales. They're going to be really talking about it. It's going to be super buzzy. It's going to be super good, right? It's just really interesting and it's got a lot going on that is beyond just sort of the page turning pleasure-ness of it. And then arts, award season, plaudits of those kinds.

We do this by feel. There is no formula. I present them one at a time, knockout style. So the first one will automatically go into round two, in which it'll face the next book. And if it survives, it advances. And if it's out, it's out. So we're left with one book at the end. The king throne is for authors who publish enough and sell enough that it is notable they have a book coming out, but they've entered this weird...

Purgatory is the wrong word. This weird stratosphere of like the clouds that just sort of float there. They don't like really make weather. They just kind of float there. Like there's always a new Stephen King book. It's always pretty good. If you like Stephen King, you're going to like a new Stephen King book. And that means that somehow it's not like an event in the same way. Yep. And so these are authors on this month's list. I think...

Both Emily Henry and Abby Jimenez usually post later in the summer, but they're both coming out in April this month. I don't know if they're trying to get out of each other's way or there's something else happening this summer. There's a Nita Prose novel. This is now in this zone. The third of these, the Maid series, I believe it's called. There's also been a novella. I think the second one I included as a candidate because the first one was a hit. Yeah. But the third one, the second one was also hit, but...

I think that's another thing. You kind of know what you're going to get with these, and that tends to be less interesting. There's also a new Jennifer Weiner book. And I also should just say, I look at the most anticipated list on Goodreads, and it's just a just. That just is for me. It's not for you that care about this, the listener. It is, for our purposes, a lot of stuff that we don't consider for this. There's a ton of commercial romance. There's a ton of romanticism.

And it's really hard to differentiate between them as someone who does this professionally, but I don't live in that niche.

I think the sameness feeling of it is a reason to keep it out of this discussion. You could do a whole new episode about this just for those kinds of titles. And I'm sure people do that and God love you and have fun and go find them. And that sameness or the like familiarity of the tropes, that thing that is a feature for a passionate romanticist reader makes a book a bug for a game like this because we are looking for, is it unique in some way? Is it going to get critical acclaim? Will it be super buzzy? And there's only,

you know, a couple of the romanticies that have actually been really buzzy and it has to be good. And at least in our, we have a set of one, we have a sample size of one in our romanticie reading experience, but we did not find it to be good. So we're going to, we'll stay in our zone here. Yeah. So those caveats aside, again, at the first I'm hearing, we tend not to do a lot of genre writ large, like category romance or mystery thriller or sci-fi fantasy that are again, things that can cross over and there's going to be a few here.

But this is really a list for the general reader of a certain kind, I'd say. Okay, with that, up first, again, this is one I...

It's not going to be the book of the month, Rebecca, but I wanted to mention it because this book, every now and again, you can get a book like this that does generate some discussion. And you can tell that I'm vamping while Edelweiss loads because Girl on Girl by Sophie Gilbert, colon, how pop culture turned a generation of women against themselves is out from Penguin Press at the end of the month. Yeah. So it's a cultural criticism about...

about early aughts pop culture. And Gilbert herself has been a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize. She writes for The Atlantic. And this time period is really fascinating. It's when I was...

in high school into college. So like the pop culture stuff, I was super, super aware of. I think this, the phrase here, excess materialism and power worship colliding with culture's reactionary puritanical and chauvinistic currents. And I think probably if you're going to have one example of this, Britney, Britney is the one. And it doesn't say there, I don't have like a press. I don't have an EPUB or I don't have anything here. But,

But my first thought is, Brittany, and actually if I look at the cover, can I tell just from the, it looks like maybe Pam Anderson is on the cover and Whitney. And so yeah, it's similar. Yeah, that whole,

Yeah.

On TikTok. And I was like, we freed Britney, for God's sake, and we're doing this again. Yeah. So I'm glad to see a serious cultural consideration of it.

Also, be careful with your Googling if you're looking to add girl on girl to your TBR. Make sure you add book and the author's name. That's not going to help you. I think go right into, even in Edelweiss, some things came up that I was like, oh, hello. You know what? Don't even Google. You just go straight to the retailer of your choice and you put the author's name on there. You ask the bookseller, I'd like some girl on girl and they'll be fine and everything will work out. It'll be really good for you. There are bookstores where that would be fine and welcome and everybody have fun out there. Everyone enjoy themselves and be careful. Okay.

So it advances by default. Up next, Jenna's April 1st pick. Again, sometimes this matters. Usually this is not enough, but I already had this one on my radar and I think that made it onto the list. This is the one that I don't think if it was a Jenna pick, it would have made the top 10. So that's why it's kind of the 11th, but it sounds really cool.

It is Maine Woods. It's Peter Heller, but for ladies. Oh, what's the title? Heartwood, I'm sorry. Heartwood, oh yeah, yes. I've been hearing good stuff about this. Yeah, so a 42-year-old woman, she's vanished on a hike. Rebecca, is this too soon? You gotta be careful. I mean, how good for her age does she look at 42? Well, I'm just saying she's on a trail. This is feeling familiar. This is...

Maybe I'm stepping on future half-baked ideas, but my family was in Hawaii this week. And one of the things we did, which was very cool, we went and got a behind-the-scenes tour or show how they do green turtle rescue in Maui, which is very cool. And they put the tags in them, like these little, there's the grain of rice and they put them in there. And look, I'm not saying you should put them on kids, but at some point I maybe would need one.

You know, I have seen bachelorettes with air tags attached to them, like roaming around Nashville. And my dog has an ID chip in him. So we're not that far off. You make it voluntary. But like, I don't honestly hate the idea of a trackable way to locate me if I am hiking in a place where my phone is not going to work. So let me tell you more about Heartwood. So someone goes missing and then we get, it sounds like a little bit of a

You know, we get the Scooby gang together. A 76-year-old bird watcher. Yes. We get a game warden. I'm so in. Yeah, so I really think this sounds like fun. It's out April 1st, so it's out today from Simon & Schuster. I love it.

I'm into this. It has a cool cover. I hope this does well. I hope it's good. I hope it does well. Got some good buzz. So there we go. This was on my radar, but I didn't know what it was about. I think it was on my list from having perused catalogs. And I must have thought, oh, that looks good. And I've heard good things about Amity Gage. We're going to pass this ahead of Girl on Girl, purely by virtue of it got picked for Read with Jenna. So that's big attention. Also, I'm not sure that anything has ever been more interesting.

in my wheelhouse than a 42-year-old woman gets lost while walking in the woods. Yeah, with a blurb by Jennifer Egan. And blurbs don't matter, but sometimes they do. Sometimes they do. Jennifer Egan, not a prolific blurber. Well, I think she doesn't mind putting pen to paper to a careful extent. She's not Gary Steingarting out there. Well, I mean, come on. That's like, okay, anyway, we don't have to get into a blurb off.

Talk about a good half-baked idea.

And bonus daughter of Kelly Rowland. I do not know enough to know what that means. Bonus mother? Bonus mother and bonus daughter. Mother to bonus daughter. Okay. What does that mean? I mean, it's like you're basically a part of the family. Okay. So it's her memoir. And this is interesting. I think there's not as, like in terms of parents of really famous people, I was trying to think what's the equivalent. Oh. Did Richard Williams write a book? No.

Yeah. I mean, I couldn't think of it. That's the only one I couldn't find. But that was the only one. Venus and Serena's father, he did write a book. Earl Woods, I don't think, wrote a book. I don't think so. The spectrum of variability for celebrity memoirs is already really big, very wide. And Beyonce's image is so carefully and masterfully controlled. Mm-hmm.

That the things that make a memoir good and it bookie are the like juicy tidbits that come out and the items that get leaked early and the stuff that comes out in interviews. And I have a hard time believing that Tina Knowles is going to drop any big bombs that would be newsworthy in that way, precisely because it would not serve either of her daughter's careers, but especially Beyonce's. So I'm...

I think this will be interesting. Tina Knowles is a fascinating person.

But I don't know that you're actually going to get that much out of the book because her incentives to stay relatively private are really compelling. Yeah. I mean, it does sound like it's a lot memoir, like growing up. So those people are dead. Maybe there's interesting story there. Oh, maybe. I don't know. I mean, I think you're right. I don't think there's going to be a lot of, you know, uncensored text screenshots. Yeah. You know, think of the group chats. Amazing. I'm going to pass.

I'm going to pass Heartwood forward. Really? Okay, cool. Yeah, I think that makes sense. I think that this one for a certain kind of person will be a really exciting event in itself. But I think that I don't see a world in which the Tina Knowles becomes more of a mainstream crossover. Like that's an interest within an interest for a lot of people there.

You know what, Edelweiss? I really, I now have to just Google like an animal, this thing, because you lost my thing. Because Authority is a very generic title. Andrea Long Chew. We were talking to Laura about being excited for this book. Chew has won the Pulitzer Prize already for criticism. She just recently ended the life of Pamela Paul. The most satisfying hatchet job ever.

So there is stuff that she's already published in N plus one, but she writes about, and she took Zadie and Maggie Nelson out beside the shed at one point. She questioned some reading people's readings of Octavia Butler. Like this is not a true, if you are online in a certain kind of way on the bookish internet, you,

I would encourage you to read this. I'd also encourage you to be ready to have some stuff challenged. Yes. I think that's a good way. Yeah. That's a good way to put it. If you send Andrea Longchew to Survivor, she's the one in the opening scene who's like, I'm not here to make friends. Yeah. Like there's going to be tough analysis. Anybody who's willing to be like Zadie Smith has lost her touch is that it's bold. She is a pretty fearless critic and,

Like, Godspeed to anyone who finds themselves in Chew's crosshairs is really how I feel about it. Way up on our draft board of people we don't want to find ourselves a subject of an essay about. Oh, extremely high up. If that happens, I'm pulling out my chip and disappearing. We're done. Jeff's no more head in a jar. Jeff has gone into the woods. Yeah, I'm going in the woods and I'm not being found.

R.I.P., my friend. We'll pour one out for you should that ever happen. Yeah, that's on sale next week, I should say, from Macmillan. You know, I am personally so excited about this. And I think that this book is going to be a discourse machine in certain corners of the literary Internet. But, well, I mean, there's also the acclaim, like Chew has won the Pulitzer. It's probably not going to be a huge seller.

I think you can count on like a book of criticism. If a book of criticism is going to sell well, it might be this one, but like criticism in general does not perform very well, but it will be good. People will talk about it. It's going to be nominated for criticism awards. I mean, it will probably be nominated for criticism awards. Hmm.

Tough one. But it's not totally fresh, like because it's reprints of some things. How timely are those? 50K print run for a book like this is pretty significant. Yeah, that is. But on the other hand, like that Pamela Paul piece, it hits so hard because it's so timely when it's published and that we've all been sick of Pamela Paul. But when that one gets bound up into something that she publishes in several years, I don't know quite how it will land. I...

And it does sound like the new stuff here, because a lot of it's republished. This happens with critics, and that's fine. But it sounds like the stuff that's new is largely about criticism, which again... Who is a critic? Well, the book is called Authority, right? Yeah, right. And again, that's interesting for people like us. I'm sure we'll find a lot to talk about there. But...

Beyond that, I'm not sure. It's going to be tough. I think we're going to go with Heartwood for one more. And we're also early. There's seven more to go. So I'm not too worried about my picks at home. I mean, Heartwood, if you think about best cases, right? Or like the ceilings. Yeah, the ceilings are so much higher. The ceilings for Heartwood is God of the Woods. Yeah. Ceiling for this is wild.

I won't be surprised if we get, you know, that's a great point. Yeah. I won't be surprised if we get adaptation news about Hartwood. That feels really ripe for it. Yeah. And also like Andrea Longchew is not out there titling their books in a way that looks like sex drugs and Cocoa Puffs and packaging things in a way that's trying to grab on to more casual readers. Klosterman is really savvy about

about that and interested in doing it. And I don't think that Andrea Longchou is that interested in appealing to the normie reader, which is totally fine, but does put a lower ceiling on your sales potential. Yeah. Okay. So, I mean, excited for that, but it's tough to...

Another one that I'm just excited to read, Unlikely Animals by Annie Hartnett is a favorite strange book of mine. And she has a new book out called The Road to Tender Hearts from Ballantyne out April 29th, which is a sneaky big day when I was looking at it. And as I was reading the synopsis of this and then thinking about Unlikely Animals, I've been thinking about, as you know, I've been thinking about Tom Robbins a lot recently. Like, where do I go? And it's not quite that flavor, but listen to this quote.

synopsis and tell me if it doesn't have a little manic, zany, strange, fun, wild ride stuff going on here. At 63 years old, million dollar lottery winner PJ Halliday would be the luckiest man in Pondville, Massachusetts if it weren't for the tragedy of his life, the sudden death of his Elvis daughter and the way his marriage falls apart. And then he spends his money and time at the bar and then he has three heart attacks, but he reads the obituary of an old romantic rival and he realizes...

that his old sweetheart is finally single again so he decides to drive across country to the tender hearts retirement community to win michelle back it's called the tender hearts retirement community yes this is giving me left on 10th vibes yeah yeah i think it's not going to be quite as sweet left on 10th was super dark and like cut scenes from the pit a little bit in the content

We read that one very differently. No, but I mean, there was like a lot of people dying of cancer. I mean, come on. Anyway, so... This sounds great. I'm into this love story and I know enough about Unlikely Animal Heart in it that it's not going to be... There's a way of reading this that feels very saccharine and it could certainly be that way. I think it's going to be weird enough. You know, there's a couple ways you can do saccharine. You can do like the lemon zest, like add some sharpness.

Or you can add some gummy bears. And it just feels weird and unusual. And I think she's going to do a little bit of the gummy bear stuff. Yeah, I think she might too. I believe Unlikely Animals was nominated for a few things. Maybe long-listed. Long-listed for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize. I'm really going thin there. But I think in terms of commercial fiction that isn't formulaic but also approachable...

You know, is this 2 a.m. at the cat's pajamas adjacent? I feel like it could be. Maybe, yeah. And I think that in our criteria, like, Heartwood will probably outsell Annie Hartnett.

But this could have acclaim, award nominations. It might get positive reviews. There could be some buzz. And I do believe it will be good. I believe in Annie Hartnett. So we're going to go with the road to tender hearts. That is weird, but okay. That's fine. We're early yet. I'm feeling a little froggy. Yeah, you do this sometimes. You're going to give people a little rope here because you know that you're not going to be married to them forever. Okay. Okay.

This one is one that was a discovery off the Goodreads Most Anticipated. I hadn't heard about this. And it's a debut thriller, which I don't know. It's got a cool cover, very commercial-like. But essentially, a young woman takes on her twin's life when she dies. And her twin is a huge influencer. Oh, what's it called? It's called Julie Chan is Dead. And by Lian Zhang is the...

author. It comes out April 25th from Goodreads. Really doesn't want you to know Atria Books. I don't know. A chance for a buzzy, kind of fun, voyeuristic send-up, take-down of social media influencers if it really reads well. Good early reviews over on the Goodreads. I don't know. You know, something like this can take off. I thought it was worth mentioning. Yeah.

What I'm realizing I want is an R.F. Kwong send up of influencers. Well, yeah. I mean, Yellow Face, if it was an influencer rather than author, it's a different kind of book, but it could have done a lot of the same stuff. Something like that would be really fun. Yeah. So this Julie Chen is dead. That sounds interesting. It does have like catchy potential. Mm-hmm.

I think we're going to ride with Annie Hartnett for one more, though. Okay. All right. Here you go. We're going to do a little streak of debuts. I did not fudge the order this month, I should say. Okay. So everyone knows. I try to be... I don't promise never to fudge it, but I do promise to, if I do fudge it, let everyone know. We always... And usually I can guess that. The next one is from Knopf out April 15th, Tax Day. It's called Open Heaven...

And it's by a Irish poet. And I don't know how to say S-E-A with a thing over it. And is that Sean? Sean? I don't know how to say it. If I was just being me, I'd say Sean Hewitt, but it's Irish. And so you probably say it some different way. Krzyzewski. Krzyzewski Hewitt is how you say that particular name. So this is an Irish poet is, Hewitt is actually an Irish poet himself. Okay. Writing a novel about,

Set in a remote village in the north of England over the course of one year in which two teenage boys fall in love with each other. Oh. So that sounds kind of beautiful, right? It does. It's a brisk 224 pages story.

Maybe a little bit of... Can you do some of Call Me By Your Name in Ireland? But maybe you close that age gap a little bit. You have a poet. I'm going to be very interested in this book. We love a novel by a poet almost as much as we love a memoir by a poet. Just a quiet, lovely situation. I think there's...

In this setup, like you have a poet who's moving into fiction. If it's done well, often that is awards fodder because the kind of prose that a poet can write can be creative and really beautiful. Probably lower ceiling for sales here than we're talking about with some of the other ones, but it does sound beautiful. Why not? Let's let Open Heaven ride for a round. All right, let's go. We'll give it a moment in the sun. Up next, we're going to do a sponsor break. Real quick, sponsor.

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This is one, I don't know how I missed this, because if I had known that this existed, it would already have been in the can for first edition. So take that for what it's worth. It's called Searches by Valhini Vara, who wrote The Immortal King Rao, which was a finals for the Pulitzer Prize a few years ago, if you remember that out from Norton. This is a memoir of...

Based on a personal exploration of how technology companies have fulfilled and exploited the human desire for understanding connection. Script that just for a second because the root of the root, the heartwood here, if you will, if you remember that a few years ago, there was this essay about a writer having chat GPT write about

a dead sister. And this was, this was Vara. That's the core of this. Oh, okay. And so that went viral, was all over the place. And then this is a fleshing out wider consideration of how these technologies can get in our feelings, I guess, for lack of a better term, like they're part of our lives and how that can work. 350 pages from Pantheon out a week from today. And,

April 8th. Now this could be interesting because it's hard to know with something like this, but every now and again, a book like this, like a monsters by Claire letter or the anxious generate, like if you can tap into something that people are worried about thinking about feeling about, you can get a Jenny Odell or, you know, you can get one of these books that are about something people care about and

I think this is one where like if we were doing an auction draft, you could probably get it pretty cheaply. Yeah. But then really like the top end is unlikely, but there. Yeah, that sounds right. Because this sounds like it might lean a little academic or it's going to lean serious. Yeah. Yeah. We need it to be...

We need to kind of be like the book we wanted Doppelganger to be, like a little more memoir-y and a little bit less thinky. You need something juicy, something kind of gossipy while still being substantial. But if it leans into the quiet, more straight ahead, I think that's a tough road for it. I remember that essay.

And I don't know that we're going to get like a glommy, really exciting moment from this. So I think I'm going to ride for open heaven for one more round. All right. Fair enough. I feel like this book has been my radar for a long time because I was super curious to see what Ray Naylor, his career would look like after the enormous success of The Mountain in the Sea.

which I don't know if it was a social media thing or not, but I knew it became a big seller. And I've recommended a bunch. It's a very cool science fiction novel, a real brick of a book. And this is his follow-up. It's out now. Comes out today from MCD.

150K print run for a book like this is serious. A high-tech thriller about a crew of rebel spies and scientists on a mission to thwart a tyrannical autocrat. Cool and timely. What's it called? It's called Where the Axe is Buried. I'm sorry, I buried the lead and the axe there.

Very cool. The cover feels different. It has like a throwback 50s scientific American or popular science. What will the future look like vibe? Nice blurb from Blake Crouch. Okay. I'm going to read this book. I think this is the moment where you go from you had a hit to you. How do you have fans? You know, the Vandermeers, the Blake Crouches of the worlds, many of whom are blurbed and or comped here are,

They have careers because they had a couple in a row. They had multiple books that people really cared about. If this is good, Naylor's a name. I don't even think it has to sell. I think if it's good and becomes part of it, I just think it has to be good. It has to be good and talked about. Yeah. I think that's it. The title is so great. What a good pitch. It's so cool. It's very cool. And I think it's going to be reader-y. A thriller, I think, is smart to come out of the last book. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. I, you know, I think, I mean, this is a little on the edges of what I typically read, but it's like, if you text me that it's great, I will read it immediately. So I'm going to, we're going to go with this one now. It's political too. I mean, it has this political element as well. Yeah. If they're marketing around that and like tying it into the current moment, which like, it sounds like the book is a product of at least recent moments in thinking. So yeah, we'll go with where the ax is buried into the next round. I think that feels right to me.

I'm going to try very hard not to spoil Audition by Katie Kitamura because I haven't read the book. It's unusual. In this new era of first edition, I got to be careful because I'm forgetful and my mouth will run. In our more than a decade of doing this, you've usually never been reading ahead. No, it's not generally my vibe. Again, it's only because I'm booking stuff and trying to get people for the show. Doing that homework. Yeah. So this is her third book after Intimacies and the Separation. Both of them extremely, extremely well written.

received finalists for all kinds of awards. The separation were on the 100. Was it separation in the 100? I believe it was, the New York Times. Both of them made the 100 notable books for their years. Short, Sharp, and Deadly is how The Guardian describes Kitamura's books. This is no different. That's correct. God, how to describe this book? Okay, so the setup is not hard, and it's right here in the blurb. So this woman who is...

She's not older. She's an actress and she's had a career for a while. I'm guessing she's in her late 30s, early 40s, as probably said, but she's in that age group. And she's meeting a much younger man for coffee one day. And while she's doing that, she sees her husband, who is supposed to be working from home, come into the restaurant, kind of search his pockets, look befuddled and leave the restaurant. Hmm.

And that, he doesn't see her, or at least she thinks she doesn't. You see where I'm going with this. Uh-huh, uh-huh. That then enters into a story, consideration, examination of performance and seeing and interpretation. How to do this next part without. I don't even know. So it's in the interview I do with Katie Kimura. I talk about it explicitly because it's so important to talk about the book. And so I'll just say, the book is in two halves. Mm-hmm.

And that halving is super important around that half. Okay. Okay. And it becomes about something else as well. And I thought this book was flipping awesome. So I don't know what to do with myself, Rebecca. How do I give this to you without stacking the deck or what's going on? I mean, I was sitting in your living room when you finished reading and came downstairs. That's right. I forgot about that. Yeah. And it was one of those, dude. Dude. And at the time...

I think you were finishing it. You had a day or two left to get ready for the interview. So you were like, I don't even know how to make sense of this. But you were just making the kinds of sounds that lead me to believe you've had a really good reading experience. I'll say I'm not often intimidated in doing an interview. And I was a little intimidated because I think she's so smart.

She is so smart. These books, she can do things I could never imagine doing. The restraint is unbelievable. Short, sharp, and deadly means so many things. Yes. And that is such a good way to describe her. So good job to whoever at The Guardian wrote that. I mean, Audition is going to be my next. That's going to take over here. And this also, just to note for Book Riot podcast listeners, if we have both read and liked three of an author's books, they go on the list. They're now...

one of our guys. I mean, she's one of mine. Like I didn't even need three really, but she was so cool to me on the interview and the interview was so good. And if you, if you do read this book and end up liking it or, or,

not in an interesting way. And again, I'm trying not to spoil it here. That conversation really was fruitful, I felt. Yeah, to contrast like my experience with her, I haven't read Audition yet, but the pitches for her book are always great. And like they grab you and the book will do that thing and it will do a whole bunch of other things where like recently we read Death Takes, or is it Death Takes Me, Christina Rivera Garza? Right, yes. The pitch for that was great. And then the book did something completely different. Yeah.

That was interesting, but that was not really the way that it was pitched. And Kitamura just manages to do all of it. She's juggling like 17 balls. And it's so impressive. And that she can do it, as you were saying, in like 150 pages. Yeah. And they feel of a piece of each other. Like they feel like a triptych. Yeah. I think you can talk about like Katie Kitamura's project as a writer. Like there is something cohesive there.

I'd love to talk to the branders about the covers for these books because I think I see what they're trying to do. There's often either really bright colors like Instagram friendly with like a black accent or vice versa. And I think they're even trying to figure out how to position it because there's a world in which these are like almost feels like they could be European novels in some way. These nameless narrators having these upper middle class experiences, though race is involved in these books too. Yeah, I...

Amazing, amazing, amazing. I'm reading it this weekend. I can't wait. Okay. Well, I ruined everything. Though I do think the way this shook out that this last book could end up being, I don't think you'll pick it, but I think there's a world in which it does become it because Oliver Blake has a huge following from Atlas 6.

She's doing something a little different with this new book. It's called Talented and Gifted. It's an adult book, but it still has a specfic thing. It's succession plus X-Men is what it seems like. So there's this family company, the Patriarch has died, and the progeny all have powers.

Succession? That's nothing. Success? Nope, that's worse. So that's what it's going. It's got... Excession? Yeah, I think there's all kinds of adaptation stuff, new series, different kinds of readers. I think that's one thing for a writer like this who's come off these big series...

To get into the conversation like this, you've got to be doing something different. Switching genres, switching approach, switching mediums, something else going on. I think she does here. Huge print run. She has a lot of fans. But we know that's very difficult when you're switching series and switching kind of modes. Again, it's still speculative fiction, though it's more science fiction than – well, anyway. But she broke out with Romantasy, right? No, I think it was more –

I think that Atlas 6 was a little more sci-fi. I never read it. I'm just trying to remember blurbs here. People can email us podcasts at bookriot.com. But coming off one series, even if your series is in the same thing, it's so hard. Does she have fans or does her series have fans? I think that's a great question. That's how we figure these things out.

I think this might sell more than anything else on the list and TikTok might like it, but I will be surprised if we see all of E. Blake in like the literary discourse or getting critical acclaim. I haven't read any of her books. I don't know where they fall on the like, is it good or not scale? Right, neither do I. I have no idea. People seem to think that they are good for the vein that she's working in. And they sell. They've got big fans. Yeah, that's a piece of data. Yeah, this one's going to Katie Kitamura.

I think that's right. I think the only thing really that Kitamura doesn't have going for is I just have no idea how much it's going to sell. Yeah. None. But it's going to be there for the award stuff. It just is. It's going to be in the conversation. I'll be shocked if it isn't. I think... I'm really trying to be careful here. I think the thing that she does in this book, for me...

will separate wheat from the chaff readers for the kind of reading I like to do. Not in terms of gold standards or value, but if you deal with this book in a way, there's a couple ways you can deal with what happens in this book. And I think for a lot of commercial fiction readers, they're going to be stumped by it. And that's fine. I get that.

for reading like I like to do, this is maybe like the most interesting kind of stuff you can do. So I, I can't, you know, for me, I'm self recommending it to myself again. It's always a good year when there's a new Katie Kudrow book. I mean,

I hadn't really thought of her as being one of my favorites and recency bias. And it's always hard when you've talked to someone and they say to you, man, that's a good question. I mean, I'm just, I'm disarmed. There's nothing I can do when someone says that. Yeah. I'm putty. So all those things having being said, yeah. Genre fantasy, it says with all of you, Blake. Okay. Really one of the great success stories to fan fiction and anonymous and the whole thing. So that's it. So yeah, I think auditioned by Katie Kidd and Maura. I think, yeah.

I don't think for how we normally do this, it's particularly close. I think if we're going to get surprises...

If this talented and gifted gets turned into a giant series or something, I just don't think the market is right for adaptations going to take to do something like this. I just don't think it is. I mean, given that stuff has stopped for ACOTAR and we haven't heard about progress on the fourth wing adaptation, and I know those are romantic and this is a different thing, but like the budgets for a big expensive adaptation are just not there. I think actually audition is more likely to get picked up. You

up. You could do it inexpensively. There's a wonderful couple of parts. There's three amazing parts. Wow.

Or was it Apple that had the Oscar Isaacs, Jessica Chastain scenes from a marriage? That was HBO. No, yeah, it was HBO. Real spicy. And like, they will get in there and let- Or Scar Jo and what, Driver's marriage story. Oh, marriage story. The bomb block. That was Netflix. Yeah. Again, this does those things and then does something else.

else. Just put it right in my veins. Yeah. It should really come as a saline solution that Dr. Robbie can shoot into us. Okay. I think that's our show, Rebecca. Happy April. Thank you. This was a good round. Show notes, bookriot.com slash listen. We do not put the names of the books in the show notes. Because we want you to listen to the episode. We want you to listen to the episode. We've gotten several questions about this. That's the best practice, folks.

I know it can be annoying, but we make the show for people to listen to it, not to look at the show notes and look at the 10 titles. So there you go. I will say this as a member of our Patreon, we do have listeners that will listen to the show and put it there, which is fine because they are subscribing to the Patreon and already contributing.

And they're making their own rules over there, which is fine. Everybody consents to look at those comments. So podcast at bookyard.com for moms, dads, grads, and other, if you've got feedback or responses or things you know about these books, um,

or other things that I missed. Always like to hear those if they are presented with, you know, constructive, constructive approach. That's very helpful. And we're back in the saddle, Rebecca. It's, it's, we're coming into the heart of the, the first half of the book by the book reading season. Yeah. Glad to have you back. Welcome back to, you know, not Hawaii, but hopefully not too bad. This is a good way to come back. There's always a good time. All right. Talk to y'all later.

Thanks so much for listening today. We hope you'll enjoy this excerpt from the audiobook edition of Heartbreaker, written and read by Mike Campbell. You don't know about me without having heard a band by the name of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. But that's okay. We played rock and roll together for a long time. So much has been written about us. Some of it is even true. But this is the first time one of us has tried to tell our story. I should say stories. A few of them, at least.

There are a lot we could tell. Nobody would ever have imagined it would be me, of all people, to tell them. I was never much of a talker, but my wife, Marcy, says I have gotten downright chatty in my old age, and she has been with me from the very beginning, so she would know. The Heartbreakers started in Los Angeles in 1976, but we all came from Gainesville, Florida.

I was the guitar player. Stan was the drummer. He was wild and funny. And there was Ron, a sweet and sensitive guy and an incredible bass player. Rock and roll is not always the best line of work if you're sweet and sensitive. So for many years we had another bass player named Howie. It was a hard job for him too, but in different ways.

Ben Rump was there from the start. He was from Gainesville too, but he was a little different from us. He was younger, he came from a good loving home, and he was a genius. He could turn two chords into Booker T playing Beethoven symphonies. I would say he became one of the greatest rock and roll keyboard players of all time. But he was about as good as he is now when he was 17.

Tom used to say that about me, that I was as good a guitar player when he first heard me as I was when we got famous. The first time Tom ever heard me play was in 1970 in a shack outside Gainesville that I lived in when I had nowhere else to go and I didn't know what to do with my life. I can't say the same for Tom. He was pretty good when we met.

He had been playing in bands for a couple of years already, and then he got better and better and better. But even early on, when I couldn't fathom, not in my wildest dreams, how far he would take us, he never doubted it for a second. He once told his dad that if he would just get off his back, he would be a millionaire by the time he was 35. And he was right. Tom was a songwriter too. Like me, but also not like me.

I could give Tom a tape of three chords that I recorded to play over while I practiced, and he would come back with lyrics. Thousands of people would sing with tears in their eyes. He wrote songs that gave people great courage and comfort. And sometimes he would give me a few verses over two chords, and I would write a guitar part that made it a hit, that made people roll down the windows and drive faster when it came on the radio.

Sometimes I would write a guitar line like that and try to throw it away. But he'd save it. Time after time, he heard things in me that I couldn't hear in myself. Tom never doubted that we would make it. When all I knew was that I had nowhere to go, Tom knew we were going to the top. Nothing was going to stop him. He was little and he was skinny, but he could be unbreakable. He could withstand pressure like nobody I have ever seen.

Tom Petty was one of the toughest people I had ever met, but it could make him hard on people. And then he would feel bad and get down on himself. He worried a lot. Sometimes he made me so angry I couldn't look at him. But nothing could ever split us up. We were brothers from the same muse. Early on, before we even knew it, we made some unspoken deal that we were going down the line together, no matter what. Me and him.

full speed ahead from the very beginning to the very end.