More of Our Most Anticipated Books of 2025
48:57 Share

Welcome to Naughty Yotta Island. Next on Naughty Yotta Island. I knew I deserved so much more, so I left. I finally switched to Metro and got what I was looking for. Get one line for only $25 a month with AutoPay. Just bring your phone to Metro and experience all the data you want on the largest 5G network. That's Naughty Yotta Yotta, only at Metro by T-Mobile.

First month is $30. Bring your number and ID. Offer not available if with T-Mobile or with Metro in the past 180 days. This is the Book Riot Podcast. I'm Jeff O'Neill. I'm Rebecca Shinsky. And today we have a special guest. Jason Blitman from the Gaze Reading Podcast is here with us. Jason, what are we talking about today? What are we doing? Remind me again what we're doing here.

What are we doing? I mean, there's a lot that I want to talk about, but probably books. What else do you want to talk about? I want to talk about the fact that Jeff's bed is made today. Oh, is it? Jeff's bed is not made when we record the Gaze Reading podcast with the two of you.

And you razzed him right off the bat. I did. You did. He's like, this man is my new best friend. You've been on here for two minutes on the Zoom. You're already giving Jeff crap. It's perfect. Well, I also, I have some like insider info for your listeners because I am also a new listener of the Book Riot podcast. And I have, I have some like intel. Oh, no.

So at some point you talk about asking, saying maybe Percival Everett should write a musical adaptation, but you don't know his stance on musicals. And I can't believe that I know his stance on musicals. Oh, what is it? Well,

Well, Danzy Senna, his wife, was on Gaze Reading talking to me about her new book, Colored Television. Fantastic. We like get to talking about musicals because she reminded me of a musical theater performer. It doesn't really matter. But she said, I love musicals and I always bring my kids, but I leave my husband at home because he's not a fan. Well, now we know. Now we know. We know. I never thought that fact would ever be necessary. Adding value to this podcast from the first minute. Yeah.

See, here's the thing, Jason. The thing about Percival Everett, who I don't know from Adam, is you can't trust anything. He's at home right now listening to various Guys and Dolls performances, and he's going to come out next year with a meta-musical set on a pleasure yacht or something. We don't know what could happen. You don't know. I guess his wife would probably know, but maybe he told her to say that. What if she's in on it? You're right. What if she's in on it?

That's what magicians call misdirection. Yeah, the trickster goddess that is Everett. We have to be careful. Maybe he wants us to think. Jason...

Tell us about your show and what people should come check out Gaze Reading for. Besides this delightful array of content. Right, like this is basically what my show is. I host the book podcast Gaze Reading. Very often it is to amplify LGBTQIA plus diverse and ally voices.

I've had some incredible guests on the show. My most recent, my season finale of last year was the one, the only Ann Patchett talking to me about her annotated Belcanto. I've had some fantastic queer authors like TJ Klune and Gregory Maguire. Oh, gee, I like...

This is that thing where I immediately, I know Roxane Gay. So I also have a guest gay reader on every episode. So I've had Roxane Gay on and Margaret Cho and Jonathan Adler. It's been really special to hear from all of these people who are not necessarily known for books talking about their love of books. So that's been super cool too. There's so many people out there that love books and don't get a chance to talk about it or, you know, because there's not as many places. Really cool. And that Bel Canto special edition,

Yeah.

You can hear the rest of the books that we're looking forward to. But Jason told us during that recording that he's a relatively new reader. And like you're a relatively new reader who has also started a podcast and is getting Ann Patchett. So tell our folks a little bit about that journey. He takes it nice and slow, Jason. Doesn't jump in with both feet. Just kind of lets it build and come to him over time.

My husband may or may not love this about me, but I'm that person who like, I can't do something just a little bit. If I'm going to do it, I need to do it at an 11. But yeah, I was working for an arts and culture organization. And that was the first time that I was producing book events.

And so I was like, well, if I'm producing these book events, I should maybe read some of the books that are coming in. And I put two and two together when I was recently at the Texas Book Festival when someone asked me sort of how I came into reading. And then they also talked about how reading is this real communal experience, sort of as we were saying earlier, how it's so fun to talk to people about books. I think...

I'd always loved reading. I'd always loved, or I love the concept of reading. I love being in bookstores. I love smelling books, right? But I think that I always felt a little behind. All of the things in the zeitgeist were, it was too impossible to catch up. And so when I was working for this arts and culture company, it was the first time I ever got a galley.

And getting the galley, I was like, wait a minute, you know, in advance reader copy, I could read this and then be ahead of the game. So I was able to have a conversation while the conversation was being had rather than years before that. And so that was sort of the beginning of it for me. I was like, wow, this is really special. And then I was...

the company that I was working for had a podcast. It was in the hands of the marketing person. When the marketing person left, he passed it on to the arts and culture people. And I took it on and I was like, I don't know what I want to do with this. But I suddenly, I like reading. I've read five books now. Let me talk to some others. This is truly no zealot like the convert. That really is. It's like, you know, you get your wand, your lightsaber, you bond with your dragon. Suddenly you're just part of that world now. There. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, truly. Well, and it was sort of amazing because I would just do some outreach because these publicists had worked with me for these in-person events that I was doing. And I started making asks of things that excited me. Little did I realize that they'd become big, like...

I talked to Gabrielle Zevin about Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow before it got published, so no one even knew what it was. I was in conversation with Emily St. John Mandel about Sea of Tranquility, Jenny Jackson about Pineapple Street. So like all of these sort of great things. And then once I left that organization, I missed it. I missed doing that. I missed talking to authors and I missed sort of having a reason to do some deeper, closer reading.

And then one thing led to another. There were all sorts of things that happened, but then Gaze Reading was born. So, yeah. And your taste speaks for itself. The link will be in the show notes. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts as well. So what's going to happen now? We already did some most anticipated on Jason's show. You can hear Rebecca and I over on Gaze Reading. We're going to go. We're going to round robin. We have a handful. I think I remember most of what I said last time. I don't think I'm going to repeat. We're going to do a sponsor break in a minute. Before we do that, a couple of in-house reminders.

It Books is out in the main feed now for January. You can hear Rebecca and I there. Also, the Winter Draft is in Patreon. So that's one of our big events of the year, our seasonal draft, where if you're new to the BR podcast, that's where Rebecca and I try. We each pick a bundle of 10 books and then have listeners vote on what

Theoretically, what's the best basket book for the general interest reader? It becomes a popularity contest of a kind. Some of us may have been more pandering than others and it might have blown up in our faces. We'll have to see. We don't know what's happening at this point. The other thing to look for is that on first edition, it went in the feed last week, I talked to Adam Vitkavage of Debutiful, who his website highlights debut authors in his podcast interviews debut authors.

A tougher beat even than just covering books in general, covering debut authors, but Adam does a great job. Talk about the best debuts of 2024, some to look forward in 2025, and then also what it's like to work with and cover debut authors. So if that's something you're interested in as a writer or reader, that's over at First Edition, anywhere your podcast or in the show notes. Here's a sponsor break.

Today's episode is brought to you by Underlined, publisher of The Party by Natasha Preston. Number one bestselling author Natasha Preston is back with another pulse-pounding twisty read in the heart of the English countryside, which is such a great setting for a thriller or mystery, I have to say.

So in the countryside, Bessie and her closest friends gather at a remote castle for a secret party destined to make this the best spring break ever. But when the first of them dies, the party takes a lethal turn. And as the body count continues to rise,

Bessie and her friends must contend with a deadly storm and growing internal suspicion, all while trapped inside with a killer. This thriller will keep you on the edge of your seat until the party's over. The audiobook is read by Hannah Vander Vestasen, and it is available now wherever books and audiobooks are sold. Make sure to check it out, and thanks again to Underlined, sponsor of The Party by Natasha Preston, for sponsoring this episode. Mm-hmm.

All right, Jason, since you're the guest, you have honors. And that includes deferring to Rebecca, if you'd like to defer to Rebecca. You can't defer to me. That's not how this works. I'm very happy to start. I just, how do I'm, should we do this by pub day or by last name of author? Does that make sense?

Does it matter? Do we care? We do it by feel. Vibe? It's so funny because I, for some reason, I'm so particular and sensitive to people's emotions. And I was like, I don't want to put an order. Like, I don't do a top 10 of the year. I do like the 10 that stayed with me. There's no numerical order. I'll do pub day because that seems to be most relevant. We will not be doing that. So you have to come back on your own recognizance of when you are in the year. This is for me. This is for me.

Coming out. Okay. So let me also preface by saying I very specifically picked queer books that I'm, that I doubt or not doubt, but I think might be under the radar a little bit because I, that's important to me.

So, and I know that this is not a visual medium, but I have things to show off to you. So I'm going to hold them up for you. I will ooh and ah. She's very impressed all the time, like a goldfish. Okay, so coming out on January 28th in the United States, it's already out in the UK, is Northern Boy by Iqbal Hussain.

The logline is a joyful, defiant, and dazzling... Or, joyful, defiant, and dazzling. This is the story of Rafi Aziz, a northern boy dreaming of his name up in lights. It is billed as Billy Elliot meets Bollywood. And I...

I'm like literally already crying. I did a big excited face for Billy Elliot meets Bollywood. I mean, this cover, it is just joy. It is so joyful. Anyway, I'm so excited. That's super fun. What's the imprint, Jason? The imprint. I know it's underrepresented. It's Unbound Firsts. Okay. All right, Rebecca, you're up next. Okay. My first one. This doesn't come out until June, so I'm cheating a little bit.

Welcome to the Book Riot Podcast. You're on your journey. It's okay. That's not cheating. Do what you're going to do. Actress of a certain age, my 20-year trail to overnight success by Jeff Hiller, one of the co-stars of Somebody Somewhere. I think mine and Jeff O'Neill's shared favorite show of the last couple of years. I can't believe they made that show just for us, Rebecca.

I know. I continue to be unbelievable. We are both from the Midwest. I am from a place, what, 25 minutes from Manhattan, Kansas, where this is set. We both grew up in sort of vaguely denominational church settings. It's unbelievable for us. It is so perfect. And I'm so glad he's getting a book. I love it.

Yeah, this is a collection of autobiographical essays. Hiller is a comedian. He's been a working actor for decades and had this kind of overnight success with HBO. But as he talks about, it's like you don't realize that you're not actually going to become super famous overnight when you're the indie darling of HBO.

which somebody somewhere certainly was. And he grew up, as he describes it, quote, profoundly gay in the 1980s in Texas, became a social worker and like clawed his way into the acting world.

I don't know Jeff Hiller, but I'm pretty sure I know Jeff Hiller. I've seen him having watched somebody somewhere, like heard him on a few podcasts. Just seems like a really thoughtful, creative, sensitive, funny guy who had what is unfortunately a pretty common experience if you were growing up queer in the 80s and the 90s in the South or the Midwest and then moving his way into a creative career. I cannot wait. I'm going to listen to this on audio. I like...

I'm just so ready for all the things I'm going to ignore the week that it comes out. I will willingly do dishes so that I can listen to Jeff Hiller tell me about his life. When I first moved to New York City, he was in his very first Broadway show, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. And it was like, Bloody walked so that Hamilton could run. And Jeff Hiller was a huge standout. And I am so excited that the world is now getting to know him a little bit.

Such a revelation. I need like a Jeff Hiller newsletter so that they can email me and tell me like the next thing he gets cast in. I need his laugh as a ringtone. Can I sign up for that somewhere that he does in somebody somewhere? It's unbelievable. It's an unbelievable weapon. Just warm and funny and sharp and also like has that edge to him that's kind of surprising for somebody coming out of the South or the Midwest. I cannot wait. Since this is our show, I really get to be me, Jason, and with my picks here.

I got a glimpse of that. I'm very excited. I kind of can't remember what we picked for your show, so that'll be a journey for me to listen to as well. But I'm pretty sure I didn't pick this because I would never go on someone else's podcast and talk about a 576-page book about the history of NPR, which is what I'm picking right now. It's called On Air, The Triumph and Tumult of NPR by Steve Oney, coming out from Avid Reader Press on my birthday, March 11th. Actually, a big new release day, my birthday, March 11th this year. Mm-hmm.

So for those of you who don't know, public radio is kind of a hot mess behind the scenes most of the time. There's personality, there's funding, you know,

Ray Kroc's widow Joan gave them a quarter of a billion dollars and that went great. Everything was fine. They handled it, no. And then also the early, what I really got interested in NPR frankly is from behind the scenes was when I started getting into podcasts, listening especially to This American Life and Radiolab because how those deals are put together is super interesting. The early days, the juggernaut NPR had and then people who started out NPR that go on to do a whole bunch of other things.

I'm really interested. I like a business history story. This one is nonprofit, public media ideas and a medium I'm really interested in. I guess I'll have to listen to an audio. That's probably the only way to do it. But apparently the author has been researching this for about a decade.

And that's the kind of guy only a Jeff could love, who's like, you know what I'm going to spend the next decade doing? Writing a definitive history of NPR. God love book nerds. God love journalists. And I hope this one does well enough that it earns out for Avid Reader Press and we get other stuff like this. But I'm so excited. I'm fit to be tied.

I cannot wait for a front list foyer the week you listen to that so I can get the headlines of the NPR book instead of the 550 pages. Yeah, you can, you know, I'll save you 574 pages. All right, Jason, I believe the carousel has rotated back to you. Which horse would you like to jump on? It has. Though I will say, like, I feel like a book about NPR feels so sacrilegious. It seems like a six episode podcast series. A true crime series about NPR. Right, exactly. Yeah.

Feels very counterintuitive. Okay, my next one is The Lamb by Lucy Rose, coming from Harper on February 4th.

And that's a hell of a cover. I would love that.

I wish that folks could see it. It looks like a raw lamb chop. It's like a slab of meat. All right. Sometimes I'm kind of trying to read the room here about picks that are related. So if you hear me humming and scrolling, that's because I'm trying to see what's next. But Rebecca, luckily you get to go next and I don't have to. All right. We're going to go right to the center of my wheelhouse. This is Good Friends, Bonds That Changed Us and the World by Priya Volchi. It comes out from Legacy Lit on April 8th.

Long time listeners of the show know this is one of my favorite topics. The logline here is friendship is good for your health. And we are not taught how to have good friendships. You know, like we cancel our plans. We bail on stuff. Technology gets in the way. The book industry and like psychology self-help is full of how to stay married to that person. Maybe you should not stay married to.

But we have nothing, really. There's like no body of work about how do you develop new friendships? How do you maintain friendships? How do you keep them vibrant? And I feel like this is a great follow-on, or I'm hoping it'll be a great follow-on, to The Other Significant Others by Raina Cohen, which I really, really loved last year. So the book is an exploration of the meanings of friendships. How do we make them? How do we maintain them?

She's also diving into Western philosophy with stuff from Plato and Aristotle and Cicero and Martin Luther King Jr. and Toni Morrison and all kinds of thinkers exploring the value of friendship and the role that it can play in our lives. The importance of platonic ties. My forever hobby horse. I'm so glad to have another book to recommend about it. I hope they go into making friends as adults. I think

I think that's the whole idea. Yeah. I find it impossible or very difficult. It's tough, especially like, you know, people who do the jobs that we all do where you're a knowledge worker, you work at home, you talk to your coworkers through a computer, like getting out and meeting people is really challenging as an adult. And then we all have 900, you know, competing things, things competing for our time. And it's so easy to like, I'm too tired to go out and like actually have that dinner with that person or join that club or whatever. So I'm just really...

very pleased that this is becoming a topic of popular conversation and that it's, you know, we have like Vivek Murthy who as his outgoing message as the Surgeon General wrote a big treatise about the epidemic of loneliness and how we really need connection, but having folks not just calling attention to the problem, but talking to us about how we can solve it. Like my friendships are so central and so important in my life. And I don't know how to talk to people about like

All I can say is this is so important and I hope you find it. And so I'm glad that these books exist that can hopefully provide some tools. Yeah. While we're on the personal development, make your life better living through books. There we go. Somebody should write a newsletter. You're skipping over the raw meat. I'm listening to, this is my first listen of the year. It's a preview copy from PRH. It's called Defy, The Power of No in a World that Demands Yes by Sunita Saw.

She's a researcher that's looking at the uses and deployments of defiance. The five stages of defiance, that's the only phrase I needed to read on this book that got me interested in it. I saw Rebecca's eyebrows go up there as well. It's out from One World next week, January 14th. I'm so early into it, it's hard to say. But Rebecca and I do a lot of these kinds of books, and it's rare that I see one that feels a lot different than

And this one seems a little different. I really am not sure. I really wasn't sure what to expect coming into it. A tidy 320 pages. You love...

to see it there. Yeah, I don't really know. It's got quotes from all the people that you might expect, Daniel Pink, Adam Grant, and the like, kind of the Mount Rushmore of, I would like to talk to your corporate overlords about speaking opportunities names that appear on the fronts of books like these. And I hope for her sake that she gets big fat checks from Intel or Pfizer, whoever to come tell their employees how to tell their bosses to stick it where the sun don't shine. But that's Defy.

By Sunita Saw. Jason, I think the ball returns to your court. It's true. It's true. It's here. I see it bouncing. It's right here. Suddenly I was on a pickleball court in my imagination. Then I wanted to be on a kickball court. I don't know. It's my court. I'm going to make it whatever I want. Yeah, that's fine. Anyway. You're in charge. Now coming February 11th from Simon & Schuster is Loka. Loka.

By Alejandro Heredia.

It is a debut novel. Alejandro was inspired to write it after the death of his cousin. The cover is gorgeous. Everything about it has me very excited. It takes place in the Bronx. That's all I got. Excellent. Date is February, you say? February 11th.

Okay, let's see. Simon & Schuster. All right, Rebecca, where do you want to go next? Well, talking about people living at the edges of their capacities, maybe changing some things up. I don't know that anything has been more factory-made for me than a change of habit, leaving behind my husband career and everything I owned to become a nun by Sister Monica Clare. Yeah.

Not a change of habit. Oh, my God. And for you, it's great because nuns are like your God friends. So it's really that works for you. Yeah. I mean, because I've watched Sister Act 2 back in the habit a billion times. That's why nuns are my God friends.

Normally, I read this book going in the other direction. Normally, I cannot resist a why I lost my religion or how I got out of this cult kind of memoir. This will be the first time I think I've read a story about someone giving up their life as a layperson to go into religion.

the clergy, a soulful, hilarious memoir of a chronic people pleaser who surprised everyone in her life by abandoning an unfulfilling career and marriage to join a convent and learned how much we stand to gain when we fully embrace our authentic selves. This is a decision I cannot fathom making for approximately one million different reasons, and I can't wait to hear about it. Just start a podcast like the rest of us when we're going through a midlife crisis, because that's a little much.

A change of habit. So good. Like this is in the running for book title. Get me to a nunnery would have been better, but that's a different, that's a different. It's too bad her name isn't Maria. Cause then they could have done a problem like Maria. Really good. I, we, there is probably, have you done like a roundup of your favorite? I got out of a cult and I'm still here. And here's what happened. Early book riot days. I did like, I, I was on this tip way before Tara Westover, um,

made the like getting out of a fringe religion thing into a big bestseller. I could certainly do that. Maybe that's a bonus episode sometime. Yeah. If people, if Rebecca staffing the revolving door of your local monastery, isn't a wheelhouse enough for you,

Me reading a memoir of something that seems extremely boring and tame is also right there. So I'm going with Raising Hair, a memoir by Chloe Dalton, Hair Without an I. There's a H-A-R-E. Oh, okay. H is for hair was right there, but I guess that may be some kind of McDonald trademark situation. Chloe Dalton, things aren't going well, and adopts a rabbit and writes a whole book about it, and it is tender and meaningful and...

Bittersweet, and I like to read about people who do something strange and find meaning in it that I have no interest in what to do. You know, if a hare showed up in my house today, I wouldn't know what to do, so this is all undiscovered territory for me here. She feared the hare would be preyed upon by foxes, stoats, feral cats, raptors, and even people. But then she let it run around outside, and each time the hare leaves, she knows she may never see it again.

That's a relationship with tenderness. I guess so. That's how Buddhists take care of their pets. I'm not sure what's going on here. I will say I'm 20 pages into it. You are? I am. And? It's very sweet. What you don't know is that apparently hares are very, very, very difficult to raise without their mothers. So it's sort of this impossible task that shepherds

Yeah. I saw you get excited when he mentioned this one, Jason, but I thought this was just general hair-related excitement. No, it's very, very sweet. From Knopf, which is a fairly big publisher and imprint for a book of this nature. Fascinating.

I don't know what this, when I saw this, I will be listening to that. I believe it's imprinted in Pantheon as part of the Knopf umbrella, which makes more sense. That does make more sense. And a blurb from Angelina Jolie on the cover. So I don't know if she optioned this. We're going to see Angelina Jolie with some pelts and some rabbit feet. I don't know what's going on here, but I am very excited.

You just need to make sure that the animal loving kids who live in your house don't find out that this is an option for addressing your personal issues. Oh, no, they'll know or read a book about a pet, but nary one shall enter the threshold of my abode. That's not happening. They know that as well as they know anything. They may not know my actual full legal name, but they know we will not have pets. I know it, but I'm not telling our listeners. Yeah, that's right. That's right. You could just tell them it's only in the UK and they're not British. So that's they can't do it.

And a rabbit is different than a hare. That's one thing I learned in just reading the blurb. So I'm a better man already. Is that in your book about distinctions and differences? The Dictionary of Fine Distinctions. You know, it might be. I don't remember. My memory isn't what it was 25 years ago. So I can read that book every day and come up with something new. Let's do, you know, we better do another sponsor break, Rebecca, because we're having too much fun. And I'm going to forget if we don't do it right now. And we come back, Jason will be up again.

All right, Jason. How many do we have? How many more do you have that we need to get through? We can speed up. That's a good question. I have two more. Two more. We can do that, Rebecca. Yeah, that sounds good. Maybe some honorable mentions if you've got any leftovers we want to mop up. I mean, the problem, I could like, I have an endless amount, but let me, this is very, very different. Oh, you think you've got more book titles to recommend than I do? No, no. And Jason has had

- Jason has had the paper galleys of all the books he's talked about so far. He's holding them up, he's doing like the whole Vanna situation. - I'm just gonna wear you out. Eventually your biceps are gonna go once we're at book like 300. So eventually you're gonna say uncle. - Honestly, if it also means I get to clear out things and clean up my office whilst doing it, perfect.

My next one is very different than Raising Hair, but on the cover there is like a cornfield or some sort of wheat field or something, which I guess you could find a hair in. But it's called The Lilac People. It is coming out on April 29th from Counterpoint. The Lilac People is a debut novel from Milo Todd. It is for readers of all the light we cannot see and in memoriam.

A moving and deeply humane story about a trans man who must relinquish the freedoms of pre-war Berlin to survive first the Nazis and then the Allies while protecting the ones he loves.

And not only is it like, does it sound like a beautiful historical fiction that we've never heard of before? It is 303 pages. So it's not this like laborious situation. It just sounds really beautiful. All the light we cannot see in In Memoriam? Come on. Sounds good. Rebecca, how many do you have left? I've got a couple and like a few honorable mentions. And also I can't remember...

If one of these was one that you talked about when we were on Jason's show. I'm just having a trouble. I was thinking about this. Jason, did Jeff talk about Flashlight by Susan Choi when you were editing? Do you remember? No, I don't think so. I don't think so. Okay, great. Well, then that's what I'm going to talk about. Yeah. This is like the fifth thing we've recorded about 2025 titles. And all my notes are like...

I don't know. I've also listened to a lot of your content, so it's possible that I could tell you. Yeah, because I've got a couple I need to make sure we've mentioned. And maybe Jason would be like, yeah, you talked about that one. You know, we haven't talked about Onyx Storm yet. Well, as a teaser for readers, I did read Fourth Wing this weekend. So tune in to Monday's episode to hear me talk about that. Oh, my God. That's so funny. I may have read it, too. Did you?

We'll have to see on Thursday's front list. Jeff O'Neill, you and your secrets. I still don't know how Jeff felt about all fours. And this has been torturing me for like three weeks. You got to save it for the pod, Rebecca. They can't blast off the best in text. I've only got a couple takes here.

It's your turn. You're distracting me. I know, it's your turn. Tell us about Flashlight. Okay, June 3rd, Flashlight, Susan Choi for FSG, one of my favorite imprints, a novel tracing a father's disappearance across time, nations, and memory from the author of Trust Exercise. Folks were really split on Trust Exercise. I was split on one. Yeah.

And I was in neither the loved it nor hated it camp. I think I enjoyed it. I appreciated what she was doing. It was interesting. That was my first time reading Susan Choi. So mostly I'm excited to get another taste of what Susan Choi is all about. But the setup here is that one night, Louisa and her father take a walk on the beach. He is carrying a flashlight. He cannot swim. Later, Louisa is found washed up by the tide, barely alive. Her father is gone and she is 10 years old.

And the chapters like move between members of the family. So we're maybe trying to like figure out what happened here, but we're also getting into messy family dynamics. Where did the father go? What's up? What does the flashlight even mean? I'm sure it's a symbol for something. What if it was just nothing, just complete non sequitur? That'd be great.

Because trust exercise, was that five years ago now? How long has it been since? It exists in that weird zone of, I don't remember if I read it right before COVID or like in early COVID where everything has run together. I think it was maybe 2019. Yeah, because it won the Pulitzer or the National, won one of the big ones right in there somewhere. I was talking to some people at Powell's the other day.

One nugget is that the number one bestselling books at my local pals right now is The Vegetarian by Han Kong. So if you don't think the Han Kong hive isn't ready to be unleashed here when that new book comes out, I think we're going to be surprised there. But one of the buyers over at pals is very excited about a debut novel that I didn't have on my radar at all.

But they're excited about it. It's 240 pages. The author's name, I don't quite know how to say it. I looked it up, but Emma is the first name. I do not know how to say that. But it's Patee, I believe, P-A-T-E-E. The book is called Tilt. It's set in Portland, Oregon. So a pregnant woman is at IKEA. And the big earthquake all of us at Portland are worried about ever since Catherine Schultz wrote this article in New Yorker about how Portland will basically turn into...

you know, a bunch of frosted dust at some point in the future whenever it happens. She's at Ikea, the earthquake hits, and she's got to walk to get home. And if you know where the Ikea is in Portland, you've got some walking to do if you live on the west side of town. And it becomes a...

Not quite Station 11, not quite the road, but she has encounters with people as she's walking and has some realizations about her life and her career and marriage. And let's just not say it was all going great before the earthquake, but this becomes a literal breaking point for her. It's supposed to be fun. It's fun and not fun exactly, but kind of strange, but...

dark and bleak and powerful. A primal scream of a novel is the blurb, which I think I've read that one before, but I always take it. And at 240 pages, it'll be over in three hours, whether I like it or not, which I always like. So that is Tilt by Emma Petit. That is coming out, I believe, March 25th. Yes, March 25th from Mary Sue Rucci Books, which is a sub imprint over at S&S.

Right. Jason, bring it home. Tilt is sitting on my shelf and it's been like staring at me to read. And I've been excited about it already, but now I'm even more excited about it. I'm really looking forward to it. Okay, this one, I think I'm most disappointed that this is not a visual medium, but everyone should go Google the book cover of this. But it is called Coming on July 1st, which I can't believe I'm talking about a book coming out in July. Oh, God, I know.

Hot Girls with Balls. I saw this. That is a great cover. By Benedict Nguyen, coming from Catapult. In this outrageous and deeply serious satire, two star indoor volleyball players juggle unspoken jealousies in their off-court romance ahead of their team, their rival team's first rematch in a year.

and the very first sentence in the book is no one could think straight because everyone was actually gay well done good say less i'm so excited and again the cover is absurd that's fantastic it's purple and it looks like there's like little i can't quite tell what purple and green and purple and there's some pink and some blue yeah it has balls on it

I don't know where you go from there. That's your transition, Rebecca. Sorry, Rebecca. I know, it's all right. Awards in book design. Let's see. I'm going to wrap up, I think, with Sucker Punch, a collection of essays by Sachi Kuhl. I first encountered her writing when BuzzFeed was a thing that people regularly read and she would write great long pieces on BuzzFeed. She had an essay collection several years back called One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter. And that was about...

sort of like race and body image and falling in love, meeting her partner. She got married. She expected her follow-up book to be, you know, sort of about like that next phase of her life. But then COVID happened and her marriage fell apart and she lost her job and her mom got very sick.

And so these are essays about all of those things, which are hard and difficult, but Saatchi is really sharp and really funny. And so the essays will invariably be laced with that acerbic wit that makes her really fun to read. I've heard her talk about this a little bit already on a podcast. I'm really looking forward to it. It's probably one I should do on audio, but I'll be able

like take it down faster if I just sit down and read them all. So I think that's the way I'm going to go. It's March 4th from St. Martin's Press. That's Sucker Punch. That also a great cover has brass knuckles on the front. Oh, yeah. Do you remember? Did we didn't even talk about the new Rebecca Kwong on the last episode? I did. I did. I want to make sure. And did we talk about Death of the Author? Yes. OK, I want to make sure we shout those out if we didn't get it. I think we

God, I can't remember if I picked this anywhere else. It wasn't for your show, Jason, so at least it won't be a repeat there. I don't think The River Has Roots by Amal El-Motar. We didn't talk about that on Jason's show. I think you talked about that in the draft. Yeah, I think I talked about that in the draft. So I'll get it out from behind the paywall here, I guess. So for those of you who don't know or may not remember, This Is How You Lose the Time War was not indeed written by one Biggeless Dickless. It was just hyped by one Biggeless Dickless writer.

Amal El-Motar was one of the co-authors of that. This is her book, her solo debut, which you don't see very often, but her most famous book is co-authored. And it is about a place, you know, it's a magical fantasy world where the rivers are super important.

I haven't read that too much about it because for generally for fantasy and sci-fi books, the plot matters to me less than if I like the author, I like the vibe and there's something else. She is a political or if not political, a writer of ideas. And I'm super interested to see. Sounds like kind of climate oriented, but also about sisters and really well written on the sentence level, which makes it especially interesting. And

With This How You Lose the Time War, it's going to be, I'd expect it to be experimental, which I'm also looking forward to. So this is, as I said, the draft, probably my own personal for the full year, one of the five or 10 personally most excited about for the whole year. And it's coming out, I don't know, I said March 4th from Tor.com. And it, according to the metadata, you're zero by zero inches and weigh 0.0 pounds. So, you know, light one, very short, slight. Perfect. Yeah, it's going to be great. Great.

All right. Some honorable mentions. Honorable mentions. Jason, anything that you, you know, want to shout out or you have your eye on? I mean, since I'm here, I might as well plug my upcoming guests on Gaze Reading. Yeah, let's do it. This is an exclusive. I am super stoked. So next week on Gaze Reading, I have Kate Fagan, who wrote The Three Lives of Kate K. Again, such a super fun book. Yeah.

very like twisty the logline is an electric unputdownable debut novel that explores the cost of ambition the longings of sapphic love and the power that comes from embracing your true self

And then the following week on Gay's Reading, of course, we've talked about her many times. You've talked about her many times. But Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author. The book is so unique and interesting. But she, I would follow her to the ends of the earth. FYI. Like, literally.

Incredible. Incredible human. And then my last episode of January is with Daniel Black and his book Isaac's Song. His book Don't Cry for Me came out a couple of years ago, and this is a companion book to that. Don't Cry for Me is the story of a dying father writing letters to his son. And this is the son's story.

Again, really beautiful. So those are my little honorable mentions. Cool. You can catch this month over on Gay's Reading. Rebecca, honorable mentions for you. What else is on your kind of... Vantage Point by Sarah Sligar. I saw this too. I keep like almost picking it for stuff. It comes out January 14th and it is billed as Succession meets Megan Abbott. Hmm.

So some kind of suspense thriller situation about a very wealthy, powerful family having a dramatic downfall. Just shoot that right into my veins. Stoneyard Devotional by Charlotte Wood, which was shortlisted for the Booker in 2024. It's been out in the UK for quite a while. It comes out here in the US on February 11th. For the couple folks who were emailing us wondering why it wasn't one of the

Yeah, a lot of shine for that book from our listeners wondering where that was. So I'm glad to see that getting some pickup there as well. I'm looking forward to that. And then out today or yesterday as you're listening to the show, Playworld by Adam Ross, his first novel since Mr. Peanut in 2010. This is a big novel.

It's 528 pages set in the 80s about a child actor who, when he is 14, gets seduced, preyed upon. You pick your verb into a relationship with a 36-year-old woman who is a friend of his mother's and about his experiences as a child actor and assorted other things. I really loved Mr. Peanut. It came out in a pre-Me Too world that I'm like...

Adam Ross is willing to talk about thorny things, and this is certainly a thorny topic. The reviews have been some really positive and some kind of lukewarm, and so I'm really curious, especially to find out for myself how that's going to go. It could be that

This, what I'm about to say, is my most anticipated 15 to 25 pages that I'm going to read this year. Because I just found out about this today when I was doing a little research. October 28th, 2025. Do I win the award for the latest mention? We haven't mentioned anything later than that. Yeah, you do. So there's a book, there's a collection called The Anthony Bourdain Reader coming out, which I've read most of it. I probably have this. But the introduction is written by Patrick Radden Keefe.

And I never knew that I wanted Patrick Radden Keefe on Anthony Bourdain, but I will read the snot out of that. One I'm going to buy just to have, I don't know how much reading I'm going to do in it actually, but 2025 is the 100th anniversary of The New Yorker, and they're releasing several collections. There's a poetry one. The fiction one is the one that I'm especially interested in seeing, just historically to see that. I haven't seen, but I hope there might be some...

Like, I don't know, the New Yorker canon collection. Like, here are the 50 long pieces that best define. That's what I want. I'd really like that. But I'll certainly take the fiction one as well. But I would expect a lot of interesting stuff around the New Yorker at 100 because it feels like it's been around for a billion years. But the early days were very touch and go and unusual publication. You know, so many of us who care about ideas and books and books.

thinking and writing, it's the most popular home for stuff of that. And so it's worth taking a look back and some there and a bunch of other stuff we talked about. Go listen to us over on Gaze Reading. Go listen to the draft. Go listen to It Books. Go listen to our most anticipated...

We've gotten like nine episodes. And frankly, the truth is we really haven't talked about fall and most of the summer. There's going to be books that come on and come on and come on. Jason, you have to come back. We'll do a mid-year check-in. Maybe we'll do some winners and losers. We'll have to figure out something else. You and I can compare rabbit notes. How do our rabbits do that we clearly both adopted after reading this book? Yes. I have to say there's something else we have to compare notes on, and I'm very sorry about it. Yes. I also have had kidney stones. Oh, yes. Oh, my God.

And I have to say, this is my PSA to a fellow kidney stone person. Be mindful of gout. That is a thing. Uric acid, they're cousins. It is the worst thing that's ever happened to me. This is my PSA. Yeah, it's us and Ben Franklin. We got to worry about Ben Franklin diseases. That's how good of a shape I'm in. I mean, that's an interesting club to be in. I'm a young man. This is not happening to me. Drink your water, kids. Franklin fell apart so bad he had to invent bifocals. That's how bad things were going for Ben Franklin.

We're not knocking bifocals. She says wearing her transitional lenses. No, I'm like bifocals. We're all wearing glasses. I'm just saying Ben Franklin is not who you're looking for your model of physical well-being, generally speaking. Fair, fair, fair.

Jason, this was a delight. Thank you so much for having me. Go check out the show notes here, bookrat.com slash listen. You can find the books we talked about there. Go listen to the rest of the books we talked about. I don't think I spoiled it too much by just saying a couple of titles. That's what we call a tease. That's more of an entremet. A little taste. Yeah. As opposed to anything over there. Podcast at bookrat.com. Check out the Patreon, the Substack newsletter. Rebecca wrote one with some questions about how people track their reading. Got a lot of good responses over there.

2025, baby. Here we are. It's real now. It's real. It's going to be so something. We'll talk to everyone later. Thanks, you both.