The GILEAD Adaptation is Real, Meta Streisands Itself, Powells Event Debrief and More of the Week's Book News.
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And I am Rebecca Shinsky. And Rebecca, we were in the same place, the same physical meat space for multiple days in a row. Yeah, we had so much quality time last week. Is that what we're calling it? Quality time? Yeah, it was delightful. I'm giving you a heart. It was quick. Yeah, we had lots of good hangout time. It was nice to like not really have an agenda. So we did a lot of like walking around, driving around, sitting around, just talking about stuff.

listening to music, talking about things that weren't books, going on TV, were books. We went on. We did. We went on local TV in Portland. It was exactly what you think local TV was going to be like.

Well, yeah, I mean, I thought so. Like you're a little studio. The host was incredibly prepared. They just turn you through like revolving door. Seems like a hard business. Oh man, I think that would be tough. But yeah, I had a nice time hanging out with you. I had a very nice time with you. That particular gig, I continue to walk through the world. Like I was thinking in terms of value over replacement profession, my VORP. Totally. And in the publishing industry, there's not a job I'd rather have. I guess being independently wealthy for books I wrote 20 years ago, but that's a little hard to muster.

And short of that, I'm always like, would I rather do this or this? And there isn't one. And I can scratch local media personality off my list. Not because they're not great at what they do. It's hard work. It's a lot of work. We were in there a half hour on local television, the ABC affiliate, KTU.

I think they're looking for four six-minute segments a day for this particular show. So much programming. And I think they are looking at the Powell's guests to see who might make for a good segment. Someone tapped us. We revealed three of our, each of our 10 picks. It was ones that we each had on our list, so it wasn't a surprise to us.

And the host was prepared. They were pros and they really turned it into a machine. It was impressive. It was impressive to see what they did. Now, did anyone watch it? Did anyone come because of that? It was a fun experience. We get headshots. We did. We need some new ones. And Rebecca was climbing on the shelves at Powell's. The manifold ways we're trying to account for our height difference is always an interesting. It's like Hobbits and Gandalf as Peter Jackson shooting Lord of the Rings. I was.

I was thinking about how fun it was just to run around Powell's for an hour before the store was open. Like a lot of the things that were shiny about like special access to books when we first started doing this are not shiny anymore. And we were too busy to be like soaking up the magic of a closed bookstore. But like I've had a chance to do that in a friend's bookstore. And it is pretty cool to be like alone in a cool in a closed bookstore and just like

taking the whole vibe in. But the Powell's was so generous. They let us run around. They let me climb the shelves. Everything is like, did they let you or was Jeremy just looking the other way? I'm not really sure. I count that as letting it's a forgiveness, not permission situation, but nobody's bring the whole thing toppling down. I think it's okay.

Yeah. No, Rebecca's were harmed in the shooting of these headshots. Yeah. Yeah. And for once a decade, we've got to be awkward and take headshots together. It was a great time. So I don't look forward to looking at those. I'm sure you look great. I was like, I won't be sad if it takes another 72 hours for those to get. All we have to do is pick like two or three of them and I'll do the first pass. I might just give them to Michelle and say, you know what, darling?

I lean on you for many things, but one of these, this is going to be the ones today. So the audio, for those of you who listened to or stopped listening to the antidote that we did last week, I totally sympathize. The audio is rough. We're figuring out live recording. I think the live is going to be better. It's not going to be perfect. I do think we now have a solution for future in-person and live. It's been 10 years. This was not our setup.

We're figuring it out. This is the first couple of pancakes, and it turns out you need to include eggs, and the temperature's too high, and we're learning how to do stuff. So I thank you for your patience. I will say I found the event a delight. I had a great time. It was really fun. I don't really know how it could have gone better to be perfect.

Yeah, I agree. I had a great time. It was super fun to meet longtime listeners. And thank you all who did come up and talk to us for actually like believing us that we wanted to talk to you. It was great to meet folks. And it was also fun to hear some people who were like, who get book riots newsletters, but had not been

into the podcast before, but who took the risk and came out to the show. And so if that was you, if you had never listened to the podcast before you came to a live recording, thank you so much. Thank you so much. And shoot us an email, podcastofbookride.com and just say, you know, I listened to the, or I, you know, or maybe if you're a Powell's person, I...

We should have done pregame. We should have. All right, who here? I think I said some people are related to me or like friends and family. Okay, raise your hand. Who's a BR pod listener? Who's a BR person? And then who's just a pals person who we're going to have a shot? Because I have no sense of that. Like were there two dozen people that were there just because it was a pals thing they gave a shot? I don't know. I think we'll try to do something again with pals. You and I, Rebecca, I think we've got other stuff cooking. Here's the thing I want to do right now is...

If you are theoretically interested in a New York kind of event, please raise your hand digitally, either on the Patreon or I guess Patreon comment or podcastbookriot.com. We're thinking about something for the fall. We don't know what.

or where, but we know there's a lot of publishing industry folks and just more people, right? Or they can get there. I'm thinking, I'm hoping we can maybe, if we did it, do it a Saturday night or something so people could travel for the weekend if they wanted to do that. We did have some people travel from different cities, but for Thursday night, you know, that's tough.

That's tough. Even for people who want to come from Seattle or something, a school night is tough. But we're trying to think about something in New York in the future. Maybe other places. I don't know. If you're in New York and you facilitate these kinds of things, or you know of a space that might be good for us, a couple hundred pod listeners. Yeah, if you happen to have a venue for 150 to 200, I think is kind of what we're thinking, I'm guessing, at this point. Let us know. We're thinking we'll be in New York sometime in mid-September, probably, is when we're typically there. But we would like to do... We had fun. We'd like to do a live event, keep dialing in. Right.

our methods and technology for live shows and get to meet more of y'all because it was a great time. Like this podcast does not get big enough to do like a big tour of places, but a couple times a year in Portland, a couple times a year in New York, I think would be really a great time. So let us know. Yeah, I think, so we did the most recommendable books. We didn't,

live get any pushback about why not this versus that, which is great life because people are just there and they're in the room. The vibes were immaculate, as the kids say these days, six years ago. I think that's probably when it was au courant to say that. But it was a really good and fun time. And we talked to thousands of people or talk at thousands of people on the show. But there's something about even one-tenth of that, one-fifty of that audience in the end, people coming up and saying nice things and shaking hands. It's like,

It was, you know, it, it, it put a little, it put a little water in the cup. I'm not going to lie. It really was. There was such a nice, I think, community feeling to the event. And the folks at Powell said this to us as well. Like when we were walking out there, like the room just felt good to be in. And like some of that is us, but a lot of it is the folks there.

because at the end we did a like, does anybody else have a book that they want to recommend? And several people raised their hands and just gave live off the dome book recs to the rest of the people in the room. And that like willingness to share and that openness was just really cool to see. And we learned about some books that we hadn't heard of.

Your daughter Rowan recommended a book that I picked up on my way home. I'm going to read this week about the care and keeping of a black hole. So it really was like the whole family was involved. And we mean that as like us and our families and the pod family too. We got the full experience because I don't think this is going to make the audio because the way we were set up, the handheld mics that I gave to Ames and Rowan, I don't think picked up very well. I'll see what I can do. No promises there, but I asked them ahead of time to think about, and they both came up and gave a little pitch for their book. Um,

Michelle corrected me live from the audience, which is a real time. That's that's there. I cannot give you more glimpses behind the scenes than that. Yeah. Having known you guys now for 15 years, that's that that's real. Yeah, that's real and not ashamed. And I deserved it. She was not hesitant and I was earned. So, you know, it's not her fault that she's amazing and you have good taste. It's and I am also there. I think the one I mean, just in terms of triaging and talking about it, we did a lot of

Since we're picking our 10 books independently, and we only had like two minutes per book just to keep the hour moving, and we still went over because of Q&A and questions, we didn't do a lot of like this kind of crosstalk like we're doing in a moment like this. So in future ones, we're trying to think of where can we, maybe we have our 20 and then we have to make the 10. So we have to kind of make and hassle and hash it out together. So on the episode, there's a lot more of us talking into the mic to the audience for two minutes about a particular book, a little bit of good pick or why this versus that.

Um, but yeah, that's coming to Patreon too. Programming notes for upcoming Tracy Thomas of the stacks. We just got off the mic with her. Great time. And let's just say we got spicy at the end because that's going to be the main feed on Wednesday. We did five things we like in five things we hate about talking about books online. Um,

Yeah, there was some real talk. And Tracy, she was not afraid. And she was more than game. I feel like we were keeping up with her a little bit more at the end, Rebecca, because this is not our natural milieu. I think it was good to get some of the stuff off our chest. I hope everyone who listens knows it's not about you. It's not necessarily about you, Denise.

But a really good time. Go check it out. There's going to be more. You'll hear more about the show there. On the Patreon coming up this week, we are doing the authors you should read to be well-read. This is a Patreon question I got or a listener question. It's a Patreon question. Like what classics do you actually need to read? Yeah. And okay. So actually, we're...

all the grains of salt and caveats. But if you're really saying, okay, if you're going to read 10 and you're looking for the highest well-read value, that's what we're going to be doing. And then, of course, we need to adjudicate what all those things mean, but it should make for a good pod. Yeah, I think we're each going to bring five. We'll have lots of space for conversation around it. Shakespeare is off the board. He's number one draft pick, not even interesting, but we'll talk about why that is, but everything else is up for grabs. Okay, let's do our first sponsor.

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Experience a world without limits in the Alpha Romeo Tonale Plug-in Hybrid. Tap the banner to learn more. Alpha Romeo is a registered trademark of FCA Group Marketing SBA, used with permission. So much excitement that I totally forgot that our four exclamation point number one thing here is it's real, it's happening. Scorsese is not just adapting Gilead.

He's adapting the whole, are we calling it the Gilead series? We need a name for this. What are we calling this? I think quadrilogy is such an awkward word that we're going with series. There's four books. He's doing all four of them. We'll call it the Gilead series from here on out. I hope it's popular enough where it becomes a thing. Where it's actually the home series, but we call it Gilead, like fourth wing and Empyrean saga. I hope it's popular enough that there's namespace pollution about what the hell to do. Right, because home is going to be the first one. It's the second book, but it will be the first adaptation of

We can get into how and why that's interesting, but I think it's going to have all of the cachet of a Scorsese film. So my assumption is that folks will be coming to the movie who have no idea that it's based on a book or who find their way into it, and they may think of it as the home series rather than as the campaign series. I don't know enough in this story. We don't know a lot of details here. If the first one tanks are we waiting for, also, and I don't like to do this, but

Biology is real. And Scorsese is not 48 years old. Yeah. And I just am not sure if something happens, he gets sick, just, you know, I'm not even saying he's going to die, of course, but like he is a force of nature, but even hurricanes beat her out. Well,

That's true. I think the likelihood of something happening to one of the principal creators of this, whether it's Scorsese or like... Whether they get to play Ames or Reverend Botten. Right. Leonardo DiCaprio is set to star. Our assumption is that he will be Jack Botten, who is the central... I don't see how he can be anybody else. Yeah. The central character of the home novel. This is Apple. And Apple, as we know, will spend...

They'll spend all the money in the world. Killers of the Flower Moon, Pachinko money for this. I can't ask for anything else. It'll be beautiful, like a real is this heaven, no, it's Iowa vibe. And Apple also is less concerned, not unconcerned, but less concerned than other studios about box office. So I think they may commit to do it. As long as Scorsese's alive and DiCaprio is down, they'll probably do all four of them, whether it's a smash hit or...

Or not, because this is a beautiful piece of art that they are interested in creating the world. I am guessing that if anyone has a walkaway, it's Scorsese. I'm guessing to get Scorsese to do this, Apple had to say, yeah, whatever. Right. You know, because they want these kinds of prestige shows. They want I think they had really good success with Killers of the Flower Moon, even though it didn't become like the Oscar juggernaut. They got a lot of people to watch that. There was a lot of conversation about that.

We may need to be, we may need to do a Patreon casting something because we could spend the next 45 minutes on this and I really want to, but we have other things to do. Yeah, we will. I think we will have to revisit that as the, maybe as the announcements come out, we can talk about it more. I will, all I want to say right now is I'm really glad these are going to be movies that they will have to be like titanic.

versions of these stories rather than spinning each book out over like an eight episode or ten episode season. There's not enough action to do that. They're a vibe. They're a sensibility as much as anything. You could try that but I think it would lose a lot of momentum and to condense

especially the narrated version, the way that Gilead will need to be done. It has to be, right? We haven't talked about that either. Like the sentences are the thing. There's going to be some sort of voiceover. It'll have to be a voiceover for a lot of it because the whole thing is written as letters. And so I imagine we'll see that the action on screen will be like vignettes of the things that Reverend Ames is writing about. But home does have more tension than the other books.

will be, I think, very interesting. And Jack Botten comes back and is a central character in the fourth one, which is called Jack. So there might be some motivation to get there. I wonder how they're going to do... This can all be part of our getting ready for Gilead, but I think it makes sense to start with Home, just chronologically speaking. Then do you do Glory? Where do you put in the last? What's your finale? Well, so Glory, that's... Yeah, I think Jack is your finale. I think you do Home...

And then you go back to Gilead. Because Gloria sort of responds to Gilead, right? You mean home? Glory? Are you talking about Lila? Lila. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yes, yes. I'm getting my confusion. Yes, Lila, Lila, Lila. Right, because Lila is Botten's wife and...

we learn about her first in Gilead. I think you do home and you introduce like the central tension that exists between Reverend bought and, and Jack, and then you go back to Gilead, which will probably get positioned as like a prequel where you'll see, um,

Reverend Ames and Lila and their life with their young son and also Ames' friendship with Botten and how he has felt about Jack and the questions about will Jack turn back up? Or do they Godfather cut it? There's this cut of Godfather that Coppola did where it's actually chronology. So maybe the first one is home, but you're actually taking pieces that appear in the other books and putting them in the right time spot. Anyway, I'm super fascinated to see what to do. Look, even if this sucks, I'm thrilled because it means more people will pay attention to this book. I don't think it's

it may be flawed deeply. And I could understand that if I had my pick of every director, would I pick Scorsese for a Midwestern movie? I don't know. Um,

But he is really good. I don't know who, Kelly Reichardt or there's some other people. Right. I think maybe a more indie director could be really interesting. You know, on the rewatchables, they're doing a new, if this movie got remade, would it be by Scorsese or Spielberg question? And like, that's an interesting dichotomy here. Like this feels more like Spielbergian territory. It's like, it's not enough here, man. Family and sentimentality. But I trust Scorsese.

I mean, this is where, I don't know who's, you know, that's, look, we can do this all day, but like you want an English patient kind of like lean into its slowness, its literariness, its articulation. Anyway, thrilled to see that there. Also, the only people happier than us about an adaptation is one, Holly Brickley. Is that her name? It is. Holly Brickley. I know that or Brickley, Brickley, because it's not here in our notes, who the

You read Deep Cuts. I think you talked about it last time in Frontless. Yeah. And we saw, I guess I told you to your face while you were here that I saw that it's getting picked up to an adaptation. But Rebecca, not just any adaptation, because we're getting Austin Butler and Saoirse in a big time adaptation of this film. I think this is a wonderful idea for a movie. I think everyone involved should be thanking Taylor Jenkins Reid and Daisy Jones and Sixx

because I don't know if this happens in this kind of way without the success of that. It is about music and movies and criticisms and a friendship. I rewatched Little Women on the Plane because I'm thinking about showing it to my kids, a 2018 one, and I had forgotten...

that Shersha steals the show. I mean, she has the lead, but she is incandescently great. And her American accent is very, very good, which I think you need for this, right? She's going to play American. Yeah, they're at college, I think somewhere in the Midwest. Yeah.

when they meet. So they will, she will need that for sure. Austin Butler, we know can bring rockstar vibes and he won't have to do a weird Elvis accent for this one. And it's being directed by Sean Durkin who directed the iron clots coming out from a 24, which is a cool movie, a great studio. Yeah. Like the soundtrack is going to be incredible. This, this has the potential to be like a really fun time at the movies. I mean, have we had,

I'm going to admit that I read Daisy Jones and Six, but I didn't watch them. I didn't watch the series at this point. I do love Almost Famous. And what I want this to have is a little bit more Almost Famous vibes because I want the critics angle. I'm less interested in internecine warfare of like the band and the love story. Right. And because like the female character in Deep Cuts is not in the band. It's like the guy is the front man. And

Where like he could have the band named after him, but they give it a different name. Like he is the thing. The musicians playing behind him sort of rotate throughout. And it's about their relationship where she's the only person at first who will give him real notes and

So they have this creative partnership when they meet and it becomes like the source of some attraction, a real connection between the two of them. And then he blows up, becomes super famous. They lose touch over periods of time. There's like a falling apart, coming back together, like will they, won't they, episodic nature of the relationship. So we'll get to see them age like over the course of I think maybe 15 years in the book at least.

I'm I am so here for this. I think like somewhere between Daisy Jones and Almost Famous is the right place. Like you want some of them sitting around having a beer talking about the songs that they love. There's like a touch of high fidelity to it. Excellent. I just was quoting high fidelity earlier. So yeah. And then some stuff of like him on stage being a sexy rock star and what that's like, but how their relationship evolves over time. But just like

all the music that they talk about in the book is fantastic. And whatever they're able to get licensing for to put in a soundtrack and like refer to on screen is going to be really, so in the book, do they actually refer to real songs? Oh yes. Yes. Tons. Yeah. That's how they're there. Like friendship begins by conversations about good songs versus good albums. And it's all real references. So like it helps if you're a little bit into music to be able to pick them up. Yeah.

Okay. Nothing else to say. There's some looking forward to that. Congratulations, Holly Brickley. That is great news as a debut author. My Hawaii reading next week, I have a list of like 50 books and that's on it. I'm going to have a real paralysis moment with my Kindle the 40 minutes before I get on the plane. What's it going to be? Oh, no. I've been like saying that's for Hawaii. It's like the closet full of all my crap that I'll deal with someday. Yeah. I mean, deep cuts. It's kind of...

a platonic ideal of something to read on vacation. Like it's, it'll suck you right in. It's catchy. It moves and it has some substance. Yeah.

I mean, it sounds like a great pick, just like the 49 other things that I picked just for this one occasion. There are too many books, Rebecca, as we've said before. We could do a whole bonus episode just helping you narrow down your beach reading. In good news that we also need to be careful about because there could be another shoe or something to drop, Moms for Liberty is shutting down there. And I'm going to read Kelly's description directly because she has...

stabbed them with icicles and just how she's written about this news. This happened last week. Moms for Liberty is the group affiliated with the unprofessional review website booklooks.org. Booklooks, which got its start as booklook.info, provides cherry-picked passages from novels the group seeks to review so that members can lodge challenges of titles rated by a

volunteers members as four or five on their invent and rating systems. Over the last several years, public institutions, including public libraries and public schools, have been regularly plagued by book challenges citing the quote unquote reviews from book books. So what they do here essentially, and Rebecca, tell me if I've got this sort of right, is there's a book they want to crap all over. They want to get rid of this book out of things, and they have someone read it, and they pull out what they believe to be the most damning out of contextual thing and say, we're going to rate this a five on the

cannot be read by 12-year-old scale. And then they want schools to say, hey, look, Book Look said 12-year-olds shouldn't read this. So it becomes kind of like content washing their agenda here. Totally. And now they're shutting down. And we don't know why. And there's no comment as far as I can tell. There may be some subsequently. Kelly's got some speculation, I guess. It's worth reading the whole piece. I don't want to just cannibalize the whole thing. I would love to take this as a win.

But I'm gun shy about doing so because is this just in preparation for something big? Yeah, or something worse. I think that's the right approach. Like it's right now, it's a net good for this to no longer exist. But if they're developing something more robust. They got seed funding for some other thing from a think tank, whatever. One other thing that Kelly notes is that Moms for Liberty is like,

definitely behind this but has publicly yes this is the moms for liberty is doing the same thing as donald trump claiming he had never read project 2025 and didn't know what was in it uh so the book looks website announces that they're shutting down but at least at the time of writing when kelly published this piece there was no indication from moms for liberty they had not like

spoken about it at all, but that's been never the twain shall meet has sort of been their online strategy. So I doubt that we will see an explanation or really even any acknowledgement of it come from Moms for Liberty. But the book looks team is not explaining the decision to shut down. Right. It could be an acquisition. It could be that they have gotten funding to build something newer and bigger. It could be that their candidate won and they're on to things more insidious than banning books. Yeah. Small potatoes.

I assume they're all at home taking care of their children who have measles right now, but that's just at this point. Let's see. You know what? I think from now on, we should call this dry sand effect the meta effect because meta decided in their infinite wisdom to make careless people by Meta's former director of global public policy, Sarah Wynn Williams. They've decided to make the book event of March. They have, Rebecca. They have. And how did they do this?

So Sarah Wynn Williams, as you just said, was the former head of global public policy. She had a kind of surprise publication of a tell all memoir, which I've got. I want to talk about with you in just a minute, but yeah, called Careless People. And it dropped last Tuesday. On Wednesday, Metta filed a lawsuit to halt her promotion of the book.

They're saying that Meta will suffer, quote, immediate and irreparable loss in the absence of emergency relief. Right. And it's because in her position working on global policy for Meta, she saw things like Meta being open to giving China Facebook users data and allowing foreign governments to have input on content visibility and moderation. Also had a whole bunch of work.

weird as hell interactions with Sheryl Sandberg. Like Sheryl Sandberg is not looking good coming out of this book. It's been a tough decade for Sheryl Sandberg. Yeah, she's having a tough go, a deservedly tough go, it sounds like. A judge did put a temporary halt on the promotion of the book. So Sarah Wynn Williams is not like able to be out there. I don't know if there was a tour planned.

But they've also, Metta also went after Macmillan, which published the book, arguing that they should have to stop promotion and further publication of it. But the whole thing that this argument hinges on is the NDA that Wynne Williams signed when she left Metta.

She was fired. Uh, of course, Metta says that it was because they discovered like inconsistencies in something when they investigated her. She says that her firing was in retaliation for, um, complaints that she made about sexual misconduct. Uh,

Take that disagreement for what you will. What you want to know of and with your context of everything that's gone on in the last 10 years. Yes. But Macmillan, you know, is not a party to that NDA. She signed it. It's between a former employee and their former employer. And so Macmillan is not affected by this arbitration agreement and at present can continue to do whatever they want with the book when Williams just died.

cannot be involved in it right now. I wrote about this for the site last week and said, like, sure would be a shame if we turned this into a bestseller. Boy.

Would be a shame.

It's not the book's fault for that harm. And the content here is pretty eyebrow raising. And I've read a couple of other books about Facebook. Yeah, including like big investigated ones by New York Times reporters. But the first person account from someone who was in the room, who now is a whistleblower about some of these policies and the practices that Facebook was apparently willing to take on in order to get basically growth at all costs, which

and the cost that they were willing to incur there and just in terms of sacrifices to privacy, to employee trust, to user trust. It's as bad as you think it will be and then some. So let's just talk about the net effect. If Meta had done nothing, if they had sat on their hands and said, you know what, this sucks, but we're just going to write it out. I'm not sure that anyone's talking about this.

In this political moment, I mean, maybe some are, but right now it's the number three bestselling book on Amazon behind Sunrise on the Reaping and the Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins, which we talked about before. If you come out saying everything in here is so bad, it's going to damage our business irreparably, people want to know what that is. And they're not challenging the veracity of it necessarily. They're just saying, really, this should be covered by the NDA. So they're saying, not only is it kind of true, it's so bad and true, we want to like

keep the gag order on. And that is very attractive. So Jamie Canavis in our Slack this morning said the holds on Libby for her library, I think it's Libby, doubled sort of overnight. Roxanne Gay just listened to it and gave it a rave review. People are rallying to this. And also, I think an element to this is people are looking for a place they can express their displeasure for the techno oligarchs. And

One of those may be sitting in my chair right now, to be perfectly honest with you. I don't think I would have read this had this not happened, and I think I will because it has, Rebecca. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. I mean, I read it over the weekend, so I can talk about it in front list foyer. Yeah. I think I would have gotten to this. Like it wasn't on my plan for spring reading because the book was not publicized in advance. They had to keep it a secret. And we've done Facebook books. Like I've done my due diligence. Yeah. I think I would have picked it up. Facebook sucks. I got it. Yeah. She was so in the room where it happened. And the accounts of those things, also not for nothing, like

I'll just step on my front list for you a little bit. It's really a fun read. Like this kind of reminds me of the black pill book that I read last year. That's about terrible things, but it's also told in a really compelling and page turning fashion. So like, it's hard to recommend one of the serious reported books about how bad Facebook is to just like your neighbor or someone that, you know, who wants to find out more about why Mark Zuckerberg is so bad and everyone's mad at him. But this is very readable and,

And engaging. And so I think this could be a point. I totally agree with you that a lot of folks who are already frustrated with the direction that Zuckerberg has taken the company are looking for something to latch on to and do some activism around. But it also could be an entry point for other people who are like now seeing, you know, like the inauguration and a bunch of tech billionaires.

right there on stage and wondering how did we get here and when williams is like taking us into rooms back in 2015 where she's saying this is when i first saw mark zuckerberg like with my own eyes this is when i first saw him make a decision that would ingratiate himself to the ruler of a country rather than actually serve his community or his user base i do i wonder

I'm trying to do a close reading of why this is so triggering for Facebook. Like, maybe they just want to enforce this so they can enforce other NDAs. You know, there's that bit of it as well. I can't help but wonder, though, if the framing is especially grating for a Zuckerberg, which it's not. If the framing was like sharks, maybe they'd... But it's the framing of carelessness. Like, that's different than...

cutthroat that's different than machiavellian even like that's not that's something i don't think we throw enough around as being part and parcel of extremely rich and giant companies who don't really think about the consequences of their actions as they are careless well and that's different than dumb or bad or machiavellian or evil geniuses these guys would rather be evil geniuses than thought of as careless or stupid yeah and that's what this book is kind of saying right

Yeah. And I think that like negligent people would have been a more accurate title because she does, at least in Sarah Wynn Williams's account, the folks at the top in many cases were aware of the potential consequences and they actively chose to do the thing that would lead to growth for Facebook rather than the thing that would like protect people.

its users or stand up for a certain kind of speech or stand up to stop hate speech, that kind of thing. But there is a certain recklessness, a certain lack of care. Like people who do not care is really the title here. Like they do not care about anything but growth. And when Williams is particular story is really compelling because she's

She talks Facebook into hiring her. Like in 2008, she sees Facebook as this thing that is going to connect to the world. Like she drank the Kool-Aid early about the possibilities of this kind of social networking and the scales fall from her eyes sort of in real time as she tells the story about like, I couldn't believe it the first time I saw this kind of conversation. And then that it can, those accrete over time and they continue and they continue and then they get worse and

that journey from I really believed that this could be something positive. I believed the things that Zuckerberg and Sandberg said about we're just trying to like open up the world and bring people together and then coming to the realization that actually they don't care about that. That may be the story they tell themselves, but the thing they care about is growing this company at any cost.

Yep. All right. So, yeah, it's now the meta effect. So go buy one. So interesting. Go recommend it or buy one or check it out from the library. All right. Short break. You don't wake up dreaming of McDonald's fries. You wake up dreaming of McDonald's hash browns. McDonald's breakfast comes first.

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interesting program for Spotify. I don't think I've seen something quite like this. This is Spotify kind of doing a shortcut into being an audiobook publisher of their own. They are looking for self-published books, or let's put it this way, books to which authors have the audio rights that they can distribute. And then if Spotify selects the story for audiobook publishing, they're going to do the publishing thing. They're going to production, distribution,

This is what publishers do. As quiet as it's kept, what publishers do is sometimes there's editing, a lot of times there is, but they're selecting, distributing, and marketing. And Spotify is going to do that for you. You're going to get advance in royalties. They are looking for novelettes, quote unquote, of approximately 10,000 to 20,000 words in English. And they're looking for books in these genres, romance, romance.

Mystery Thriller, and Sci-Fi or Fantasy. So genre, right? They're not looking for kids and they're not looking for erotica, they say explicitly. This is trend chasing and I understand it. I don't think this is going to be for me necessarily, but I think this is also something Audible may have something like this. I meant to check my notes earlier today, but I think this is pretty smart on Spotify's part. I think if you do have

a story of this length. It's not something that a lot of publishers themselves are going to take to turn into a print or something else, except if you're relatively well-known, a novella or novelette. But this could be a really interesting opportunity for some folks. And I'll be curious to see

A, if it happens, and B, if we ever hear about it, someone having some material success with the project. Yeah, and they're encouraging cross-genre works like Romantasy, Dark Romances, Mystery Sci-Fi, Psychological Thrillers. So that's like, as you were saying, right on the trend. I

I think because it's short stories or short form they're specifically looking for, like that's a lower barrier to entry for authors, but also potentially something that like, if you are trying to break into traditional publishing and get your first book deal, if you have some success on a platform like this, that's another, you know, feather in your cap for when you're trying to shop your book, your, your like book length work to a traditional publisher. I guess,

We'll see. Spotify is in control of what it surfaces here. That's right.

It can participate and kind of put a thumb on the scale of helping these books get some visibility. Maybe not to the degree that like Amazon helps books make it up the charts. But I don't think Amazon does that now. I mean, at least on Amazon.com, but maybe in Audible. I'm sure they do have a section for Audible. But they can try to juice the likelihood of getting return on their investment for these. Rebecca, tell us about We Need Diverse Booklets.

So longtime listeners of the show or people just who pay attention to publishing know about the existence of We Need Diverse Books, a nonprofit organization that does what it sounds like it does. They have announced and announced.

inaugural We Need Diverse Books Reading Day that will take place on April 3rd to highlight the importance of access to inclusive reading. WNDB was originally inspired by a viral Twitter hashtag in 2014 that was in response to an all-white, all-male author panel at BookCon, which Jeff went viral for that day as well, saying that there are more cats

than people of color. - What a line, what a line. That used to have my fastball. - It was a good tweet. - Now it's all Kraft and Gile, no more fastballs like that. - Yeah, so we need diverse books today. We'll be encouraging readers of all ages to pick up a book that features stories of marginalized communities. And then across social media, the organization is gonna be recommending titles and resources on where to obtain copies.

You can get involved by requesting some of these books at your local library or buying them from a bookstore. You can share your recommendations and reviews on social media using hashtag Diverse Books Day on April 3rd. So another form of activism here for the literary community, especially in this moment when the Trump administration is actively working against socialism.

DEI efforts and whitewashing, attempting to just whitewash America in general, but American history and what the shape of our government looks like. I've reached out. I think we might have somebody from We Do Diverse Books here on the show in a couple weeks to talk about this. But start planning for it. If you're a librarian, if you have kids in your life, if you've got a book club,

maybe you are doing something on April 3rd or around April for intentional diverse reading. Also an opportunity for just talking to people in your life who care about books and who care about these kinds of political issues about the places that those two things meet. You know, like there are still a lot of readers who are in the camp of like sort of colorblind reading, or I just want to read a good story. And this is an opportunity to say like,

And obviously, there are tons of good stories that are told by people of color and people from marginalized communities. So like, let's all look at this together. And one way to do kind of a low effort piece of activism here is to intentionally go support books by folks who are having an increasingly difficult time in this political landscape. Yeah.

You can do Frontless Fouillé, which is sponsored by thriftbooks.com. So I happen to, I'm going to spoil one of our picks for the most recommendable books of the year, the century so far. And I'm going to spoil one of yours. And you know why I'm going to spoil it, because Powell's had one copy of one of your picks. And you told me this, and I couldn't figure out what it was going to be. And it turned out to be 2AM at the Cat's Pajamas by Marie Helene Bartino. They just don't keep it on stock. It's a debut novel from 11 years ago. Whatever. They know what they're doing. They had one used copy.

So I was like, where can you go get it? And boy, can you get it on thriftbooks.com. Two bucks, you can get a hardcover in pretty good condition. So that's just something to do, especially with backlist titles. If you're interested in buying used, thriftbooks.com is a good alternative. I'm just going to say it to Amazon. Yeah.

One thing I didn't say on the show is that I had a couple meetings in my New York trip where people were looking to try to drive people to buy for literally anywhere else. Like Target, Walmart. It wasn't necessarily about even your local bookstore on the corner of bookshop.org. Literally anywhere else because that drives...

And it's not even so much about Amazon's business practices, though it is. It's just diversification, right? Just getting a little more healthy. We don't want a book buying mono, what's a monopsony when there's one buyer of books. I used to know this when this was a big deal we talked about, but like go anywhere else and used books between ABE books and Amazon and some other places. It's harder than you think to find used book places where that's not controlled by the big A, at least part and parcel.

but thriftbooks.com is one of them. They actually start out by being a reseller on Amazon and they say, we don't want to do this anymore. We have a business on our own. But

But two books there, I think probably all the books we talked about, maybe outside of God of the Woods or... Oh, I spoiled another one. Sorry. There was a couple 2024 picks. Yeah, that's why I'm doing the sponsor and not thinking practically. Well, you still got 18 to be surprised by. But there's a lot of backlist, let's say. And that's a really good spot to pick up some used books if you want. And Thrift Books is going to have these books for sure because they've got 19 million books to choose from, free shipping on orders of $15 or more in the US...

in the U.S., also books, movies, and games, and a rewards program for each purchase with your account to get you closer and closer to getting a free book. Go check out thriftbooks.com. Anything else you want to say about Careless People? We sort of stepped on it. I'm sorry about that. No, I just sincerely recommend it. I started reading it on the plane coming back from Portland. Just on its face, even if we didn't have the meta effect. Yeah, yeah.

Like, I think it's very, it's very readable. It's well written. She tells a lot of it in present tense, which makes it feel like, you know, I think very intentionally the action is happening right now. I walk into this room. I see Mark doing this. These things happen. And she also inserts enough of herself to say, like, at the time, I thought this was fine or like how naive I was so that you know that this thing she's describing, she thought was normal, but she comes to understand. Yeah.

Yeah.

They treated this like it was normal and I thought it was fine at the time, but now I have come to understand that sending a woman in her early 20s alone to Myanmar to negotiate with a junta where she doesn't have a functioning cell phone because your mission is get people to use Facebook. This is a totally valid reason to put a person's life at risk just to get more users on an internet platform. And that's on the lower end of...

That's nuts. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

I got a couple to mention. A lot of it's first edition crossover. So if it's cross-polling or first edition, that's what we're reading right now. I did a bunch over a short stretch of time. Coming out tomorrow, White Light. It's a short book about phosphorus, which we had a funny moment. I thought you made this book up when you mentioned it at the live show. By Jack Lohman, coming out from Pantheon, releases tomorrow. It's a short book, 200 pages or so, about the crucial role phosphorus plays in

in the biological life cycle of the earth writ large, but also in human activity and climate change and global politics. Really interesting story. Jack, he... Now, I was talking to my kids about this because he went to the small island nation of Nauru in the Pacific Ocean to do research for a college project, undergraduate project. I don't know the story of why he did that, but he did.

And then he got him onto this trail of phosphorus as being a key cog in everything, really, when you think about it. And so it really looks at the role of phosphorus and understanding the scientific and geopolitical, cultural, and health, really, consequences of the strip mining of phosphorus that we've been doing for like the last 150 years.

Phosphorus is the most rare of the six. I think there's six minerals that biology needs to make things happen. It's part of the adenosine triphosphate process in which we create glucose basically out of other things, phosphate being the last one that you need phosphorus to make phosphate. And what really happened in the mid-19th century is we were having, especially in the UK, but the global West,

a getting ready to have real feeding the people problem because of the industrial revolution and exploding population counts, but we couldn't grow, we couldn't grow, they couldn't grow, was hard to grow food fast enough. And what you needed was fertilizer. And phosphorus and nitrogen are the two main ingredients in most fertilizers. And phosphorus is even more rare than nitrogen because nitrogen you can do crop rotation because legumes will fix nitrogen when they're doing stuff. I'm really in the weeds now. But...

it's a short poetic book. That's the other thing. And for first edition, I talked to Jack and his editor, Todd, because I was like, they pitched me on this book and the publicist, I can't remember the name, pitched me and said, this is a Jeff core book. Are you interested in someone? Yes. Like, what am I going to do with this? So I made it into a, how a book like this gets made. Uh,

kind of episode. So that conversation is really interesting. But if you were a generally interested reader willing to give almost anything a shot, I'd encourage you to give White Light a shot. The opening, and this is one thing Todd said, the sentence levels really jumped out to him. The opening sort of

vignette is talking about like what happens when a whale dies and it falls. And like the ecosystem that grows up around a whale at the bottom of the ocean, A, it's about calories and the blubber, but it's also about the phosphorus in the bones. Fascinating. That doesn't appear in a different way. You learn all sorts of factoids, like how England, after they invaded Egypt, imported 180,000 mummified cats from Egypt to use in phosphorus production, just to use the bones.

So that's a real thing that happened. A lot of whatabouts and can you believes. And it's quite short. I don't know what it's like on audio. I can't believe it's not very, I can't believe that it's not at least interesting. I did it in digital. Also some illustrations throughout. You'll learn about the Bone River in Florida, which is not something I knew anything about. Actually, it was really terrific. It sounds like a very Florida thing. Yeah, yeah. Very much kind of thing to do. What else want to talk about?

Oh, just released on first edition over the week. I talked to Alyssa Wilkinson about her book, We Tell Ourselves Stories, Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine, which is about Joan Didion in Hollywood, just practically, but also like intellectually and artistically, how she came to understand the pros, cons, strengths, and misuses of storytelling, especially Hollywood storytelling, not just as a screenwriter herself, but she was a huge fan of John Wayne when she was a kid.

and understood perhaps better than anyone else the power of Hollywood storytelling.

and how she came to infuse her own worldview and some of the stuff she did later on. So it's not a biography. Wilkinson calls it a cultural biography, which I think is a really interesting way of approaching something like this. Wilkins is one of, I think, the two staff critics for movies at the New York Times. She taught creative nonfiction for a while herself at a college before she came back into criticism. So a really interesting person writ large. I had a really good conversation with her

Those are all coming on first edition too. And next, when I get back, well, I guess we have another show on Thursday. I'll have some non-FE reading to tell people about, I promise. But that's what I've been up to my neck in it the last couple of weeks.

I think that's it. That's our show. Rebecca book, right. Dot com slash listen, shoot us an email podcast at book, right. Dot com. Check out the Patreon, the Instagram. Look forward to our discussion with Tracy. It's a bit of a burner. I have to say. Yeah. And tell us if you're down for a New York event fall. Yep. All right. Thanks everybody. Thanks for being patient with this episode coming out a little bit later on a, on a Monday and then Rebecca and Jeff's journey through live in person audio visual. Yeah.

We're going to figure it out. Thanks so much for listening today. We hope you'll enjoy this excerpt from the audiobook of Last Twilight in Paris by Pam Jenoff. One. Louise. Henley-on-Thames. 1953. The fog is rolling in low across the Thames as I shudder the secondhand shop on Bell Street for the night, the mist weaving its way, tentacle-like, into the alley where my bicycle leans against the side of the grey brick building. The sudden gloom seems to signal a change.

the start of something ominous. I draw my woollen scarf closer around my neck against the brisk September air, then climb onto the rickety shopper and begin to pedal home. I navigate through the town centre, then left on Hart Street and toward the base of Henley Bridge, welcoming the stillness. There's no one out at this late hour to require a greeting or stare at me oddly. When I moved here seven years ago after marrying Joe,

The bucolic Oxfordshire town had at first seemed like a haven, a welcome refuge from my mum's dismal flat in South London. Only later would I realise how small the town actually was, how stifling it would become. Ten minutes later, I reach home. Our low, two-storey house on the outskirts of town at the end of Wargrave Road is identical to the half-dozen others in the row. Grey brick with a tiny front yard, just large enough for a single rosebush each.

It is situated in one of the new housing developments that had been erected hastily after the war. The site had formerly been a crater where a bomb had fallen, and I sometimes breathe deeply and imagine that I can still smell the gunpowder. Though the house appears well kept from a distance, closer I can see the little faults, even in the near darkness, the cracks at the foundation, a bit of trim around the window that is beginning to fall. I glance at the coal bin and make a mental note to ask Joe to fill it, in the morning, of course.

He will be on his third brandy, or perhaps fourth, so he won't remember if I mention it now. Inside, the house is still. Joe is asleep in his chair, reliving the battles he fought, as he does every night. His newsboy cap sits on the table, and he is still wearing his white dress shirt from his long day at the accountancy firm. Sleeves rolled. Joe's auburn hair remains military short, though his face is a bit fuller now with age.

I lift the tilted glass gently from his hand and stub out the cigarette, a player's medium, in the ashtray. Though I worry about him drinking too much, I don't begrudge him the temporary escape liquor provides. At least he drinks at home, bottles purchased from the off-license, rather than getting pissed at the old bell or one of the other pubs like some men in town do, staying until closing, or even later, for a lock-in and stumbling home at all hours, embarrassing their wives.

I touch his cheek, then nudge him gently. Go up to bed, dear. Joe rousts himself, mumbling unintelligibly before shuffling off. I watch with a pang of sadness as he retreats. Joe had served in the British Army during the war, and had spent more than four years on the ground in active combat. Lucky, some call him, because he was never captured or even wounded. I can see the scars brought on by living under that kind of strain, though. Watching friend after friend killed,

never knowing if each day would be his last. Neither Joe nor I had ever talked in detail about what either of us had done during the war. It lies silent and unspoken between us, a dark divide. My mind reels back to the other day when the children had been playing hospital. They were using an old gauze bandage, wrapping it around a doll. Seeing this, Joe, usually so even-tempered, had become distraught. "'You're wasting medical supplies!' he cried. "'Don't you know that some people don't have enough of those?'

His eyes had been wide with horror as he surely remembered men bleeding out when there hadn't been bandages to save them. I had taken his arm. "'It's okay. That's just an old scrap of cloth. It really can't be used for anything else.' His eyes seemed to clear then. "'Yes, of course. Sorry,' he retreated, his old calm returning. But I could see in that moment the deep places where he hid his anger and pain.'

"'Eight years have passed since the war ended and Joe came home. Far longer than he was over there. Time to get on with it, stiff-lipped English folks seem to say. And Joe has gotten on with it, putting his bravest face on to mask the pain. He goes to work and keeps the garden neat and pays the bills. Everything that a good husband and father is supposed to do. Only I'm close enough to see the scars that will never fully heal. And I wish there was more I could do to help him.'

I walk to the kitchen and pick up an empty packet of crisps from the counter, left there by one of the children, no doubt. I consider being annoyed, and then decide it isn't worth the trouble. I move around, cleaning and straightening. It is late, and I'm exhausted. Tidying up might have waited until morning, but my own childhood had been a never-ending stream of empty beer bottles and unkempt rooms, and I don't want that for my family. I simply cannot rest unless things are in order.

When I have set the kitchen to rights, I walk into the living room and sit down by the low table to work on the jigsaw puzzle that Joe gave me for Christmas, depicting a lovely image of the Welsh countryside in summer. I pick up a piece and study the jagged, half-done puzzle, finding a spot and trying it. The piece snaps satisfyingly into place. That is the thing I love most about puzzles. Something that moments earlier had made no sense at all now fits. I reach for another piece. I should go to sleep, I know.

But these few minutes of solitude are worth more. Five minutes later, I tear myself away from the puzzle and start upstairs. In the nursery, a fancy word for the children's shared room, which is just large enough for two single beds, the twins, Ewan and Fedra, are sleeping soundly. I pick up a Beano comic from the floor and place it on the nightstand. Winnie the Pooh lies open, spine up, and I regret not making it back to read to them before bedtime.

I normally only work when the children are at school, wanting to be home for them in the afternoons and evenings. Joe doesn't mind my helping at the shop, as long as it doesn't interfere with taking care of the house and children. But Midge had asked a favor. Something came up and she was called away suddenly. Could I stay and close up and straighten things for the night? So I'd left dinner and Joe agreed to put the children to bed. At first I'd worried whether he could manage it. But despite his demons, Joe is good at being there when I need him to be.