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10+ years in is the best time to create a podcast newsletter, right?
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Hello and welcome to the first installment of the Book Riot Podcast newsletter! Every other Friday,
or I will show up in your inbox with notes, listener feedback, a round-up of recent episodes, and pod-related miscellany. Like this joint headshot from…2014?2024 has come with a running start here at BR, and the ongoing podcast glow-up isn’t the only project I’ve been working on. My new newsletter
will go out for the first time on Sunday, and if you’re into self-improvement, cooking, personal finance, and the bouquet of genres we think of as “lifestyle nonfiction,” I think you’ll dig it. Go ahead and start the betting pool for how many times I’ll mention Four Thousand Weeks.Also on my mind: this episode of The Ezra Klein Show about “attentional wellbeing:” the connections between how we use attention (or deplete with task-switching) and how we feel in our lives. I’ll be reading Gloria Marks’s Attention Span very soon.
On the Show
Winter 2024 New Release Draft [bonus]
Obama’s Favorite Books of 2023, Iowa Book Banning Law Partially Stopped, Recent Reading, and More
Coming next week: a possible answer to why Oprah was so invested in Covenant of Water, power ranking the books of 2019, and more. Join us on Patreon for access to early, ad-free listening and bonus episodes.
In the Mailbag
A selection of interesting, relevant, important, entertaining, and informative listener emails. Responses, if any, in bold.
Hey Jeff,
I am finally buckling down and starting DUNE! In the copy I have, there is a 95 page appendix at the end. Do I have to read the appendix in order to fully grasp the full perspective of the story? I feel like the 800 page novel might be enough. :)
Thanks!
Jeff: No. Also do not read any more Dune books. They get….strange. I would not even recommend reading summaries on Wikipedia. Dune is good and whole and there is not reason to taint that.
Hi Jeff and Rebecca
Re your most recent podcast and the segment on the best selling books in the UK in 2023:
Richard Osman, author of the Thursday Murder Club is a TV Exec and Presenter. He first in the series is currently being adapted by Spielberg for a film. It’s at the development stage, having been held up by the writer’s strike. No cast announced yet.
Bob Mortimer, author of Satsuma, is a comedian and TV presenter. He has a rather odd ball sense of humour. I’m reliably informed by fellow readers that Satsuma isn’t great. The sales are because he is a ‘personality’ - so don’t do it Jeff.
Fourth Wing and the follow up are available here in Hardback, ebook and Audio. Very prominent in Waterstones and seems to be popular. I suspect they were a bit late for this year’s list. Possibly next year.
The slow cooker book. Who knows how that got there. Not least because the cool kids have Air Fryers.
Keep up the great podcast.
Jeff: Clutch info. I do not need to be reading the monetization projects of British personalities. Unless they are bakers.
Hi Jeff & Rebecca!
Love you guys, as always! I just wanted to let you know, there is a podcast called "From the Front Porch", run by an indie bookstore in Georgia called "The Bookshelf Thomasville". They are doing a Lonesome Dove read along in 2024, as part of their "Conquer a Classic" program.
I know you guys sometimes talk about Indie bookstores and some of their programs, so if you wanted to permanently "get off the hook" for Lonesome Dove and any potential read along, this is a moment to do so. From the Front Porch keeps their "Conquer a Classic" recordings up from subsequent years. So even if someone in '25 wants to read Lonesome Dove and hear people talk about it, they can join their Patreon and listen to the recordings that will be happening this year.
Love you guys, as always. I hope the Jan IT book being on the main podcast doesn't mean First Edition is going away?
Jeff: What makes you think we want to get off the hook for Lonesome Dove? I was just talking to Rebecca about her favorite part of the book and she said it is when they are riding horses and gruffly speak to each other. Scorching take from RJS.
Jeff,
Barnes and Noble has heard you and in their latest email is spreading the spredge news (pic attached). LOL You’re an influencer!
Jeff: Beanie babies. Cabbage patch kids. Frosted Tips. Spredges.
Rebecca: Just, no to this word. No forever.
Talk Amongst Yourselves
We’ve been thinking about a BR Pod newsletter for a while, and after 10+ years of mostly one-way communication with y’all, we’re excited to have a space to create more community with and between listeners. So: tell us what’s on your mind from recent episodes and book world news, too!
This is definitely the right time to start a newsletter? Loved the mailbag!
Re the Mailbag and Osman - his books are genuinely excellent; he’s someone who worked behind the scenes on TV for decades before becoming a ‘personality’ pretty much by chance.
His books are incredibly BRITISH so I’m not surprised to hear that they’re not yet everywhere in the US.