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© Riot New Media Group, Inc. 2023
Description
BookRiot.com co-founder Jeff O'Neal explores the wide bookish world. Interviews, lists, rankings, retrospectives, recommendations, and much more, featuring people who know and love books.
58 Episodes
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Jeff goes over a couple dozen May new releases that he definitely might consider thinking about reading. Then, Book.io co-founder and CEO Joshua Stone comes on to talk about what the blockchain could offer the world of books and reading.
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Email jeff at firstedition (at) bookriot (dot).com
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Jeff talks to Jane Friedman about the new edition of her book, The Business of Being a Writer. She has been writing about the publishing industry for years (and Jeff has been reading her work for years as well), and this book is a guide for writers who don't just want to write, they want to try to make a living. It's a tremendous resource for early-career writers especially, but also has application and relevance for later-stage writers, creatives of all kinds, and people who are interested in how publishing works. The Business of Being a Writer (Second Edition) is out now.
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Links and Resources:
The Spring 2025 First Edition Giveaway
The Business of Being a Writer by Jane Friedman
Jane's website
And please do email me with feedback here: firstedition (at) bookriot (dot)com
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Jeff is joined by one of his favorite writers, Marie-Helene Bertino, and the talk about all five of her books in order, including her new short story collection, Exit Zero.
Marie-Helene Bertino's Beautyland was named a best book of 2024 by Times, Esquire, Lit Hub and many others. Jeff included it on his list of the most recommendable books of the century so far. Her new book, Exit Zero, is available now.
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Jeff talks to Gabe Henry about his new book, Enough is Enuf: Our Failed Attempts to Make English Easier to Spell. For centuries, a series of thinkers, writers, politicians, and bankers have been advocating to make English easier to spell. It hasn't really worked. But the effort is fascinating.
Enough is Enuf is available now wherever books are sold.
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Jeff talks to Jon Hickey about his debut novel, Big Chief.
Jon Hickey earned his MFA at Cornell University and was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. He has received scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers Conference and the Sewanee Writers Conference, and he is an enrolled member of the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians. His short fiction has appeared in Massachusetts Review, Gulf Coast Online, Virginia Quarterly Review, Meridian, and The Madison Review. Jon lives in San Francisco with his wife and two sons.
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Jeff talks to the great Katie Kitamura about her new novel, Audition (it is very, very good).
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Jeff talks about 21 books coming out this month that caught his eye.
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Discussed in this episode:
I Have a Capital Suggestion for a New Pronoun by John McWhorter
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Jeff talks to Emma Pattee about her debut novel, Tilt. They talk earthquakes, IKEA, the consequences of writing place precisely, and much more. This book is a winner, folks.
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Jeff is joined by Jack Lohmann, author of the new book White Light: The Elemental Role of Phosphorus-in Our Cells, in Our Food, and in Our World. Plus, his editor at Pantheon, Todd Portnowitz joins the conversation to talk about positioning, crafting, and otherwise publishing non-fiction like this.
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Jeff talks to Stephen Graham Jones about his reading life. Stephen Graham Jones is the NYT bestselling author of thirty-five or so novels and collections, and there are some novellas and comic books in there as well. Most recent are Earthdivers and I Was a Teenage Slasher.
His new book, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, is out now.
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Alissa Wilkinson joins Jeff to talk about her new book, We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine.
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Discussed in this episode:
We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine by Alissa Wilkinson
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Jeff talks to Amal El-Mohtar about This is How You Lose the Time War getting one of greatest bookish gifts ever bestowed by the internet before talking about her new book, The River Has Roots.
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Discussed in this episode:
The Book Riot Podcast Live at Powell's on March 13th
This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone
The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar
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Scaachi Koul joins Jeff to talk about her new book, Sucker Punch with a new little format for First Edition called "10 Notecards With..." Jeff has picked out 10 things from the new book — words, ideas, stories, etc. — written them on notecards, and then has Saachi pick them at random (at least at the start order). Turned out to be a lot of fun, so expect to hear more of these.
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Discussed in This Episode:
The Book Riot Podcast Live at Powell's on March 13th
Sucker Punch by Scaachi Koul
One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter by Scaachi Koul
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Liberty Hardy joins Jeff to talk about hosting 500 episodes of All The Books! and a host of other reading-related topics.
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Discussed in this episode:
All The Books!
Liberty Hardy on Instagram
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Rebecca Romney joins Jeff to talk about her new book, Jane Austen's Bookshelf. They talk about personal book collecting, rediscovering literary history for yourself, a few of the writers Austen admired, and more. Jane Austen's Bookshelf is out now.
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Discussed in this episode:
Jane Austen's Bookshelf by Rebecca Romney
Rebecca Romney on Instagram
The Honey & Wax Book Collecting Contest
Type Punch Matrix (Romney's Rare Book Company)
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Sarah Chihaya joins Jeff to talk about her new memoir, Bibliophobia. They talk life-ruining books, the enormous weight of all the books that are out there and how we cannot read them all, and other less-talked about parts of the reading life.
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Discussed in this episode:
Bibliophobia by Sarah Chihaya
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Jeff talks to Professor Shigehiro Oishi about his new book, Life in Three Dimensions: How Curiosity, Exploration, and Experience Make a Fuller, Better Life.
Books and reading play a central role in the book, both as examples but also as avenues towards living a psychologically rich life. I really enjoyed this book and this conversation.
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John Warner joins Jeff to talk about his new book, More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI. We talk about the teaching of writing, what we might want to save for humans, what kinds of things LLMs expose about how we think about writing, and what the present and future of living with AI could be.
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Discussed in this episode:
More Than Words by John Warner
The Biblioracle Recommends Newsletter
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Bookshop.org Founder Andy Hunter joins Jeff to talk about Bookshop now offering ebooks. Then, Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project, comes on to talk about her bookish reading challenge: read for 25 in '25.
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Discussed in this episode:
Bookshop.org Now Sells Ebooks
Gretchen Rubin's 25 in '25 Challenge
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Jeff uses Susie Dumond's piece for Book Riot about 2025 predictions as a framework for taking stock of where we are and what the year may hold for publishing and reading.
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Discussed in this episode:
Book Trend Predictions for 2025
Bed and Break-Up by Susie Dumond
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