Podcast: Book Riot

Jeff and Rebecca look back at the books & stories that defined 2024.
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Discussed in this episode:
Book Riot’s TBR
The Book Riot Podcast on Instagram
The Book Riot Podcast Patreon
The 2025 Read Harder Challenge is live
_________________________
The dust settled as publishing’s earnings rebound in H1
Barnes & Noble is back, baby, and they bought a beloved indie
The Discourse:

Remember the moment when some people thought Taylor Swift wrote Argylle?

PRH dismisses Reagan Arthur & Lisa Lucas

NYT’s top 100 books of the century so far

NaNoWriMo’s PR fail with AI

only 20k serious readers of lit fic?

Coming Attractions:

Spielberg in talks to produce James adaptation directed by Taika Waititi

Liz Moore signs Sony deal for Long Bright River & God of the Woods

Meryl Streep in adaptation of The Corrections

Florence Pugh in East of Eden for Netflix

The Black List expands to fiction & highlights publishing’s most-wanted adaptations,

Book banning news:

Idaho library to become adults-only

High school shuts down library due to book banning law

Big Five and Authors Guild sue over Florida law

PRH hires a public policy role

Many states have banned book bans

In memoriam:

Daniel Kahneman

John Gierach

Edna O’Brien

Francine Pascal

Nikki Giovanni

Paul Auster

The #metoo trifecta of Cormac McCarthy, Alice Munro, and Neil Gaiman
The robots are coming:

authors sue Anthropic

Roxane Gay & Margaret Atwood among authors helping create AI reading guides

Number go up: US audiobook sales hit $2 billion in 2023
One to watch: ByteDance’s 8th Note Press to publish print books in 2025
This is why literacy matters: Florida dept of education recommends Pride & Prejudice as a book about American pride
Listener feedback award: the surprising origins of publishing’s seasons, Sophia’s It Books tracker
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A preview of the first-ever EMERGENCY bonus episode for Patreon subscribers. Obama released his favorite books of 2024. Let's just say there were surprises.
The Book Riot Podcast Patreon
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Jeff and Rebecca take a look at the hits, misses, and favorites from the year in literary adaptations.
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Discussed in this episode:
Book Riot’s TBR
The Book Riot Podcast on Instagram
The Book Riot Podcast Patreon
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A preview of our most recent Patreon-only episode about the books we missed this year (though, maybe we will get to a few of them? maybe?).
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Jeff and Rebecca settle in to figure what 10 books from 2024 defined the year. Not the best (necessarily), the most popular (though could be), or most interesting (in many cases not), but a list that comes closest to telling the story of 2024 in reading.
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Check out the Book Riot Podcast Book Page on Thriftbooks!
Discussed in this episode:
Book Riot's TBR
The Book Riot Podcast on Instagram
The Book Riot Podcast Patreon
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Gilbert Cruz, editor of The New York Times Book Review, joins Jeff to talk about the colossal undertaking that is making its 100 Notable Books List and its 10 Best Books of the Year List.
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Discussed in this episode:
The Book Riot Podcast on Instagram
The Book Riot Podcast Patreon
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Jeff and Rebecca reveal their favorite books of 2024.
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Discussed in this episode:
The Book Riot Podcast on Instagram
The Book Riot Podcast Patreon
James by Percival Everett
There's Always This Year by Hanif Abdurraqib
Splinters by Leslie Jamison
Knife by Salman Rushdie
Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino
Challenger by Adam Higginbotham
The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman
The Other Significant Others
Colored Television
Margot's Got Money Trouble
Great Expectations by Vinson Cunningham
Blackpill
Ghostroots by Pemi Aguda
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Jeff and Rebecca get into the NYT's 100 Notable and 10 Best Books of the Year list, Goodreads Choice winners, Cormac McCarthy's distressing hidden relationship, and kidney stones.
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This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Discussed in this episode:
The Book Riot Podcast on Instagram
The Book Riot Podcast Patreon
Cormac McCarthy’s secret muse was 16 when he began a relationship with her
Costco to keep books in-store year-round in 100 locations
The NYT’s 100 notable books of the year (and our scores, for internal use) and Top 10
Spotify reveals top audiobooks in the US & globally
Goodreads Choice Awards are as white as ever
The Tournament of Books shortlist has landed
Taylor Swift book sales best everyone but Barack
Rental House by Weike Wang
The Boys of Riverside
What's Next
Nightbitch
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Jeff and Rebecca do a few more holiday recommendations before talking about nine interesting new books coming in December and then taking stock of their monthly It Book guesses.
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Discussed in this episode:
The Book Riot Podcast on Instagram
The Book Riot Podcast Patreon
Our Full Year It Books Finalists and Picks
Big List of Steamy Romances
Nuts and Bolts
Challenger
Cork Dork
Greta & Valdin
Parable of the Sower
Land of Milk and Honey
Martyr!
Intermezzo
Strange Eventful History
The Bee Sting
Say Nothing
Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor
Rental House
A Century of Tomorrows
Giant Love
The Rivals
The Rest is Memory by Lily Tuck
Alter Ego by Alex Segura
Custodians of Wonder
Cabin by Patrick Hutchinson
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Jeff and Rebecca return for the second half of our 2024 Recommendation Extravaganza.
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Discussed in this episode:
The Book Riot Podcast on Instagram
The Book Riot Podcast Patreon
Nevada by Imogen Binnie
Argonauts by Maggie Nelson
Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi
The House of Impossible Beauties by Joseph Cassara
Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
Tommy Orange
Pachinko
A Gentleman in Moscow
Kevin Wilson
Brief History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
The Sellout
Bookshop.org
Little Blue Truck
Pete’s a Pizza
Race to the Wild
The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street
House on the Cerulean Sea
The Parker Inheritance
Winnie the Pooh
8 Books About Houses Haunted by More Than Ghosts
20 Must-Read Stories of Eerie Cabins & Haunted Houses
Hacienda by Isabel Canas
Ghostroots by Pemi Aguda
All the Right Notes by Dominic Lim
Unlikely Animals by Annie Hartnett
Goodbye Vitamin by Rachel Khong
Sandwich by Catherine Newman
The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka
Life is Meals
Ross Gay
Year of Wonder by Clemency Burton Hill
Pig Years
Carolyn Heilbrun’s Kate Fansler Series
Eleanor Catton
Brit Bennett
Kevin Wilson
Zadie Smith
Colson Whitehead
The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
Pride and Prejudice
Count of Monte Cristo
House of Mirth
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O’Farrell
Tana French
New Cozy Books to Snuggle Up With This Fall
Cozy Historical Fantasy
Cozy, Comforting BIPOC Books
Legends & Lattes
The Night Circus
Book with No Pictures by BJ Novak
What Do People Do All Day by Richard Scarry
Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
Real Americans by Rachel Khong
Jesmyn Ward
North Woods
The Sympathizer
23 of the Best & Swooniest Romantasy Reads
Small World by Jonathan Evison
Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson
East of Eden
Frederick Backman
Thursday Murder Club
Sipsworth
Creation Lake
Someone Like Us
Entitlement
People in the Trees
The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
Intermezzo
The Mighty Red
I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself
Such a Fun Age
The Vanishing Half
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Jeff and Rebecca recommend books released in 2024 that would make great gifts — for a bunch of different kinds of readers.
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Check out the Book Riot Podcast Book Page on Thriftbooks!
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Discussed in this episode:
The Book Riot Podcast on Instagram
The Book Riot Podcast Patreon
The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan
Be Ready When the Luck Happens
The God of the Woods
Great Expectations by Vinson Cunningham
Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange
By The Fire We Carry
Bone of the Bone
The Serviceberry
Praise Song for the Kitchen Ghosts
What Goes With What
Kids Cook Anything by Mark Bittman
The Other Significant Others
Vanishing Treasures
Beautiful Creatures
Margot's Got Money Troubles
Colored Television
Knife
Smoke Kings
Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop
Cue the Sun!
The Bright Sword
Mythos by Stephen Fry
An Encyclopedia of Gardening for Colored Children
The Researcher's First Murder
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Jeff and Rebecca talk about the winners of the 2024 National Book Awards a little before embarking on the first of two rounds of answering listener holiday recommendation requests.
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Discussed in this episode:
The Book Riot Podcast on Instagram
The Book Riot Podcast Patreon
Angie Kim
Megan Abbott
Liz Moore
Dr No
Motherless Brooklyn
The Most Fun We Ever Had
On Beauty
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
Yellowface
Everything I Never Told You
Jami Attenberg
Colored Television
Be Ready When the Luck Happens
Chemistry
Margo’s Got Money Trouble
Birnam Wood
House of Cotton
In the Time of Butterflies by Julia Alvarez
The Overstory
The God of the Woods
The Trees
Barkskins
The Most
Greek Lessons
The Buddha in the Attic
Wintering
Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows
Greta & Valdin
Michael Lewis
Steven Johnson
Hanif Abdurraquib
Challenger
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
How Big Things Get Done
Gilead
Our Souls at Night
The Woman Next Door
Educated
A Love Song for Ricki Wilde
Looking for a Sign
Merry Little Meet Cute
Storied Life of AJ Fikry
Ink Blood Sister Scribe
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Jeff and Rebecca look back 30 years to 1994 and power-rank the year's most influential, important, and memorable titles.
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Discussed in this episode:
The Book Riot Podcast on Instagram
The Book Riot Podcast Patreon
Send us your recommendation requests: podcast (at) bookriot (dot) co
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Jeff and Rebecca talk about Amazon's best books of the year list, the pros and cons of the Goodreads Choice Awards, PW's annual salary survey, recent reading, and much more.
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Check out the Book Riot Podcast Book Page on Thriftbooks!
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Discussed in this episode:
The Book Riot Podcast on Instagram
The Book Riot Podcast Patreon
Send us your recommendation requests: podcast (at) bookriot (dot) com
Good news: most TX school board candidates who support book bans lost their elections
Amazon editors’ best books of 2024
Voting is open for the Goodreads Choice Awards
PW annual salary survey
Barnes & Noble on track to open 60 new stores this year
India’s ban on The Satanic Verses may end because of missing paperwork
Playground by Richard Powers
When the Coffee Gets Cold
Orbital by Samantha Harvey
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We consider The New York Times 100 Notable Books of the Year list to be the book list of record. In this episode, we make our picks for locks, likelies, and would-like-to-sees ahead of the anticipated release of the list next week.

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Check out the Book Riot Podcast Book Page on Thriftbooks!

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Discussed in this episode:
The Book Riot Podcast on Instagram
The Book Riot Podcast Patreon
Send us your recommendation requests: podcast (at) bookriot (dot) com
James
Martyr!

RSTLNE Locks
All Fours
There’s Always This Year
Revenge of the Tipping Point
The Anxious Generation
God of the Woods
Knife
Creation Lake
Intermezzo
The Women
Orbital
The City and Its Uncertain Walls
The Mighty Red
Demon of Unrest

Mutual Agreed Upon Tier B
Beautyland
Splinters
Wandering Stars
Playground
Rejection
By the Fire We Carry
Be Ready When the Luck Happens

Split Decisions
John Lewis: A Life
Everyone Who is Gone is Here
Long Island Compromise
Splinters
Margot’s Got Money Troubles
Colored Television
Code Dependent
The Small and the Mighty
Entitlement
This Strange, Eventful History
All That Glitters
Lovely One
Sonny Boy
Patriot by Alexei Navalny
Great Expectations by Vinson Cunningham
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Rebecca Schinksy talks to Franklin Leonard and Randy Winston about The Black List, a project to get exceptional, unproduced work into the world.

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Discussed in this episode:
The Black List
The Book Riot Podcast Patreon
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Jeff and Rebecca decide the It Book of November.

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Discussed in this episode:
The Book Riot Podcast Patreon
Variation by Rebecca Yarros
Didion & Babitz by Lili Anolik
The Name of This Band is R.E.M by Peter Ames Carlin
High and Rising: A Book About De La Soul by Marcus Moore
Heartbreak is the National Anthem: How Taylor Swift Reinvented Pop Music by Rob Sheffield
Cher: Part One
Lost and Lassoed by Lyla Sage
Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong
Masquerade by Mike Fu
The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Four Points of the Compass by Jerry Brotton
What the Chicken Knows by Sy Montgomery
Vanishing Treasure by Katherine Rundell
Lazarus Man by Richard Price
The Half King by Melissa Landers
The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami
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Jeff and Rebecca talk about B&N's finalists for their book of the year, why PW's best books of the year lists are so great and recent reading before they are joined by Brooke Nagler of The Book Group to talk about what it's like breaking into the world of books as an assistant to a literary agent.

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Discussed in this episode:
The Book Riot Podcast Patreon
The Book Group
A belated fare-thee-well to John Gierach
Barnes & Noble’s Book of the Year finalists
The PW Best Books of the Year list is here, and it’s as hard to navigate as ever
The Last One at the Wedding by Jason Rekulak
We Solve Murders by Richard Osman
Conclave by Robert Harris
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
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Jeff offers Rebecca a list of questions about the world of books and reading that he would love to have answered but knows are impossible.

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The Book Riot Podcast Patreon
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Sharifah Williams joins Jeff to talk about B&N's Best Books of the Year list, promising trailers, PRH's new boilerplate AI language, and more of the week's top book news.

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Check out the Book Riot Podcast Book Page on Thriftbooks!

The Book Riot Podcast Patreon

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Discussed in this episode:
Barnes & Noble best books of 2024 (ohmygod it isn’t even Halloween yet)
PRH adds language to copyright pages prohibiting use in AI training
How Should Debut Novelists Measure Success?
Ursula K. Le Guin Prize
Say Nothing
God of the Woods by Liz Moore
Ghostroots by Pemi Aguda
Orbital by Samantha Harvey
Sonny Boy by Al Pacino
Interior Chinatown
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