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Book Riot - The Podcast

American are Reading for Pleasure Less. A Lot Less.

Book Riot - The Podcast

Riot New Media Group, Inc

Arts, News, Books, News Commentary, Tv & Film

4.41.1K Ratings

🗓️ 25 August 2025

⏱️ 84 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Jeff and Rebecca talk about a big new survey of American reading habits, the Polari Prize closing up shop for the year, Katabasis getting an adaptation, ghost-written vanity memoirs, and more. Subscribe to the podcast via RSS, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. Sign up for the Book Riot Podcast Newsletter and follow the show on Instagram and Bluesky. Get more industry news with our Today in Books daily newsletter. Ready for a cozy, bookish autumn? Let Tailored Book Recommendations help you find your next favorite read with handpicked suggestions from professional book nerds. Get started today from just $18! The Book Riot Podcast is a proud member of the Airwave Podcast Network. This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Discussed in this episode: Update: Polari Prizes canceled in response to protest Katabasis set for TV adaptation Study shows 40% decline in Americans who read for pleasure 2004-2023 BookTok is boosting sales at romance bookstores Wealthy retirees are commissioning ghost-written memoirs Church Camp by Cara Meredith Katabasis by R.F. Kuang Abundance by Klein and Thompson Endling by Maria Reva Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

this is the bookwry podcast i'm jeff o'neill and i'm rebecca shinsky and we're here as two

0:09.8

bronte scholars to set you all straight yeah the bronte's the famous co-authors of sense and

0:18.4

sense no i can't do that to people.

0:25.0

And you already did this, Rebecca. We did the Mia Copp. We made a culpah. We made a culped on the episode that dropped on Wednesday. This was already in the notes for today. So we can just

0:30.0

repeat the Mayacolpa at the top of the show here. What can I say? I don't invest a lot of

0:36.6

energy in keeping the Bronte straight. Thank you for

0:40.0

correcting me. As penance, we shall be reading all the Bronte things in a row, including their

0:44.8

juvenilia diaries, their melancholic death letters from the last throes of their lives. It's,

0:50.3

your penance shall be to get brontade. This is a very hashtag bronte.

0:55.8

This is a very Dante-esque punishment, and I appreciate you, and I reject it.

1:01.7

I think that really what should happen is I should have to spend the rest of, I guess, my eternity,

1:07.1

meeting people who don't know who I am and mix up my work.

1:11.0

That would be more appropriate in the Dante construction.

1:15.8

Yeah, well, anyway, so we got it wrong.

1:18.1

The adaptation is Wuthering Heights, whatever.

1:20.8

The Internet's there.

1:22.0

We can fact check us.

1:23.2

We've been doing this 15 years.

1:24.2

We get stuff wrong every now and again.

1:25.6

It's okay.

1:26.3

No worries there.

2:17.1

Yeah, I didn't lose any sleep over it. What's coming up in our neck of the woods? We're recording for Patreon after this. That will go in the feed next week at some point. It's time for half-baked ideas again. I love a half-baked idea season. Very looking forward to that. It's exactly what it sounds like. Next Wednesday in the feed, the day after Catabasis hits shelves, Vanessa and Sharifa will be here with us to talk about it. It's a big, it's big day, big publishing event. I finished it. I don't want to step on Frontless Foyer. I finished it last night. We'll talk about it a little in front list foyer, but I'm going to save most of my read for next week's episode about Catapagosus. And then we'll be off for Labor Day. And when we return, we will have the It Books of September. And we will have the fall books draft, the big one of the year. That's right.

...

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