This is the book riot podcast. This is the book ride podcast. I'm Jeff O'Neill. And I'm Rebecca

Schinsky. And it's been a while since we've done a news episode, Rebecca, but we've got a bunch of mid-year stories. Book rights best books of the year, the bestselling books of the year so far, bookshop's bestsellers of the year. Kelly wrote for us, I think it's on the site today, a roundup of like a meta-analysis of the best

books of the year so far list. I think we'll do all that. And then on the Patreon that we're going to record right after this will come out later this week probably is a hot list check-in. So it's a temperature check. It's at 9,000 degrees where you are, but we're going to do our own temperature check here. And we're halfway through the year. So this is our like mid check in on what are the hot books. Last time we checked in, it was like late spring. April, yeah. There weren't a whole lot of big things happening. I feel like I'm interested in what you have to share with me about the hot list this time. And next week on the Patreon, I know folks have been anxiously waiting.

We said we were going to do something fun with the great Gatsby. And I think editing time has finally appeared. I'm backed up. There's no other way to put it. I'm backed up. We'll have it out there before too long. Other points of order. You can win all 20 of the picks from our Powell show. Vanessa, Keith, Rebecca, and I, we each picked five.

And you can win all 20 of them if you go to's show, Vanessa, Keith, Rebecca, and I, we each picked five,

and you can win all 20 of them. If you go to bookrat.com slash hot 20. I'll put a link in the show

notes there through the end of the month, 731. Also, at the back half of this episode, Erica, our

own Erica, is in conversation with Rodney Freeman, a former librarian and producer

of the documentary, Are You a Librarian, about the rich and overlooked history of black librarianship

in the U.S.

So I'm really looking forward to that.

Do stick around for that there.

We're going to do a sponsor break and get into the lists of the year so far, essentially.

Today's episode is sponsored by Harlequin, publishers of Let's Give Em Pumpkin to Talk

About by Isabel Pop.

Textile artist Sadie Fox did not sign up for this.

When she agreed to come home to P. Blossom, Indiana, it was to care for her father's

beloved pumpkin patch.

The deal was that,

just for the summer, she would grow a ginormous pumpkin, win the Indiana State Fair's pumpkin

contest, and finally went back her father's grudging respect. Instead, a horde of wild hogs destroyed

the entire patch, which is precisely when the annoyingly sexy, sunshiny next-door neighbor shows up.

...