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Book Riot - The Podcast

On Putting Together a Best Books of the Year List

Book Riot - The Podcast

Riot New Media Group, Inc

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

4.3965 Ratings

🗓️ 17 November 2025

⏱️ 57 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Vanessa Diaz sits in for Rebecca this week and talks to Jeff about the challenges of making a best books of the year list before getting into the news of the week. Follow the podcast via RSS, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. Subscribe to The Book Riot Newsletter for regular updates to get the most out of your reading life. The Book Riot Podcast is a proud member of the Airwave Podcast Network. Discussed in this episode: Check out Zero to Well-Read! The Book Riot Podcast Patreon Amazon’s best books of the year David Szalay has won the 2025 Booker Prize for his novel Flesh B&N’s best book of the Year is Mona’s Eyes The 2025 Goodreads Choice Awards.  I’m bookmarking this deep dive into the fashion industry’s recurrent interest in literature for knife-and-fork reading this weekend Reader’s Digest asked three professional designers to pick the best book covers of the year Kindle translate Somebody is Walking On Your Grave by Mariana Enriquez Stolen Crown by Tracy Borman Devouring Time by Tod Goddard One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai Flashlight by Susan Choi This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

How's the business going?

0:01.2

We're busier than ever, but struggling to get the staff we need. Ah, recruiting can be such a distraction. We gave Job Centre Plus a try, and they've really helped us out. Really? Yeah. It was dead easy. We got our own employer advisor, Julie, who helped advertise our jobs, shortlisted candidates for us and letters interview at the Job Centre. We've hired some great people, and Job Centre Plus really took the hassle out of it, And there was no fee.

0:23.1

Brilliant. That's straight on my to-do list. view at the job center. We've hired some great people and Job Center Plus really took the hassle

0:21.2

out of it and there was no fee. Brilliant. That's straight on my to-do list. Find out more at

0:25.9

business.gov.com.ukes. Eligibility criteria apply. This is the bookwry podcast. I'm Jeff

0:35.8

O'Neill. Today Vanessa Diaz joins me sitting in Rebecca who's traveling. She didn't tell me where she went. She's just gone on a Thursday traveling somewhere. She's back tomorrow. I don't ask questions, Vanessa. She comes and she goes.

0:46.4

It could be New Zealand. It could be like the Camino. It could be anything with Rebecca. We'll find out later.

0:52.3

Some mud lake in the middle of Missouri, like really could be anything at this point.

0:59.4

We were just talking before we started recording that it's a, it's not a poo-poo platter.

1:04.1

It's a full-on smorgasborg.

1:06.6

Is there a Mexican smorgasborg, like a buffet?

1:10.0

Is there a word for this kind of a situation?

1:12.4

I've never heard one, but I know me no, ma'all. I don't know that there is. The word that I'm thinking for it is more just a curse word, meaning a crap ton of stuff. So, yeah, I don't know that this is. Yeah, I don't know that we have one. Like a potluck? Like you don't, okay, well, anyway, at least there's not some cliched trope of another

1:28.6

language and culture I'll butcher to use. Not today. It is, whatever that word is you're referring to,

1:35.1

that's very much what we have for year-end awards, books of the year. We got quick check on my

1:42.9

power rankings of individual book awards for anglophone i should say english

1:48.4

commonwealth beyond booker one pulitzer two NBA three am i kind of right does that feel about

1:55.9

right to you yeah more or less yeah i think so we had the Booker this week, Vanessa, which we're

2:02.7

going to get into a little bit there. Programming notes before we get into the news of the week.

2:08.0

Over on Patreon, Rebecca and I talked about the Amazon's 25 books for the last 25 years.

2:21.8

We power rank those. We will be doing, as a companion piece of the episode that went up on Wednesday, the books that we missed in 2025. And some of those,

2:28.2

I think I teased are, don't let the Lord hit you, don't let the door hit you or the good Lord

...

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