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Book Riot - The Podcast

Power Ranking the Books of 1995

Book Riot - The Podcast

Riot New Media Group, Inc

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

4.3965 Ratings

🗓️ 23 July 2025

⏱️ 65 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It's as far back as we go with these historical rankings--30 years to 1995. Strange year, that sees Jeff pick a single copy of an individual book in his top 10. Christian dystopias, fairy tale retellings, genre-changing memoirs: there are spots for all of them in our top 10s. 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. Looking to elevate your reading life? Tailored Book Recommendations delivers reading recommendations hand-picked just for you by real human book nerds. Plans start at just $18! The Book Riot Podcast is a proud member of the Airwave Podcast Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:51.1

This is the book ride podcast. I'm Jeff O'Neill. And I'm Rebecca Schinsky. And this episode is a look

0:56.6

back. At the year in books of 1995, in the form of a power ranking of the books of 1995, we've

1:04.2

each selected 10 books in order of power, right? Because that's definitely a real unit that we used to measure books,

1:12.6

where we're trying to get a sense of what books mattered for that year and into the future.

1:17.3

Always a fun exercise. This is 95. I was 17 and just starting to become aware of like the

1:23.4

wider literary world, like publishing and books were a thing that were still happening.

1:27.0

We're still peak Oprah. You're in sixth grade? You're tweenish.

1:31.4

16 to seventh grade. I'm 13 in 1995. Yeah. So I think I read one of the books in my top 10

1:37.1

in this year that came out because it won a major award. Everything else I got to a lot later

1:41.9

or have never gotten to, Rebecca. How about you?

1:49.8

I did not read any of these the year that they came out. A couple of my honorable mentions, I read,

1:56.3

I think, like right around them because they were Oprah picks. This is really peak Oprah. Like 1995 is the second year of the book club and there were so many. I have read probably fewer of my top

2:04.0

10 here than on many of our other power ranking. A very strange year. This was a very strange year.

...

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