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Zero to Well-Read

Riot New Media Group, Inc.

Arts, Books, Society & Culture

4.7 • 837 Ratings

🗓️ 7 May 2026

⏱️ 2 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Part book club, part English class, Zero to Well-Read is a podcast about everything you need to know about the books you wish you’d read. Each week, hosts Jeff O'Neal and Rebecca Schinsky take on a new title, from classics you should have read in high school to major prize winners and cult favorites to modern hits. We believe being well-read is about more than just the classics, so we've dissected The Great Gatsby and One Hundred Years of Solitude, sure, but we've also explored The Secret History and Hamnet. Our syllabus has included Toni Morrison, Octavia Butler, Judy Blume, Salman Rushdie, James Baldwin, and, of course, some Shakespeare. And did you know the hit film One Battle After Another was based on a book? We did, and we made an episode about it, too (that's Vineland by Thomas Pynchon). In each episode, we'll give you everything you need to know about a must-read book, including: What it's about: The basics of the plot and characters. Vibe-check: What it feels like to read this book and whether it’s for you. The Discourse: Diving into the commentary and controversies surrounding the book. Hot takes: Our honest, unfiltered opinions. Cocktail Party Crib Sheet: Three key takeaways to make you sound well-read at your next dinner party. Follow the show to receive a new episode every Tuesday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Jeff O'Neill from Book Riot.
0:03.0	And I'm Rebecca Shinsky.
0:04.0	This is Zero to Well Read.
0:06.0	It's a podcast about all the books people talk about like everybody's read them, even though most of us haven't.
0:11.0	We've been talking about books on the Internet for almost 15 years together, and in that time we've heard from a lot of readers who feel like they miss the window.
0:19.0	The books they were supposed to read in high school, the classics that kept coming up in conversation,
0:24.0	the prize winners they always meant to get to.
0:27.0	That feeling of being on the outside of a book you're supposed to know is exactly why we made this show.
0:32.8	Each episode, we take on one of those titles and we give you everything you need,
0:36.2	the context, the history,
0:37.7	the cultural moment it came from, and our honest takes on how it holds up. We cover a lot of ground.
0:44.0	The canonical classics, your Shakespeare's, your Brontes, your great American novels,
0:47.9	the 20th century heavyweights that reshaped what fiction could do, the award winners that dominated
0:52.9	the conversation for a year and then somehow slipped away.
0:56.7	But it's not all old, serious books.
0:58.7	We also love a cult favorite with an obsessive fandom and a surprisingly complicated legacy.
1:04.1	The genre books that turned out to be more interesting than their reputation would have you believe,
1:07.9	and the viral sensations that made 50 million people suddenly carry about a story.
1:12.7	We've done The Great Gatsby, we've done Twilight, Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, Salman Rushdie,
1:17.5	The Secret History, and Judy Bloom, books that will be taught in universities forever, and books that
1:22.3	sparked major pop culture moments. And the thing they all have in common is that people talk about
1:27.3	them like their
	...

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