Book Riot - The Podcast

Jeff and Rebecca talk about the Goodreads Choice Winners, the NYT's 10 Best of the Year, NPR's excellent year-end round-up before talking to Katie del Rosario of Spotify about the year in audiobooks and Spotify's Audiobooks Wrapped. 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 Spotify Audiobook Trends for 2025 NYT 100  Notable Books of 2025, which does, in fact, contain its top 10 NYT Top Ten NPR’s “Books We Love” WaPo’s top ten Goodreads Choice Awards Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jeff and Rebecca look back on their It Books selections from 2025 to see what they got right and wrong. But first, take a look at a pretty uninspiring slate of December new releases. 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 December Releases: House of Day, House of Night by Olga Tokarczuk Somewhere, a Boy and a Bear by Gyles Brandreth A Danger to the Minds of Young Girls by Adam Morgan A Long Game by Elizabeth McCracken The Tower and the Ruin by Michael Drout Every Day I Read by Hwang Bo-Reum Feast on Your Life by Tamar Adler An Arcane Inheritance by Kamilah Cole The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits For a complete list of It Books discussed in this episode, visit our website. 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

Jeff and Rebecca wrap up the 2025 Holiday Recommendations. 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 In the Time of Butterflies by Julia Alvarez 2 AM at the Cat’s Pajamas by Marie-Helen Bertino The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles Pachinko by Min Jin Lee The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune The Parker Inheritance by Varian Johnson The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd The Fellowship of Puzzlemakers by Samuel Burr The Slough House series by Mick Herron My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie Jane Harper Tilt by Emma Pattee A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean The Unveiling by Quan Barry Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy Riverman by Ben McGrath The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy Kevin Wilson People Like Us by Jason Mott Marie-Helene Bertino Katie Kitamura Colson Whitehead Tom Robbins Oreo by Fran Ross Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey Something From Nothing by Alison Roman Start Here by Sohla El-Waylly Good Things by Samin Nosrat Six Seasons of Pasta (and/or Six Seasons of Vegetables) by Josh McFadden Now & Again by Julia Turshen The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri East of Eden by John Steinbeck The Lost Man by Jane Harper The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo Like a Mother by Angela Garbes Essential Labor by Angela Garbes Splinters by Leslie Jamison Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead Jonathan Evison Model Home by Rivers Solomon Reign & Ruin by J. D. Evans So Good They Can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport The Imposter Cure by Jessamy Hibberd Life in Three Dimensions by Shigehiro Oishi The Broken Shore by Peter Temple Light Years by James Salter I Married You for Happiness by Lily Tuck Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levitan Ross Gay Hanif Abdurraquib Ada Limon Sarah Kay 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

Jeff and Rebecca are back with another holiday recommendation show. Part 2 coming on Monday. 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 Little Blue Truck Little Pea by Amy Rosenthal I Love You, Stinky Face by Lisa McCourt Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy Real Americans by Rachel Khong A Marriage at Sea by Sophie Elmhirst The Lost Man by Jane Harper Highway 59 series by Attica Locke Tilt by Emma Pattee The Secret History by Donna Tartt The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler Piranesi by Susanna Clarke Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl Katabasis by R. F. Kuang The Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin The Wright Brothers by David McCullough The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee We the People by Jill Lepore Bad Blood by John Carreyrou It’s Only Drowning by David Litt The English Understand Wool by Helen DeWitt The Midnight Timetable by Bora Chung Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood Blob by Maggie Su The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff Matrix by Lauren Groff The Princess in Black by Shannon Hale Survivor’s Guilt by Robyn Gigl Jinx Ballou series by Dharma Kelleher How to Live Safely in a Science Fiction Universe by Charles Yu Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway Perfect Little World by Kevin Wilson Audition by Katie Kitamura A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar Palaver by Bryan Washington Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff Mr. Ives' Christmas by Oscar Hijuelos The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen Winter by Ali Smith 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

Jeff and Rebecca inhale a slew of best books of the year lists. 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 Book Riot’s Best Books of 2025 National Book Award winners Shein partners with Alibris to sell books Lit Hub’s Book Twitter bracket Libro.fm's top 10 audiobooks of the year Audible’s best of 2025 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Vanessa Diaz is back to talk with Jeff and Rebecca about what magical realism is, where it comes from, and how to talk about it. 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 One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriela Garcia Marquez Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende Labyrinths or Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar The Storyteller’s Death by Ann Dávila Cardinal The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez Magical/Realism by Angelica Villareal The Week of Colors by Elena Garro, Megan McDowell (trans.) The Queen of Swords by Jazmina Barrera, Christina MacSweeney (trans.) 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

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

This is a bonus preview of our ⁠Patreon-only⁠ episode in which Jeff and Rebecca talk about what they've been doing with their lives recently, outside of the world of books. To listen to the full episode and all previous bonus content, ⁠become a Patreon member here⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jeff and Rebecca talk about the books they still want to get to before 2026 gets here. 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 Flesh by David Szalay Maggie by Katie Yee Kaplan's Plot by Jason Diamond Who is Government? by Michael Lewis Some Bright Nowhere by Ann Packer The Uncool by Cameron Crowe Joyride by Susan Orlean A Truce That is Not Peace by Miriam Toews Trying by Chloe Caldwell Next of Kin by Gabrielle Hamilton Girl Warrior by Joy Harjo The Season by Helen Garner Does This Make Me Funny? by Zosia Mamet Palaver by Bryan Washington The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones Black-Owned by Char Adams This is for Everyone by Tim Berners-Lee Every Screen on the Planet by Emily Baker-White Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad Heart the Lover by Lily King The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai Will There Ever Be Another You by Patricia Lockwood A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar The Eleventh Hour by Salman Rushdie Squirrel by Nancy Castaldo Isola by Allegra Goodman We The People by Jill Lepore The History of Money by David McWilliams Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane The Emergency by George Packer What We Can Know by Ian McEwan El Dorado Drive by Megan Abbott Vera, or Faith by Gary Shteyngart Brigands & Breadknives by Travis Baldree The Librarians by Sherry Thomas The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett The Persian by David McCloskey Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid 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

We're in a lull of current publishing industry news, so Jeff and Rebecca speculate about upcoming book awards, year-end announcements, and the book of the year, as well as touch on the impact of AI on writing. 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 New Report Examines Writers’ Attitudes toward AI [Publishers Weekly] My Students Use AI. So What? [The Atlantic] The Ten Year Affair by Erin Somers Erin Somers interview on First Edition The Running Ground by Nicholas Thompson Craftland by James Fox Make your Holiday Book Recommendation requests to podcast [at] bookriot.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices