We Don't Like End-of-Year Book Lists, Plus: Our End-of-Year Book List!

All those “best books of the year” lists are bogus marketing material that flattens the distinct reading experience that any individual brings to a book they interact with. We tore apart the very concept of those lists in this episode. Then we shared our own Best Books list! Hypocrisy, or nuanced ability to delicately balance competing perspectives? Eh. 

Also, what is Author X up to with that crummy novel they released this year? Blind and not-so-blind items on the year’s worst books.

 

Works cited this episode:

 

Books We Love, National Public Radio

100 Notable Books of 2025, The New York Times

Sunshine on the Reaping, Suzanne Collins

Audition, Katie Mitamura

Spent, Alison Bechdel

“In Defense of the Traditional Review,” Richard Brody, The New Yorker

Luminous, Silvia Park

Audition, Pip Adam

Terrestrial History, Joe Mungo Reed

What We Can Know, Ian McEwan

The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu

Shadow Ticket, Thomas Pynchon

Of Monsters and Mainframes, Barbara Truelove

The Merge, Grace Walker

Severance, created by Dan Erickson

Severance, Ling Ma

The Unveiling, Quan Barry

Will There Ever Be Another You, Patricia Lockwood

Bind Me Tighter Still, Lara Ehrlich

Old Soul, Susan Barker

Metallic Realms, Lincoln Michel

Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov

Alchemised, SenLinYu