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Gays Reading, where the greats drop by. Trendy authors tell us all the who, what, and why. Anyone can listen, cause we're spoiler free. Gays Reading. From poets and stars, to book club picks. Where the curious minds can get their fix. So you say you're not gay, well that's okay. There's something for everyone. Gays Reading. Um, uh,

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Hello, and welcome to gays reading. I'm your host, Jason Blitman. And happy new year. Welcome to the first episode of season four. I can't believe that we are already on, we've been through enough. To be at some semblance of a season four. Thank you so much for joining me. And for being here on this super fun and exciting journey. On today's episode, I am stoked. Cause it's a collab. I have the folks who host the book riot podcast here with me. They are fantastic. If you do not know them, they are Jeff O'Neill and Rebecca Chansky. You will fall in love with them as quickly as I did. And also following up with their podcasts as quickly as I did go check out the book riot podcast over wherever you get your podcasts. I. I am on their show today talking about. The queer bugs that I'm most looking forward to in 2025 over on their podcast today, they're talking to me today about what they're looking forward to in 2025. And then my guests gay reader today is Brad Somerville. Also known as Brad bought a book over on books to Graham. Telling me about the books that he's looking forward to. So today is a day where your TBR is going to get all sorts of messed up, apologies in advance because that's what it is. All of the bugs and we're super excited about. You can watch this episode over on YouTube. You could like it. Subscribe. Wherever you get your podcasts. And if you are so inclined, leave a five-star review, particularly on apple podcasts, which is a little bit of a pain in the butt to get to, but it is super, super helpful for the algorithm and to help other people find gays reading. All of the links to all of the things are in the show notes, but also in the link tree on our Instagram, you can follow us over on social media, on Instagram at gays reading, we have a fantastic giveaway happening right now. Two of my favorite family dramas of the year. You can go win copies of those over on Instagram. And. If you are new to gays reading, you have not heard me say this yet. I am so excited to be partnering with aardvark book club to provide an exclusive introductory discount. New members in the United States can join today. Enter the code, gays, reading a checkout and get their first book for$4 with free shipping that's aardvark book club.com two A's. And use the code gays reading at checkout. The link also to that is in the show notes. There are a handful of really exciting books coming out today. A couple off the top of my head. Our sweet fury by sash. Bischof the three lives of Kate Kay, by Kate Fagan home seeking by Carissa Chen and play world by Adam Ross. I am so excited for each and every one of those books. And again, you're about to get messed up your TBR because your are. Jeff O'Neill and Rebecca Chansky. Talking to me about what they are most looking forward to in 2025.

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now recording is in progress. Jeff, you were like about to say something so nice and kind. And I like wanted to, I didn't want to, I didn't want you to have to recreate it. Yeah. Now I know it's being recorded. I'll have to, I'll have to put a little salt in the sugar. Um, but I was gonna say, thanks for having us. We don't usually Go on another show, uh, at Wonder Twins Unite. We'll try not to overwhelm and do our shtick on your shtick. Uh, we want to do your shtick rather than ours. I want you to do your shtick so that everyone goes and listens to the Book Riot podcast, because you're different than Gays Reading, and that's what makes this so fun. A little bit. Yeah, a little bit. Rebecca and Jeff, welcome to Gays Reading! Thank you! Hey, thanks for having us. We're really excited to be here. Yeah, we're stoked. So excited that you made your bed. Oh, just calling you out right from the top. We should have had great culture over here. We'll not take that kind of assault. I do feel the need. This is my culture, not your culture. This is, I, I happen to know that Jeff's unmade bed is the product of his partner who she refuses to tolerate a made bed. So we can't even blame the unmade bed situation on the whole straight man ness of Jeff. The assumption is not the worst one, but yes, my, my dearly beloved, um, she likes to, I guess, crawl in like a hamster, just has to be ready and messy every time. So that's, we would do it that way. I fully respect. Knowing your brand and leaning into it. Is it an excuse? You know, never let a good excuse go unused. I know her. This lady, she's an architect. She is precise. She knows what she wants. And it's kind of surprising in the constellation of her personality that the thing she prefers is an unmade bed. So I'm gonna go, like, I don't miss an opportunity to rouse Jeff, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna put this one on her. You gotta, you gotta give her wide berth because, um, she's formidable. We should just talk about her this whole yeah, she's gonna be mortified And that the unmade bed is in the background I guess is another thing Jason like we come from the early days of podcasting where video wasn't a thing So I'm used to being a mind in the flow a brain in a jar. Well, that was me for a long time And then when I suddenly saw numbers on YouTube, I was like, I gotta keep putting things on YouTube. We're headed that direction in early 2025 and we're both getting our heads around it. Yeah. Sort of like lifestyle Botox for my whole situation to clean. Get yourself a good zoom background. What a good book title. I bet we could go get a hundred figure advance for that right now. Harper, Harper lifestyles. They, they're, they have their AI listening to us. They're like, that's a thing. We're going to do that. it is perhaps a most anticipated book of 2028. Oh, that's a hell of a segue. One of my favorite things is a segue. Jason, can we curse? Yeah, sure. We don't curse on our own show, so I'm going to flip the bit. I don't curse a ton, but I'm marked as explicit just in case. Okay, we should probably do that. Yeah, yeah, we've been letting ourselves off the leash a little more the last couple of years. Yeah. Well, now's the time to practice. You can like, let it go. I know. I was like, hell of a thing. I was like, can I say that? Do you not say hell of a thing on the book? We say hell. But then I had to like, you never know other people's audiences occasionally. Fair. Totally fair. Okay, so our, our book that we're all going to write is going to be a Most Anticipated 2028. But what about 2025? Wait, do the two of you know what your most anticipated are? No. Good. I love this. So we try to fly blind as much as possible to surprise each other. Yes. So I have my first book. I have four picks and then I have backups in case Jeff and I overlapped and I only four picks. Okay. Well, someone did the minimum. Okay. I told you that Jason said three to four. Do you do not read my messages? Well, look, listen, do you spend all of your paycheck every month or do you save a little extra just in case I'm saying I have extra in the tank. I have bonus picks. Whoa, nine. Okay. Well, wait, I have an important question. What makes the most anticipated book? I'll let Rebecca take that one. Well. I took the I went personal on this one because you get both the lists of like big titles that are going to be splashy that you should pay attention to, or you can go the route of like, what am I personally excited to read? And then sometimes on our show, we do a seasonal draft where we try to pick like a variety pack of the 10 books for the season that we think a general reader would be most interested in. And those are all different tasks. So I went for four to nine, I guess, of the ones that I am personally looking forward to reading that are maybe a little under the radar, because I always do want to take a chance to talk about aren't going to be splashed out like publicity campaigns also. Um, go ahead, Jeff, what about you? What makes them anticipated? We spend a lot of time in Edelweiss. So I don't know how How insider your listeners are. I'm sure Jason, you spend some time in it, but it's, it's basically the tool that people that work in books used to look at what's coming out in it. Uh, I was rage slacking Rebecca with some seasonal fraud about people having their January, 2025 book releases in their fall, 2024 calendar. Um, there's a reason I have as much hair as I have when it comes to dealing with Edelweiss at this point. So I, we do this a lot. We live in a lot and I was doing some other stuff. So what I did is I pull hundreds of books out of that for my own spreadsheet. And so what I did for this, Jason, as I looked, maybe here's some stuff that I'm interested that maybe your audience would be listening. I don't know. So there's some LBTQ forward stuff, stuff I'm interested in anyway. I didn't go proactively. cherry pick anything for this particular show. And then a couple of things that are like me, um, that are actually sort of here just to make Rebecca laugh. And if you laugh too, but a lot of what I do in these is trying to find something that will surprise delight and maybe shock, uh, Um, Rebecca that my attention to this particular topic or title exists at all. I'm known for being able to read about anything. Yeah. Um, like I'm going to stay on brand. The most boring possible single subject histories. Jeff will read a history of writing in 10 pencils. Like, yeah. If there's already a history of pride in 12 parades, we should write that. We will read it. It did not make my list, but there is a book coming out next season called carpet DM, a history of the world at 12 rugs. He's going to read it. Oh, I already sent a request. Well, carpet DM everyone. Uh, but in, in terms of like literal. What draws you to it? Is it a cover? Is it a logline? Is it an author? Is it a genre? Is it a general aesthetic? Is it a publisher pushing it? Yes. All those things. Yeah. Yeah. Like we want to think that we're, you know, above the marketing tactics of publishers, just because we know how they work. But like a blurb will work on me sometimes, even though I know that like the authors just have the same agent or they went to the MFA program together and that author blurb, like this author blurb, that author's last book, you can see how the sausage is made and you're so Still gonna like, have the biscuits and gravy. Yeah. Though I will say, I know enough authors now where if, when I see blurbs, I can reach out and be like, should I read this book? That's right. Yeah. The, uh, was this blurb a favor or is it a real thing? I will say 99 percent of the time the answer is yes, read the book. It was so good. Um, so that's a good thing. know, authors are an easy touch. They're a soft touch. Yeah. Which I understand. Yeah. I can especially fall also to, like, I'm prey to the pop culture comps. If someone is like, this is like Megan Abbott meets Yellow Jackets, I'll be like, yes. Interesting. If you can really capture the vibe of a different kind of piece of media that I liked, you know, the vibe of a movie and map it onto a book that, if it works, that works for me. But if it's a lie, I'm so mad. I was just gonna say, I was talking to somebody about a book coming out this year. that had a comp that I just did not agree with. I've read the book. Oh, comp fraud is real out there. It's no, we really need to do something. It's unfortunate because it sets expectations and it sets the book up for failure. If I was expecting a different book, I think I would have. Liked the book more and so unfortunately the bar was just like astronomically high my like, eternal rant about this is that comp fraud values this. sales over reader satisfaction and so you get the sale but then you get a bunch of negative Goodreads reviews because it's not what it said on the tin and it sets the author up for folks not to pick up their next book because they got the wrong vibe like the Gone Girl comps are the worst of this like we're almost 15 years past Gone Girl. We're still getting comps for it, and where the crawdads sing is one that I see trotted out a whole lot, like, if it touches nature at all, it must be for readers of where the crawdads sing. Right, exactly. Well, similarly, I loved Friday Night Lights, the TV show, and I love Frederick Backman's work, but when I was told that Beartown was Friday Night Lights but for hockey, I was like, give it to me, I cannot wait, read it, and was like. Very disappointed. Yeah, that's a lie. That's a tough one. Well, and I guess I, it's. It's a double edged sword, right? Because they want people to read the book. It's like, if you give an accurate comp that's going to have fewer people pick it up, you roll the dice and you hope it works. Um, the things we get excited about, we do like a good novel kind of comp, like if it's something that makes our brain record scratch, that's always a good sign. We've been doing this long enough. We've read enough books that we tend to stay away from And Rebecca, I'll speak for you momentarily and correct my, my, um, uh, avoidable, avoidably barbaric simplifications, but we don't read a lot of category stuff. So like a category, mystery, category, romance, spy thrillers. We're not. I don't know habitual consistent readers of pretty straight genre fiction. We like something that's new. We like mix ups. We like mashups We like literary fiction with the twist is probably our shared wheelhouse more than anything. We like a good memoir We do like a good nonfiction narrative nonfiction a bloodless crime is a shared passion, right? You're gonna steal something you're gonna con someone out of something White collar crime. I'll read about it all day. I am a coward and um, I don't like I don't like the violence and the gore stuff so we're not doing a lot of true crime and kinds of things and we have our authors that we like and then It's so hard because so much new is debut And you don't know anything about the author, and you want to give something a try, and yet there's so many books to read that we find ourselves, I think, thinking, we don't take chances ahead of time. We need some secondary indication, like, we have some people in our own lives, their book right itself, do a lot of that more. And once they've gone and said the water's okay, then we'll jump in after them. But we tend to shy away from, I don't think you're going to see on my list anything that's like, so completely new to me that I'm just like, let's, Take her out for a spin and see what happens. Well, Jeff, you have me on the edge of my seat. Well, I, okay, so how do you want to go? You want to go back and forth? Because, Rebecca, we may have some similar ones here. Do you have two, do you have picks for this two, Jason? Or is it just Rebecca and I serving as tennis balls at you? I, around, all around me. So I'm on the Book Riot podcast talking about my anticipated books of 2025. That was going to be the shtick for the return. My listeners, go on over to the Book Riot podcast and you can hear what I have to say about what I'm excited about. So Rebecca, you go first, because you may have some of the same ones. Yeah, well, one of my, this is an author that I love, who does a thing that I think we need much more of, Linda Holmes. It's called Back After This, coming out February 25th. You may know Linda Holmes from NPR's pop culture happy hour, uh, show, podcast, whatever. This is her third contemporary release. rom com. I'm not sure we technically call them romances because they don't necessarily end with a happily ever after, but it's a rom com vibe. Um, and her heroines are middle aged, which is wonderful. We don't get enough middle aged characters, especially in romance. This one is also about a podcaster. Uh, a woman, Cecily Foster, who loves to make podcasts and has a disastrous relationship with a colleague who stole her heart and her ideas. And then other things happen in her life. I'm trying not to know very much about it because I've been delighted by Linda Holmes and her first book, Evie Drake Starts Over, is one that I would have missed if not for a good recommendation from Jeff. We love good recommendations. And also, I'm a big fan of Just a Logline. I can't read, if I read more than that, it starts to spoil everything. If I go next, so I thought you might have this Rebecca, um, we've talked about Kevin, we talk about Kevin Wilson all the time on the BR5. That's on my list too. Coming out um, May 13th, so a little later into the season. I don't know, Rebecca and I were talking about this, January and February are sort of weak. Um, this year and maybe I'm just not finding the right stuff, but I didn't see a lot for January and February, but Kevin Wilson um My half half serious suggestion is to change your name Kevin Wilson because it's too easy to forget I I've suggested Kevin the lumberjack. We'll call him lumberjack. Oh, it's just hard to remember and he writes commercial zany weird really funny stuff But like the branding is tough around books and authors writ large unless you become super super huge or you've got an interesting Name that people can remember but all of his books are pretty weird now is not the time to panic nothing to see here The family fang is highly recommendable. This is his road trip book Run for the hills. I don't even know if I said the title. I got so excited about saying how Kevin name And it's sort of I wish people knew more about Kevin it comes out of a really generous place I feel like there's a lot of people he's so great. Can we is this the beginning of it? Kevin the Lumberjack Wilson? Have we just done it? Maybe your folks can get this going. I can't make this stuff go viral. He's so zany. It's so good. So zany for someone named Kevin Wilson. It's kind of a joke inside of a joke. This is also something I care about. Um, Jason, which you may not know. 256 pages. You're not going to be around for 100 million years. Bless. Love. I love a short book. I like a long book, but give me a short book. I love a long book. Yes, that is that is an ultimate page turner. I loved Chris Whittaker's All the Colors of the Dark because it's 600 pages and every chapter is, is amazing. Three pages long. Okay. I have been waiting for someone to tell me that that book is worth reading because I've been holding off because it is 600 pages long. Oh, it is one of my favorites of the year. Okay. Sold. Must. And we have, I listened to your, to your favorites of the year. You have, we have some similar overlapping tastes. So. Okay. The other thing I pay attention to on this just before I let Kevin Wilson go is print runs, and there's a bunch of print run fraud in Edelweiss, but 150, 000 copy print run for a book like this, even if that's half of what they say it is, that's a significant number for a book like this. Yeah, yep. I was just talking to my husband last night about season planning and it's like impossible to sort of project things and when you, but when you see a print run even if it may be a little fudged, right, you're like, oh yeah, it's a good cut of pen and it's sort of directionally right, you know, it's maybe accurate if not precise. The new Jojo Moyes. 400, 000 copies. Well, Onyx Storm is, I've never seen a two. It's a two million. And that's just for the standard edition. That's the third Rebecca Euros, right? We're not, we're not picking that. We're not, we're not. Barbra Streisand's book, I think, was the highest I'd ever seen, and I think it was a million. Yeah, yeah. There was, there was, The one of that new Hoover ends with us was one and a half, but I'd never seen a 2 million. Yeah, this particular one. Anyway, that's enough. So it's a short book. We love, we love, we love. It's a short book. We're happy. Kevin Wilson is a shared fave of ours. So I'm glad you mentioned that one, Jeff. Um, my next one is Harriet Tubman live in concert by the drag queen. I am. Oh, you're holding it up. I'm so excited about this because as Jeff was just saying, like this seems new and it's gonna be weird and new and weird if it's done well will be great and the publisher's weekly review, like it got a star, the publisher's weekly review was a rave. So I was like, okay, it's new and weird and it's good. It's not just a gimmick because the pitch does kind of sound like a gimmick. So this is a specific in which heroes from history. Like, unexplainably return to the present to try to, like, help us get our shit back together. And Harriet Tubman and four of the enslaved people that she led to freedom have come back and they want to tell their story by way of a hip hop album. I am 1, 000, 000 percent here for this. Sold. Done. Period. I know, I'm sorry. And it's literally under 250 pages, so. Even better. All debut novels should be under 250 pages. Like, you're trying to break somebody out. You gotta make the barrier to entry low. I know. Alright, I've got one that's also 256 pages, weirdly. My next pick here. Um, this comes out June 3rd from Norton. I like, both Rebecca and I like food writing. And John Bertil's last book was a biography of James Beard and won the James Beard award. I don't know. That feels like insider trading. That does feel like insider trading. But it's also the big food award. I don't know how you get around that. But his next book is called What is Queer Food? How We Served a Revolution, and it's about the influence of queer chefs, queer cuisine, and brunch culture. on European and American food sort of, it doesn't really look, it doesn't give me a beginning sort of time, but I'm guessing sort of mid 20th century onward. Um, I'm hoping there's an audio book because I will devour this, uh, excuse, the extended culinary metaphor on audio. Um, but Bird's Hall is terrific and I'm really, this is one of my nonfiction summer picks. I'm really looking forward. Interesting. Oh, I'm excited. Now my, my mind immediately goes dirty. Which is not good. Tell us more. No, or don't. Queer food. My problem with food related books is I want to eat the food. I, I can't, I have a hard time watching British Big Show. I have a hard time watching it because I want to eat it. I still do. But that's my, my issue. Did you read the, what was it called? The, Raw Dog, the hot dog book last year? No, no, no, no. No, but I The cover is ridiculous. Yes, it's amazing. And one of my friends puts it in his bookstore with a shelf talker that is like, this is funny and fascinating and gross and surprisingly horny. And it's like, this is kind of the perfect pitch for a food pitch. I should, uh, listen to that audio. So funny. All right, Rebecca, what do you have next? Oh, my next one Stop me if you've heard this one. It's a novel by Kristen Arnett, uh, coming out March 18th. Kristen. Oh, you have this one too, Jason. What imprint is that? I missed that, Rebecca. What imprint is it? Riverhead. It's Riverhead. Yeah. Wait, that's, what month? March. March. March 18th. Yeah. So we can't even blame the whole like seasonal bleed, which can I take us on like a brief aside to share one of my publishing facts that I learned this year. So Jeff and I have ranted about the inconsistency of publishing seasons enough on our show where like one house has like spring, summer, fall, and winter. When does fall start? None of the houses can agree. Some of them just have like spring, winter, and fall. Like it's like a Nate Bargetti sketch. It is completely. Nobody knows. Like it just inconsistent drives me nuts. And we got an email from a listener this year who was like, this exists because of like the Erie Canal. And it's because like back when books got shipped on actual ships down the, like down the Hudson River and in the Erie Canal, you had to ship them either before the winter, before everything froze, which was the fall list. Like they would ship. All of those books in the fall from like September through February releases. And then they had the winter or spring list for after the thaw. And since we don't ship books that way anymore, there's been bleed about what the seasons are. But that is where we got, that is why originally there were publishing seasons. We love listeners. We do! Thanks, listeners! Yes! And they know all kinds of random things. It's wonderful. Though I will say, I got into a conversation with Roxane Gay about our mutual frustration with peeling garlic. Oh. And, um, requested people to send in their advice. And people did, but it was like the sort of things we all, we already know, like crush it with the knife and peel it off, but then your hands get sticky. No one came in with like the number one best solution. So I'm still on the hunt. There's like a little tube kind of device that you put the clove of garlic in and you like shake it and it. The friction takes the paper off. Really? Mm hmm. I don't have this problem. I don't mind touching garlic, but I've seen this thing. It's just like, then you get the, it sticks on you and you have to, it's a lot of. It's a whole thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But there is a thing. Okay. We'll take it offline. I've been losing sleep over this. Stop me if you've heard this one by Kristen Arnett, uh, is about a woman who is a professional clown in Orlando, Florida. And if you don't know Kristen Arnett, she is one of the great novelists of Florida. There's a few of them who like really capture the vibe of Florida and how special and strange and just wacky it can be. Oh, okay. I should. And yeah, and so Kristen Arnett, you get Florida lesbians, and this one is a Florida lesbian who's a clown, and I don't need to know anything else. Nothing else. That's all we need. Jeff, what's wrong? Your brow is very furrowed. I was trying to think, do I want to go Florida, do I want to put a check, a hat on a hat and go my Florida pick? I think I'll switch it up and save it just for now. Oh, okay. I think for January The book of the month to be sort of all the way around I'm putting onyx storm to the side That's a whole that's almost bigger than books at this point and largely outside of our interest but uh, Nnedi okorafor's book the death of the author comes out january 14th from william morrow There's a lot of news about she got a huge advance for it and she's been writing for a while But like there's something special about this one. The logline is pretty interesting in which the main character um writes a Best selling Kind of culture shaping book, but it becomes such a hit that it gets away from her. And like, what are all the manifestations or ramifications of something like that happening, which is super interesting. Given, uh, someone who's blurbing it is George R. Martin, who knows about the narrative getting away from me, which was from him, which is pretty funny, but you can, some authors we will not talk about who have become complicated in their relationships to the work that have been Titanic successes. Um, and then of course, her own interest in. African ness, um, and speculative fiction and futurism. Really, really interesting. Four hundred and forty eight pages? Eh, nervous here. I think she earns it, though. We trust Maddie. Yeah, I, definitely we're going to give you a chance, but. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to reading this, um, position to, I think, try to take her to a new level. of appreciation and readership than the real ones who know sci fi. I think no, but it really hasn't broken out too much beyond that. And I'm hoping that this does it and warrants it at the same time. Spoiler alert, On, this comes out on January 7th, our episode, January 21st is my episode with Nnedi Okorafor. Yay! Great job. Talking about Death of the Author. The print run ratio is weird. The standard edition has a 30 K print run and the special is 150. So a five to one, I don't know. I'm just trying to shovel people towards those special editions because they look so nice in bookstores. Is that what people want? I don't know, Shinsuke. I mean, you and I don't care about, um, well, I'm not going to say the word that puts you on edge. Uh, we don't care about that particular book patch packaging technique. Um, It's interesting. I was listening to, I don't remember, somewhere someone was talking about, uh, often what they'll do in the UK is publish in paperback. And then if a book is a success, then they start publishing in hardback. And that is a great system. Who do we need to write to? I know. It's beautiful. Instead, we get the thing where they all come out in hardcover, and when it's successful, they keep it in hardcover. for six years. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I have tendinitis in my thumb and I need to, it's very hard to hold it. This is an accessibility concern. Yes. Yes. Thank you. I need to feel seen by the book publishers. Um, but yes, Nnedi Okorafor, we're very excited about her. I have some news for you about where that's going to fall on the list of publishers DEI priority. This is gay rights. Jeff almost spit all over. Sorry, I shouldn't have done that. That was a tactical error. That's a, that's a rare thing of beauty. You should feel good about that, Jason. God, I feel so good. The man uses like one exclamation point a year in a text. And if I get it, if I get Haley's comic comes around, you know, I get out a post it and say, you've got one to use. Cause it looks like it? No, I mean, yeah. It looks like a comment. Yeah. Oh yeah. That reminds me. I have a, I have one in my, uh, I have one in the chamber that I can fire. Rebecca, what else do you have on your list? Okay, so I have A Flame, Learning from Silence by Pico Ayer. He is a travel writer, uh, who I've only recently come to. I love travel writing, and he mentions in several of his books that he goes on these Uh, retreats basically several times a year to a Benedictine hermitage, like where a bunch of monks live in Big Sur, California. What makes this interesting is he's not religious at all, but you can go and stay and have like a silent meditation retreat. Basically you roll your own. And he has gone there hundreds of times over the last 30 years. And this is a book about stillness, about like, the 30 years that he has been going to this monastery and how he has changed and how it has changed. Meditation is a big part of my life. I love a creative take on writing about it. And like, I mean, a travel book that's also about meditation is the thing that I'm not going to be able to resist. So this is my like one for me. This is sort of how I feel about food books, I think. Tell me more. I want to be able to go there. Yeah. Yeah. Like the last time that I read one of So Jason, you can only read about things you don't like, is what I'm hearing. That sounds disgusting, and it's a hellscape dystopia, I'm in. Or you just throw yourself into it. Like this is, I mean, on Black Friday, I got a like, travel discount email from one of the tour companies that I've used in the past. And it was like, do you want to go to Slovenia? And three hours later, I was buying tickets to Slovenia. Good for you. Lean in. good for you. No, I don't. That is not true. I appreciate that a book will inspire me to want to go somewhere and see the world in a way that I maybe hadn't before. One of my favorite books of 2024 is Havoc by Christopher Bolan. And it's a super fun. It's it's being billed as a thriller. It's not really a thriller. It's like a Hitchcock Ian, like Hotel Slowburn. Pseudo thriller, um, but it takes place in Luxor, Egypt, and all I wanted to do the whole time was go to Egypt, so. I feel it. I love that. Yeah. So that's mine. I'll do my one for me, since you did, since you broke the seal on being narcissistically interested in our own reading interests. Uh, this is called Foreign Freaks, A Personal History of the Orange, by Katie Goh. Uh, I believe G O H is the last name, coming out from Tin House, May 6th. No page count, Jason, so we have to furrow our brow at, um, the metadata around that. So, this book started out as a history of the orange. One of the running bits on our show is that I read a book called, The wrong book about the history in the apple of apples and fell in love with it. Um, and the wrong book. Oh, it's called the wrong book. Or you didn't read the book called the orchard. And I read a book called the orchard and fell in love with it and had been non ironically proselytizing for it ever since the right, wrong book, the right, wrong book. So this. This author sounds like she starts out wanting to write a cultural history of the orange that's about colonialism and transnational trade and all the things that go into sort of the making of modern international food ways. And then as she kind of uncovers her own. Personal history. She is a let me see the hyphen here chinese malaysian irish uh person who also is um queer at the same time so like a lot of this comes out of like the history of oranges with like um Oranges aren't the only fruit like there's there's other things going on here that I think are interesting But a personal history of the orange as the colon after the title of your book is going to get me 1000 Percent of the time a personal history of the more minor thing. I'm like, I don't know how someone's gonna pull off 220 pages and keep my interest Generally, they do and that it's from tin house suggests. It's gonna be literary and interesting So that's my one for me. That may maybe only be on my list of most anticipated I love a good like narrative nonfiction literary situation I think you've gotten good validation over the last couple of years for the selection of Paved Paradise, which is about parking lots. Parking lots. Yeah, that's a good one. And it's done very well, and people still tell us that they appreciated the recommendation. So, like, we've got some proof of concept for the Jeff niche. Is Paved Paradise, like, It's a play on the Joni Mitchell song. Well, no, no, obviously, obviously. I mean, I'm, I guess what I'm asking, like, what kind of story is it? Is it someone's personal story? Is it like the history of parking lots? It's like how parking has, has shaped American culture, right? How our cities are built, how we account for things, zoning. There's this unbelievable story about how a private equity firm bought the rights to the Chicago parking meters and destroyed the city's ability to change itself for like 25 years. Um, And then you'll start seeing like, look at all the real estate given up to cars, right? Like when I lived in New York, you could street park your car for free in Brooklyn. And it's like, that's 160 square feet of real estate. That's the equivalent of like 200, 000 that I just get for free that we just give to like that kind of stuff. Interesting. Okay. I appreciate it. If you have a very small mind, it'll blow your mind because it doesn't take very much. Not much gun power needed. Yeah. I love like a personal story. I mean, I'm happy to read a book like that, but for me, like there was a book, one of my first nonfiction that I really liked was called Why Peacocks that came out a few years ago. And it was the story of a guy who got a phone call from a friend and there were like peacocks in the yard. And he like. essentially adopted two peacocks and it was the story of of how he and his family basically became peacock farmers from this like one random thing and then he learned so much about peacocks because of this anyway that that's like an example those those those impulsive like it'll be Fine. And then how it all works out. I love those stories. Yeah, I love that. A subgenre of the fiasco man. Yes, I would call it. Okay. Yes. Fiasco man is a it's a character. It's a vibe that exists on our show of kind of a fiasco man is like Florida man's cousin. But I think I'd probably like fiasco man more than Florida man. I think that you would fiasco man's rallying cry was How hard can it be? And they get themselves into horrible trouble. Yeah, like, uh, my husband is on the roof with a rickety ladder doing a thing, and Jeff is getting a text like, fiasco man rides again. So fun. Love, love it, love it, love it. Um, of course, another example is Bianca Bosker's Get the Picture. Yes. Oh, so good. Like, first hand experience doing something and, you know, that sort of thing. Yeah. Have you read Cork Dork, her first one? I listened to it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So fun. Um, not only It becomes a shtick, right? I mean, I guess just to follow up on that, cause then it becomes, you don't want it to be too much of a gimmick, right? It has to be real. Like you actually live with peacocks, not, I'm looking for something to write a book about, let me go get some peacocks and make it weird. Then you cross into A. J. Jacob's land. Right. Who is also the nicest guy in the world. Yeah, he's great. But he's not that corner. Don't go, that's corners outside. Don't go over there. Rebecca, was that all, was that your whole list? Well, I mean, I mean, I have some more that I can dip into. No, that's okay. I know that Jeff like has a whole list. I'm curious if there's something else. I don't want to belabor the point. Um, I thought you might've had the Karen Russell on your list, Rebecca. I, I was holding my powder for the Karen Russell, but I do, I'll talk about what an August release, just very briefly. Uh, Catabasis, Catabasis, I don't know how you pronounce it. It's the new RF Kuang. It's coming out in August. Um, I missed the boat on Babel because it's like, Jeff is a good screener for me and was like, this is more in the hard sci fi realm than you're going to want to be. But I loved Yellow Face. And here is the logline that got me. It's Dante's Inferno meets Susanna Clark's Piranesi. Dark academic fantasy. If I want to do dark academic fantasy with anybody, I want to do it with RF Kuang. I dig that. I'm into it. Who maybe can do anything at this point. I think she might be. She might be able to able to do anything. Let me just shout out the, the Karen Russell, which is March 11th. March 11th is a big release day this year, also my birthday, so I'm really looking forward to that. Um, so Karen Russell is a little bit where I don't need to know what the synopsis is because it's going to be interesting and zany and then you have no sense of where it's going. It's set in Nebraska during the Dust Bowl. And then someone called the Prairie Witch, uh, serves as a bank vault for people's memories. Sure. What's it called? The Antidote, uh, from Knopf. Oh yes, the cover is great. It's very cool. It's been a while since we heard from Karen Russell too. Yeah, it's been a while. And, um, her last novel was Swamplandia, which is, boy, is that 10 years old at this point? I don't have the dates in front of me. So Karen Russell for me is an event, um, and I think the other, I guess to get out on this, if I were to make a List of like the 20 books of the year that maybe the whole industry will be paying attention to Because detransition baby was such a crossover hit. I think tory peters his new book also coming out on march 11th Called stag dance, which is a novel and three novellas and it's 304 pages I don't know if there's some sort of tardis situation going on for how they're cramming all that in there um, but the the follow up to a sensation is always worth paying attention to, an extraordinarily interesting writer, um, and this one is from Random House, not from One World, which, I don't know if there's anything to read into that, uh, necessarily, but, I'm really looking forward to this. Uh, funny, There's a lot you can go on here. The comps are Jeff Kaur of George Saunders and Jennifer Egan, Shinsuke Kaur too, I will say. Yep. So I'm really looking forward to this. And I thought maybe it was too obvious, but I'm not going to get out of the show today without, uh, no acknowledging that I know that you know, that I know it exists. I mean, Jason had the book like right there in hand. He didn't have to reach very far for it. Well, that was, you know, I got to have my Vanna moment. Um, Transcribed I, you just said something that I almost feel opposite about the making sure to pay attention post sensation or however you phrased it. I almost feel like that is harder for an author. No, I think it is hard. But as like an observer of someone's career, it's like, this is a critical moment, right? Is this a lot of scrutiny? I would maybe say that third, that next book, the one after that one is the one to See, I'm, like, I'm allergic to hype, so the thing that happens to me is if I don't read the thing before the hype train kicks off, I will not read it, and then I need to wait and hear, like, the second book is good, and then if I like the second book, I will go back and read the first one and be like, oh, I get it, like, I just read Sally Rooney for the first time this year because I completely missed the train on the rest of them. Well, so, I am a very new reader, and I was talking to somebody at the Texas Book Festival and I was sort of realized perhaps why I was so apprehensive to read and and she was talking about how reading is such a communal experience and I had felt like I had missed the boat on so many things and there was no way of catching up and so when I got my very first galley working for an arts and culture center and I was able to For the very first time be ahead of something that really changed my changed my perspective and being able to have conversation sort of in the moment has changed my reading entirely. Um, I read Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow six months before it was published and I was like, this is such a special book. I can't wait. Um, it's really exciting. Yeah. And really, it's, uh, Getting to talk to Nettie this morning, I think, is a great example. I'm just like, well, this is so far before your pub day, and I cannot wait for the world to experience this really interesting and special journey. Yeah, and I think once you, now that you're like, in the industry, and you get the early copies of things too, like, that's such a fire hose to try to drink from, that it shifts your perspective on ever actually feeling behind. Cause it's like, oh, we're all just permanently behind forever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There are more books. There are already too many books for any of us to catch up, like, you want to face your mortality? You're never going to read them all. Never. It's very helpful for that. And it's, it's also for me, and I'm sure you two feel this way too. There's an element of once it hits pub day, it's old. It's always tough to know, right? Because You don't know when or if anyone that listens to what you do on a pod or reads an email is ever going to read any of the books you ever talk about. Like, we did a survey on our podcast of one of the books we talk about all the time, Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. And like, how many of you have read the book we talk about the most? And not even half had read it. So. Which makes sense because there's so many books out there. So how do you figure out, and I think the only way to really do it is to talk about what you care about and let your passion and enthusiasm be the thing that people grab onto rather than it's this book versus that book. I meant old for you. Oh, yes. Right. You're, the book has come out and you're like, someone asked me if I'd read Long Island Compromise and couldn't believe that I hadn't read it. And I was like, well, she wasn't going to be on the podcast and the book wasn't sent to me and I have a giant stack of a gajillion other things sitting around me. I just haven't had it. Yeah. So it's like, I'm reading books for, you know, March and April now. So I'm like, I can't especially like with the way your show works where you're talking to a lot of authors and you are trying to read months ahead of time. That really is. It's challenging to feel like you're current when things that are coming out, you read months ago, like, right, exactly. We're always trying to time like, okay, are we going to do a new release like a book club episode about like the new Sally Rooney the week that it comes out? That means we're going to wait and read it right as it's coming out. But then you're in the sort of no man's land. Like what if it's not actually good? Can we get a good episode out of it anyway? Always. There's a lot of fun little. Well, and some, some, uh, behind the scenes insider baseball, you know, we're recording this a month before it gets released. And when I'm recording for your show, we're recording it the day before it gets released. You know, and so it's just, it's the way that, uh, we're able to, or not to do things is very funny. This is only our second year, like actually planning out the content for our podcast. So out of the short order cook, I would say how we tend to make our show. Honestly, I, if I, It gets very complicated that I have to read the books. I mean, I guess I don't have to, but I, it is important to me to read the book. It makes a better interview, for sure. Yeah, no, it's a, when I said to Nettie something about the end, she was like, you read through the end? I was like, yes, of course I read through the end. Doesn't it make you feel special when you talk to an author and they know that you've read the book? Yeah. And that, that's unusual. That always, as a gold star homework kid, that's always a blown my mind about this sort of. I guess standard interaction they have with someone who's talking to them about books. There are two books in all the interviews I've done that I didn't finish and I told them. And they were like, very, very, very long and I just couldn't do it. Um, I, tell us, tell the listeners about Book Riot. So Book I think the original tagline was always books never boring. Uh, Book Riot is the largest independent publication about books and reading in North America. We have a website, bookriot. com, where you can find new things every day. The idea is, Not everything is for everyone, but if you care about books and reading, you should be able to find something on any given day that resonates for you. Uh, we have an explicitly like politically progressive mission. We always have. So our content is feminist. It's inclusive. Uh, we make sure that, you know, we're not publishing lists of things that are all by straight cis white men, that kind of thing. Uh, we also have like 35 newsletters about all genres and areas of interest. in books and readings. So you know, all the usual suspects, the mystery thriller, historical fiction, romance, uh, today in books is one that Jeff and I take turns writing. That's a roundup of each day's big headlines from the world of books and reading or the days where there are no big headlines. It's a roundup of some headlines. Barely interesting had barely interesting leaks that we happen to find, right? We have, uh, in reading color, which is specifically about a books by and about people of color. Our Queer as Shelves is the newsletter that Danica Ellis writes for us that specifically books by and about the LGBTQ community. We have literary activism, which is what it sounds like. Kelly Jensen is one of our longtime editors, and she's become a leading reporter in the country, really, about the push to ban books and how deeply connected it is to the right wing efforts to, you know, minimize and erase, you know, People of color and LGBTQ folks and trans folks from public life. Um, so she's covering that book riots, um, always been activist in that way. And then of course we have a bunch of podcasts. So the book riot podcast started as a weekly news and talk show about the headlines from the world of books and reading. It's relevant for both folks who work in the industry and generally interested, passionate readers. Um, we also have a second episode every week now that's a little bit more on the pop culture side where we might talk about like the New York Times top 100 list or we're talking about an adaptation that recently came out where we read the book and watch the movie together, that kind of thing. Um, and then there are podcasts for the other genres as well. So you can find us in your podcatcher of choice at Book Riot, uh, the Book Riot podcast or find us online at bookriot. com and make your way to whatever forms of media you want. So fun. And For anyone who's curious about my queer books that I'm most looking forward to, head on over to the Book Riot podcast to hear those. Rebecca and Jeff, anything else you want to say to the Gay's Reading listeners? Thanks so much for having us. Yeah, this is a, this is a hoot. Thanks so much. Thank you for being here. A hoot? This was a hoot. Jeff O'Neill, book riot. It's going on the website. That's right. The comp is a hoot and a howl. And a howl. Both a hoot and a howl. You've really made it, Jason. Oh my God. With or without an exclamation point? Oh, I think we got to do a second podcast together before you earn the exclamation point. Well, we're about to, so I can't wait. And I have one thing to say before we go, that it's an important thing for us to remember beginning this new year. Carpet DM. Carpet DM. I like how you picked up on that thread. Transitions and encircling back. Those are two of my favorite things. I also love that Jeff's camera follows him. I know, do you know that your camera does this, Jeff? It like, auto zooms? Oh, it's mind control, yeah. Okay. It's taking a, we have an understanding. So you just did this terrific, like, head roll, and it, it followed you, it did a whole nice pan. It was amazing. Just so you can get all the laundry. Yes. I really We're really bringing it back to the beginning. You are my new favorite person for just starting with things for making your bed. Like that's We keep it real on Gays Reading. Come on. That's very authentic.

Jason Blitman: 49:14

I am so excited to have today's guest gay reader. you might know him from Bookstagram's Reels and his fabulous Reels. You might know him as a fourth grade teacher of the year. you might know him as one of the biggest fans of the Notebook the Musical.

Brad Summerville: 49:40

Accurate. Oh

Jason Blitman: 49:41

also very possible you bought Sperry Top Siders from him when you lived in Denver. The one and only, Brad Somerville!

Brad Summerville: 49:50

my gosh, the fact that you know an alarming amount about me is Uh, and to be fair, my reels, I don't really, I don't, I haven't made very many recently, but hopefully that changes.

Jason Blitman: 50:04

So you're lazy, is what you're telling me?

Brad Summerville: 50:05

I'm just busy. I, um, Uh,

Jason Blitman: 50:11

I'm so happy to have you here!

Brad Summerville: 50:13

I, uh, a little nervous, but it's, I'm getting through that. Pushing through that.

Jason Blitman: 50:19

You have nothing to be nervous about. Honestly, one of my favorite Facts about you is that you have always been a very tremendous supporter of Gays Reading, and I'm grateful for

Brad Summerville: 50:29

Yeah, since the inaugural episode. Well, that was back when I first got into like the social media aspect of books. And I just ate up every single, every single episode you released.

Jason Blitman: 50:46

one of your bios deep on the internet doesn't mention books at all and talks about how outdoorsy you are. And I was like, oh Brad went from outdoors to indoors.

Brad Summerville: 50:58

Well, I was living in Colorado, so I felt like that had to be. An element of my lifestyle at the time, but I've definitely like switched. I'm now a stay inside and get under a warm blanket and read a book person, which I much

Jason Blitman: 51:13

I know. Like a married old. A married old man now. You're here to talk about your most anticipated upcoming queer books. because I am not really talking about mine on this episode because, um, listeners can listen, hear what I'm talking about, uh, over on today's episode of the Book Riot Podcast, which I'm so thrilled to be on. so here you, you are my, my, my guest gay reader for this very specific reason. I want to know what are you most excited about, uh, this year coming up? Let's, let's, what's, what's one of the first ones that

Brad Summerville: 51:51

One of the first ones, um, it actually comes out today. it's an indie author. It's called, um, the haunting between us by Paul Michael winters. Um, Yeah, he, so he wrote a book last year called Together in a Broken World, which is like a post apocalyptic YA, two teens against the world. Um, but this one is another YA book one of the main characters lives across the street from a haunted house and, um, a boy and his father move into the house to flip it because that's what they do. and then the story unfolds from there, but it's, I'm excited about it because I really liked his other work and, um, I've heard really great things from other people who've reviewed it already. So I've tried to stay away from YA recently, but, um, just because I've read so much of it, I like to like mix it up, but that one, I definitely want to read.

Jason Blitman: 52:45

To go backwards for a second in my, in my introduction of you, another, not only are you a great bookstagrammer, a great hang, but also I love that you are such a huge champion for LGBTQIA plus books, on your page. it is Very common to see you reading queer books. So that was another reason why it was so important to me to talk to you today.

Brad Summerville: 53:11

Yeah. I, you know, it's, I never really set out to do that. And once I got into that, book community, it like opened my, open myself up to like other perspectives and authors that I wouldn't, I pick up on my own or I wouldn't like pursue otherwise. Um, and the amount of queer stories that are being written and published, whether traditionally or, self published is just Phenomenal when you compare it to I mean it can still be better but phenomenal compared to like growing up. Um,

Jason Blitman: 53:46

Oh, sure. Well, while you say phenomenal, it's also sort of endless. And that's part of what you're saying compared to growing up. Um,

Brad Summerville: 53:55

Too many for me to read because I want to read them all but

Jason Blitman: 53:58

Sure. Well, it's also funny that, you know, we both grew up in Florida, so we both, you know, to see sort of what Florida has become, especially in the world of books, is sort of tragic.

Brad Summerville: 54:08

yeah but I think that like the cool thing is is that it's so much more accessible to people like The people who want to read those books can and

Jason Blitman: 54:16

Absolutely.

Brad Summerville: 54:17

I don't remember that ever being a thing growing up.

Jason Blitman: 54:21

Alright, what else is on your list?

Brad Summerville: 54:23

This one is called passing through a prairie country Prairie it's by David E. Staples. Oh, you know it?

Jason Blitman: 54:30

I do!

Brad Summerville: 54:31

Yes. Um, that one looks really good to me. It's an indigenous, author and it's about this, like, dark entity that resides in a casino on a reservation, and it follows one of the patrons of that casino and then a documentarian that comes in, Not to investigate like the dark force, but to like,

Jason Blitman: 54:52

Mm hmm.

Brad Summerville: 54:52

I don't know. It just, it, it looks good. I I've been into like horror. I think it's supposed to be really funny too. So

Jason Blitman: 55:00

That almost made my book riot list, but it didn't, so I'm very glad that it is on your list. Because it's on my list in spirit, so.

Brad Summerville: 55:08

queer horror is such like a fascinating genre to me. Um, horror in general, it's not something I would normally pick up, but.

Jason Blitman: 55:16

Well, horror, I think, is very queer, sort of, historically.

Brad Summerville: 55:23

Oh, yeah. 100%. Um, so it lends itself to, like,

Jason Blitman: 55:28

hmm. Mm

Brad Summerville: 55:30

adding that queer element, like, more intentionally, just adds, like, another layer to an already queer coded genre.

Jason Blitman: 55:40

hmm. Which is a good segue. Oh no, sorry, I finished what you were

Brad Summerville: 55:45

Segway away. Please.

Jason Blitman: 55:46

I was going to say, which is a good segue to another book that's on your list. And to be very clear, I don't know all of the books on your list. I only told you what's on my book riot list. And, and this one, we shared. And so it's also in the horror space. So tell me.

Brad Summerville: 56:01

Yes. That one is The Lamb by Lucy Rose. That is about a mother and daughter who live in a, um, A cabin in the woods, and who lure people into their cabin and then, kill them and eat them.

Jason Blitman: 56:16

Yeah. Do you have any any other any happier books on your list

Brad Summerville: 56:26

Um, oh my gosh

Jason Blitman: 56:28

Honestly, you could say no.

Brad Summerville: 56:30

I do have one. I'm assuming it's happy. this one's called footballista by johnny garza via And it's about, a freshman in college who plays soccer, and then who gets tutored by another guy and he's trying to just figure out his life and who he's supposed to be, who he's allowed to be, and who he wants to be.

Jason Blitman: 56:54

And one thing leads to another.

Brad Summerville: 56:56

You know, I had to have one. MM romance in there.

Jason Blitman: 57:01

When, what is your, uh, steam threshold?

Brad Summerville: 57:07

Listen. Oh, I don't have a really high steam threshold.

Jason Blitman: 57:11

That's what, I assumed that.

Brad Summerville: 57:14

Here's the thing. Oh, you've read, you've read this one. You've read, I mean, you've read stuff by M. A. Wardell, right?

Jason Blitman: 57:20

yeah,

Brad Summerville: 57:21

Okay. That was like my first ever, um, steamy read. I've never, I've never read anything with Spice before his books. Um, and I

Jason Blitman: 57:31

I've only read Mistletoe and Mishigas and I wouldn't say there's a ton of steam in there.

Brad Summerville: 57:37

You wouldn't?

Jason Blitman: 57:40

No, there's not like sex on every other page.

Brad Summerville: 57:43

then my threshold is very low. Listen, I read this book, um, I read this book over the, my winter break for school, and I literally, I was like, this is the spiciest book I've ever read. And I didn't, I'm not a spice reader, so like, I'm sure some people would read it and be like, this is so tame, which Yukon just did to me with mistletoe and mishigas.

Jason Blitman: 58:11

I, not that it was tame, but it wasn't like super spicy to me. Um,

Brad Summerville: 58:16

they're, if they're If they're doing it on every other page, when do they fall in love? I

Jason Blitman: 58:25

while they're lovingly looking into their eyes.

Brad Summerville: 58:31

need, I need some more romance than that. Uh,

Jason Blitman: 58:35

All right.

Brad Summerville: 58:36

that's just me

Jason Blitman: 58:37

Brett, if you're listening. Oh, you're a sweet husband. Um,

Brad Summerville: 58:51

target getting salt for the snow.

Jason Blitman: 58:54

Oh, look at you guys. Domestic. That's very sweet.

Brad Summerville: 59:00

Anyway, why do you ask about that? About the spice level?

Jason Blitman: 59:04

no, no, just you were talking about MM romance. You had to have one on your list. And so I know that like, there's, people have their own threshold. Like if there's too much spice, then it's not sort of literary enough. Or if there's not enough spice, it's not like MM romance enough. You know what I mean? So,

Brad Summerville: 59:22

I don't know

Jason Blitman: 59:23

a lot of opinions.

Brad Summerville: 59:24

don't know if this one is gonna have Spice in it. It might, but I don't,

Jason Blitman: 59:28

Okay. Alright, what else you got?

Brad Summerville: 59:30

All right, this one again, not a happy one. Gosh, why do I do this to myself? Um, this one's also on your list though. The Lilac People by Milo Todd, which is, um, it's set during World War II and a trans man and his girlfriend flee and, um, they hide in isolation on a farm and come up with different identities. And then at the end of the war, they come across a young trans man who's escaped. Um, the concentration camp and they protect him, but not from the Nazis, from the allied forces who are coming in and arresting all of the queer prisoners, which when I was reading about this book, I went down a, I see it in your hands and I'm so jealous. I went down a rabbit hole of like, I was like, did that really happen? And

Jason Blitman: 1:00:22

Mmm.

Brad Summerville: 1:00:22

it did. They arrested, like once they freed all of the queer prisoners, they put them right in jail, which is, you know,

Jason Blitman: 1:00:31

Yeah.

Brad Summerville: 1:00:33

Which, I mean, but it also makes sense, because why not?

Jason Blitman: 1:00:38

Yeah, no, of course. Um, and it's billed as All the Light We Cannot See meets In Memoriam. Which, like, say no more.

Brad Summerville: 1:00:47

And I loved In Memoriam so much. Ugh, that's what, that's what, that's what stopped me when I was reading it. I was like, In Memoriam? Say less. Say

Jason Blitman: 1:00:56

Right. Say less.

Brad Summerville: 1:00:57

less, please. did you read Infinity Alchemist by Kacen Callender?

Jason Blitman: 1:01:02

No.

Brad Summerville: 1:01:02

Okay. The sequel to that comes out this year and I'm really excited about it because I really enjoyed that. It has a lot of great queer rep, poly rep. I won't go into like what the second one's about because it gives away the first but

Jason Blitman: 1:01:15

Oh. Chaos King.

Brad Summerville: 1:01:18

Chaos King, yes. But I really like Case and Calendar as an author so I think that, I think they do a really good job building their characters and building their world so I'm excited for that

Jason Blitman: 1:01:30

Cool. That's a fantasy.

Brad Summerville: 1:01:33

I, going back to my roots, basically like Alchemy, the study of magic, is only limited to a certain few, and so the main character, who is trans, studies magic, and then gets caught, but then makes a deal that his tutor will keep teaching him, secretly, and then things unfold. But there's some great queer rep, non binary rep, poly rep,

Jason Blitman: 1:01:55

There's a lot of queer fantasy stuff happening these days.

Brad Summerville: 1:01:58

Probably more than I'm, I have time to read.

Jason Blitman: 1:02:01

aware of, yeah. Well, right, that's the problem, is the having time to read. Um,

Brad Summerville: 1:02:08

you asking me to like look into books upcoming that I'm excited about. I usually just, like, think, like, okay, three weeks ahead of the current date, but I, this really gave me an opportunity to go in and read more and there's a ton, there's a ton coming out.

Jason Blitman: 1:02:27

Okay. You have, I don't want to use the turn of phrase come under fire because that sounds very dramatic. But there have been lots of conversations on social media recently about the word queer. And I feel like this is a very interesting time, space and place to talk about that.

Brad Summerville: 1:02:45

yeah,

Jason Blitman: 1:02:46

Do you want to give, give the listeners a little bit of

Brad Summerville: 1:02:48

yeah, yeah, of course. So I, so I, you know, I do focus a lot on, on LGBTQ stories and voices. And, um, a lot of times I'll refer to a book as queer or I'll use queer as kind of, um, an umbrella term to, to capture, um, everybody within the community just like, so I don't exclude anyone in that. And when I speak or when I talk about a book, um recently I Have gotten some pushback from certain people in the community that the word itself is offensive and um, so I so I posted about it and I talked about it and I and I just wanted to explain like where I come from when I use the word and what it means to me because I'll never tell someone what words represent to them, like what a word means to someone else, um. And I can totally understand why queer to certain people within the community would be hard to hear. I mean, I think even for myself, I would never have used the word queer three years ago, But I'm, I've grown in my understanding of the community and of what that word represents to so many people that like, if I didn't share my understanding of it, then I would, yeah, I don't know.

Jason Blitman: 1:04:02

Well, it's interesting because I feel like I'm in a relatively similar position as you. I, in a way, there's something about queer is easier to say than LGBTQIA And, um, You know, if we were to take those letters and turn it into a word like Le Couture Plus Like that is not, that's not a thing, you know what I mean? So there's something about A. Reclaiming the word queer also, you know, we are I think living in a moment where we're sort of like diluting the binary in a good, meaningful way. and I think, like, to me, in my mind, queer is sort of the representation of like, the, the, the puddle that the binary has melted into? Is that a weird, it's like a weird way to put it, but that's,

Brad Summerville: 1:05:05

that makes sense. That's great. That's a great way to visualize it almost.

Jason Blitman: 1:05:09

Mm hmm.

Brad Summerville: 1:05:11

And they use a lot of publishers are using queer and their marketing now. Like if the story is not, uh, Cisgender straight man and a cisgender straight woman. Um, which is interesting that we've moved into a space or a time when that's now an active part of marketing a story or a novel to other people. Um, which I love. I love that. That's so common now.

Jason Blitman: 1:05:39

Yeah. Well, and it's interesting, like, I, I am gay and I am a reader, and so that's why this is gays reading. But, but that doesn't mean it's only gay stories. And sometimes I use the word gay as As the word for the puddle, but that is not correct, right? Like, I should be using the word queer. Or, for me, that's how I, that's how I feel. or I should be saying LGBTQIA and I think for me, saying queer and sometimes saying gay is summarizing the sort of entirety of the rainbow spectrum.

Brad Summerville: 1:06:19

Yeah. I think ultimately it comes down to intent. and

Jason Blitman: 1:06:23

Yeah.

Brad Summerville: 1:06:24

how you're doing it and regardless of like other people's interpretation of that or their word like you are always using it from a good well meaning place and so there's power in that. It's

Jason Blitman: 1:06:36

Yeah, no, I totally agree with that, and I think that's a very, um, accurate way of talking

Brad Summerville: 1:06:42

hard because I feel like with words and people could argue all day about it. People love to argue.

Jason Blitman: 1:06:47

People love to argue. Brad, what are you reading right now? Since you aren't my guest gay reader, I have to know. What are you reading?

Brad Summerville: 1:06:55

My gosh, I am reading seven, like not joking you, like seven books right now. My husband says I'm insane.

Jason Blitman: 1:07:04

is a lot. I've read multiple books at a time, but Seven feels a bit,

Brad Summerville: 1:07:09

listen, I, I,

Jason Blitman: 1:07:11

do you keep track of them?

Brad Summerville: 1:07:13

I just got a Kindle, which is dangerous, but,

Jason Blitman: 1:07:16

Look at you!

Brad Summerville: 1:07:17

um, I, if I showed you my bedside table, it literally has seven books because sometimes like I'm in the mood for, uh, this book or that book. one of the books I'm reading right now is a little bit country by Brian D Kennedy. it's a YA, two boys work at what is the equivalent of like Dollywood and they fall in love. country music singer and the other one wants to be a chef.

Jason Blitman: 1:07:40

How fun! And how steamy is it? How spicy is it?

Brad Summerville: 1:07:43

spicy. It's not spicy. Zero. Zero spice level. Ugh, gosh.

Jason Blitman: 1:07:49

Good. That's okay. Brad likes his books vanilla

Brad Summerville: 1:07:54

wholesome.

Jason Blitman: 1:07:55

spiceless. Very wholesome. We love to see it. Uh, Brad, where can the people find you? You're all over the place!

Brad Summerville: 1:08:04

well, I'm in two places. Uh, they can

Jason Blitman: 1:08:08

I would call that all over the place.

Brad Summerville: 1:08:10

On Instagram or TikTok at Brad bought a book because I just I bought more and more.

Jason Blitman: 1:08:17

You need to change your name to Brad Buys Tons of Books.

Brad Summerville: 1:08:22

Brad needs to stop buying books as well. This is what it should be.

Jason Blitman: 1:08:26

That's so fun. Well, everybody go follow Brad. He's a great follow. He, when he makes reels, they're tons of fun. Every once in a while, his husband, Brad, makes a special guest appearance. Hi, Brad.

Brad Summerville: 1:08:38

Hi, Brad.

Jason Blitman: 1:08:39

Brad, thanks so much for being here today.

Brad Summerville: 1:08:41

you so much, Jason. I appreciate it.

Jason Blitman: 1:08:44

You're the best.

MacBook Pro Microphone & FaceTime HD Camera: 1:08:45

Thank you so much for being here, Rebecca. Jeff, thank you so much. Again, everyone. Go check out. B book riot podcast. I am on their episode today. like it, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you're hearing, please share with your friends. Follow us on social media at gays reading. And I will see you next week. Thanks everyone. Bye.