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