Hello and welcome to the book review podcast. I'm MJ Franklin. I'm an editor here at the New York Times Book Review.

And this week we are doing something different. We have just wrapped up book awards season. The winners of the 2025 Booker Prize, Nobel Prize, and National Book Awards have all been announced.

I feel like we're just swimming in finalists and long lists and books and all that good stuff.

And so I wanted to get together a panel of trusted readers, my colleagues here at the book review, and just sort through what do we make of it all? How do we regard these prizes? What do these awards signal for the state of literature in 20125?

And then more specifically, what are these books? Who are these authors? What are these finalists? Do we like them? etc.

So that's what we're here to do today. This is a bit of an experiment. It's just kind of like an open conversation. It's chatty. We don't have a set direction. We're just reacting to the season of awards.

And embarking on this adventure with me are a panel of my esteemed colleagues. First, we have Dave Kim.

>> Hi, I'm Jake.

>> And Emily Aken.

>> Hi, I'm Jay.

>> And Monica T.

>> Hi.

>> Thank you so much for going on this adventure with me again. We are just reacting to the end of book season.

Can I just interrupt and say that I actually think it's the beginning of book awards season.

I think technically yes, it's the end of 2025 and therefore the end of the 2025 book awards, but I think book awards tend to honor the books from a particular year.

And so I would say that the Booker is actually the first or one of the earlier book awards that honors the books from 2025.

And the books the book awards like the Pulitzer and the National Book Critic Circle Awards those happen early next year or actually even mid next year and those all still are honoring 2025 books that were published in the year 2025.

So I think the season actually starts right around now or maybe a little earlier and ends around May or June with the Pen Falners I guess in May and whatnot.

This is why I gathered this panel already reframing us.

But I guess I wanted to pull everyone together because I feel like there's such a concentrated energy around book awards now.

Maybe we're coming to the end of the first wave and I feel like now we're thinking about as the year comes to a close, as this first wave comes to a close, we're thinking about the great books of the year.

And with this first wave, I guess I just want to ask, how are we feeling? If there's a word that describes this season of the book awards, what's the word?

>> Is that what we want to start with?

>> Yeah, start there.

Broadly speaking, I'll take the bait.

>> Yeah.

A little mystified. Mystified.

Totally. Totally. That's the exact That's the proper word for this year.

>> You don't think that's melodramatic?

No, I don't think so. My word was curious. What about you? Mine was close. It was unpredictable.

>> Okay, so our words for the awards season around the table. They were mystified twice, curious, unpredictable.

Tell me more. Why are we feeling this way?

You know, you look at the long list, you look at the short list, you compare the Booker, you look at the National Book Awards, and sometimes there's just no overlap, and you just want to know what's going on inside the heads of those jurors.

Your favorite book might be on the long list, and then it drops off the short list, and you don't understand it.

>> My theory is that it's because this year, I feel like it's just been a weird year in books in general. There nothing seemed to stick.

There were big books that came out but fell by the wayside immediately. There were small books that really stuck around in certain corners.

Things were super viral for certain communities and then didn't get any attention anywhere else.

I feel like it's a weird year for books and that means every award has this open runway to play and experiment and assert their own taste.

>> Or do you think it's really always like this and it was the exception that James was a front runner from such an early time last year.

We were spoiled by that and Martyr too. I think maybe I do think that James is a total exception in the sense of being commercially viable, obviously worthy.

It just hits so many marks and I do think each prize has slightly different metrics that they use even giving even taking into account the changing jury pool.

But James just seems like a total flash or strike of what am I trying to say? total one of a kind, a lightning bolt, you know, in what is really a chaotic situation where anything can go.

>> Yeah. So, I agree. I think mystified, curious, unpredictable are the perfect words, but I think for a variety of reasons.

>> See, the Booker to me is usually more legible. The National Book Awards remain a black box that I will never be permitted to understand.

Whoever makes those decisions comes from the Bermuda Triangle and goes back to it and never explains himself. So

>> I need you to unpack this for me. Tell me more. They're always different people.

>> Well, they are always different people. So it's just it's basically what is that like a writer's colony.

Totally impenetrable writer's colony. And that's a very fair point.

whoever is leading the jury that year. I actually have I feel like I understand the taste of what's going on with at least the fiction finalists this year because I know I think who the chair of the jury is.

But other years I don't have that insight. Anyway,

>> wait. I'm going to go to you Dave because you said not mystified. You said the word unpredictable.

>> I don't mean that in a bad way. I feel like I genuinely am not sure what to expect.

I think the Nobel Prize winner llo Krano Horai was surprising in that he is not a surprising pick.

And I've gotten so used to the Nobel Prize highlighting someone that I hadn't thought about in a long time or had never even heard of and was expecting that rather than the person who has been consistently a front runner in the betting odds for that prize for years. finally getting his due.

And so it was unpredictable in the sense that it was totally predictable. And the Booker I felt was went with not with a safe choice with something that was a little bit of a curveball. And I really like that too.

>> Also, just in case listeners are not aware, they actually do have I guess professional odds makers that put out their predictions for the Nobel single year.

I think it's lad Bros, which I can't believe I'm allowed to say at work. And it's crazy because there are You're totally right, Dave. There are always these like perennial possibilities and then they always throw Cane or whatever. Maybe one year will be Cam's year. I don't know.

>> Yeah,

it's always funny to see what the odds are. Can I throw in a theory about prizes that's a little bit provocative?

And this is I don't know Dave or Jim or MJ whether you know about James English who's an English professor I think a UPEN wrote a book called the prestige economy about awards about 15 years ago

and it's really great and his argument is that prizes exist for us to hate them that's the way they're supposed to work

it's a very bordian as in the French sociologist Pierre Budu it's a very budian argument about cultural capital

and his thesis is that prizes are part of the market and cultural institutional system.

And so to confer value on an author for his book is to ratify the existing market and system.

And that goes against our fantasies about great true art which is supposed to exist outside this capitalist system.

And so we love to hate them. And one of his great examples is Tony Morrison in 1987 was overlooked for the National Book Award.

Some book that nobody's ever heard of called Paco's Story won that year. Dave, do you know this? Still never heard it.

>> And then the National Book Critic Circle Award also snubbed her. This is for Beloved, by the way. Okay.

>> Wow.

And people really complained. And he said, "Well, that is the point. It's as if it ratifies her greatness not to be given that award.

And anyway, I thought that was a really It's an interesting provocative book.

>> How do we feel about that theory?

>> I'm in favor. I mean, I usually default to whatever Emily says so long as Pierre Bourju is getting is with us in the room.

>> Just throw in a French philosopher and that shuts everything down.

>> Yeah, I agree. I agree with the outcome of that, but I don't know that's that was intentional or it's an intentional conspiracy that that they're going to find the book that is going to be the most, you know, is going to be the counterpoint to the true art of that year.

And I often do find the National Book Awards, at least in recent years, to be a wild card. and almost and it feels there is some feeling that it's intentional that they they won't they really want to stir things up

with the exception I think of last year which James won for fiction and I think James was if there's any book that really swept the awards last year it was that one

it won pretty much every single major prize and rightfully so I think it was excellent

but yeah for whatever reason I think the Booker has become the sort of default of I guess the gatekeepers of literature.

Whereas the National Book Awards has tried to strike a balance I think between the ivory tower and the masses and has come up with some pretty unpredictable selections in the past few years I have to say

>> of a book the Jason Mott like what that was it's a good book it's a great book but yeah never would have expected that

>> strange yeah yeah and great and I think it's I think it's actually good

it's like Emily said I think yes inviting a kind of in inviting us to be angry, inviting us to challenge that the what the masters have chosen is part of the fun.

It's like the seed of intellectual debate. It's great. Can I ask the table, how do you regard these awards? How do you regard the National Book Award, the Booker, the Nobel? As a reader,

>> as a civilian, I think I would not care.

I suppose you can do some divination about what a certain choice says about a certain year. Of course, there are some candidates like James where it was like that is so obviously the book that deserved not only because of the merit of the novel itself, but also because it was a capstone for Perl ever who had really been toiling in relative obscurity until he wrote James, which had a bigger release.

But I just don't know that I would care. I remember like Milkman, the Anna Burns novel only really which I love. This came out maybe 10 years ago.

I only knew about it because of the bookers. That's helpful to me.

>> That's a service.

That's a service. But like otherwise, I don't know that I would be doing the like horse race. Who's up? Who's down?

>> I just want to be left alone. I just want to be left alone is honestly what

>> Emily Dave, do you agree?

>> Yeah. We we work in the industry, you know, it's kind of our job to

>> But how do you separate your civilian life from your reading life when it is your job?

I guess it I care in the sense that I want to know what the conversation has coalesed around, but I don't care for myself in the in in the same way that I don't really care about the Oscars.

It's interesting and I will take a look at it, but I it's not something that will dictate my agenda, my reading agenda for the next however many months.

>> A few thoughts. I guess I feel like scientists are going to find the part in our brain that's obsessed with list making and ranking because I do think it's a an irresistible human compulsion as much as it makes no sense and we complain and here at the book review about having to make to rank books and make a list.

So, we're obsessed with it. A few things though I do feel like these prizes register differently.

To me, the Nobel is a kiss of death. Once you're like up on that pedestal, you're mothballled.

And I actually would put before this group the question is there a Nobel laureate who went on to write a great book after being given the Nobel.

It just seems maybe Tony Morrison I think she wrote Mercy maybe but it's hard to think of people

and so whereas I think I agree with Jamanna Milkman or even here at the National Book Awards I'm looking at the fiction list there's a small press title that I am not familiar with.

I mean a book can really be elevated and find an audience whereas good luck llo but will people be buying your books

seen a lot of copies of Satan tango around Brooklyn lately although apparently it's pronounced shoten tango I will not be saying ever again

>> can I take the seat as the optimist in the room

>> of course

I I don't know if I would have tapped into award season and all of you's awards in the way that I do now if it weren't for my job.

But I am very glad that I have tapped into it because of this idea that you've just mentioned of discovery.

I feel like there are a bunch of books that I would not have read like Milkman had it not been elevated for these prizes.

And I'm thinking about I'm going to reference another podcast, but a few years ago, our colleague Parro Seel, who was at the book review at the time as a critic, went on the long form podcast,

and it was right around list making season time. It was like end of year. And the host asked her, "Do you care about these lists? It matters a lot for other people, but how do you feel about it?"

and her answer was she cares tremendously because it's another chance to make a case for a book that might have slipped through the cracks and to elevate it to readers.

And I feel like that's the joy of loving books or any type of art of getting to say to someone, I just read this. This is great. You're going to love this. Or I read this. This is not getting enough shine. I'm gonna elevate that.

That's what these awards do. And even when you agree or disagree, you then start having those conversations of actually the National Book Award was wrong. This is the book that you should be reading right now.

And I love that. I feel like so much of our reading is solitary and compartmentalized. And I love these awards as not just a proclamation of this is the best, but as a bell to corral everyone. Am I being polyiana about this?

>> No. All of us here are part of the voting body for 10 best. I think we all experience that what you're talking about exactly like and and take the onus of that.

MJ and I really went headtohead about a specific book that

>> unexpectedly I was blindsided.

>> I know. Well, I Well, anyway,

>> we'll save that for another episode.

>> That's coming later. But I do agree with you and I think Parl's point is very well taken and that is the most optimistic view of a list or listicle one could ever hope to have.

I think awards should inspire conversation and debate and then we should move on. We should not completely structure our reading life around them.

We should use them as informational signposts and then go about our merry lives. That's how I feel.

>> I love that approach.

>> I'm going to back you both up because I know our best books list isn't announced yet, but one of the books that excites me the most on it I'm my excitement is growing because it's not on a lot of other lists.

And that makes me feel really good. I feel like that is a book that will be a discovery. So, I love all of them.

>> I love that little teaser. Can I say one other thing that I love about Book Awards season and these prizes?

I think it's taken for granted how valuable the archives are for all of these prizes.

The Nobel Prize has a robust archive of Nobel lectures. They record the reactions when they call up the writer to tell them that they won.

It is so helpful to go back and read those. I actually did that for our we do not part conversation, our book club conversation earlier in the year because last year Hong Kong won the Nobel

and getting to go back and read her lecture about what she's been thinking about as her her catalog has grown and how she is thematically moved is an invaluable gift.

It is so helpful. And similarly for the National Book Awards, for the Booker, you can go back and especially for the Booker, read the judg's citations of why they're saying that they love these books.

That's the part that I really love and find so helpful. Not just like Orboto is the best book of the year, but like Orbo is the best book because it's doing blank and this is how it impacted us.

And that starts that conversation that I really love. We are going to continue our conversation, but first I think we should take a quick break.

And we're back. This is the Book Review Podcast. I'm MJ Franklin. I'm talking to my colleagues Emily Aken, Jonica T, and Dave Kim.

And we are talking about all things book awards. Before we were talking about just the state of the awards overall, the season of awards, and now let's dive into specific prizes.

And let's start with the Booker Prize.

>> All right, I will anoint myself with the honor of going first because I love Flesh and I was thrilled that this book won. To me, it makes sense.

So, Flesh is Imagine Bartleby the Scriber from Hungary. And no, I'm trying. I'm trying. I'm trying. Okay. Okay. All right. Or don't.

Anyway, so so imagine like the most passive but hunky Hungarian guy you've ever seen in your life.

And this man obviously has a lot of interiority that he just can't access. Nobody's given him the keys. And he goes through life. He serves in combat. He moves to London. He's a bouncer.

Then all of a sudden he has this sort of neuvo ree moment where all of a sudden he's stretched out on a pool chez.

I don't think I've ever read a book like it in terms of just how a lot of readers have commented on how monoselabic his dialogue is. The refrain is okay, okay, okay, okay.

>> I kept picturing Pete Davidson in those Chad as sketches like people are fawning over him and he's just okay okay sure.

>> I think the form of this book is what is really exciting to me. David Solo is very confident in terms of just picking you up and plopping you in another stage of life and letting the story go from there.

And I can imagine that there was some hair pulling and hand ringing that went into this book. But it's so elegant. It's very memorable.

And I think it's very participatory because as a reader, you're trying to project yourself into Istvan, that's his name. You're trying to meet him there.

It's like talking to an introvert, which of course none of us are at a party who like really doesn't want to be at the party. Y it really involved a lot of me as a reader and I thought that was fantastic.

>> I wouldn't say it was my favorite book on the Booker short list, but I did really admire it.

I thought it reminded me a lot of vintage Hemingway in that so much of its weight comes from what is not said and what is between the lines.

And you have these entire exchanges of dialogue where the real communication that is happening has nothing to do with the actual words of dialogue on the page.

And I just found that really fascinating. It reminded me of the, like I said, Hemingway, his short story, Hills Like White Elephants, which was about this couple that is just talking about mundane matters, but really what is at the core of the story is this is them negotiating an operation that's understood to be an abortion.

And you would not know that if you just took the dialogue at face value.

And I found that to be the case with flesh, with just whole sections of what seem to be just mundane daily chores, but underneath there is a sort of glaringly obvious tension, pain, or repressed desire, or all manner of different really interesting human conditions. So, it it was great.

>> Emily, were you surprised that Flesh won? I don't know because again I have to when you look at the list of the finalists there is such diversity of style and form and the land in winter

>> that's interesting I felt the exact opposite

>> well the land in winter is a kind of old-fashioned psychological novel beautifully precise

and then you have Katie Kamura who's it's a very taut abstract enigma of a novel

and then you have flesh this other paired down really stripped down minimalist hyperc controlled performance events about which I had some reservations.

And then Sonia, the loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, this sprawling maximalist sensual epic.

>> Dave, you said though that you disagreed that you thought that the styles were similar. No, I actually take that back because I do agree that stylistically they're very different, but I thought that it was interesting in how similar the subject matter was across all of them,

which all of them are these rich studies of internal life. And they deal with these domestic dramas, with family, with with married couples fracturing or facing a kind of existential crisis.

And so we don't really get that big fat political epic or something that gets into

>> social novel. There's no real

>> or even or something that gets into a genre. They're really very much these, for lack of a better word, domestic dramas that that are very stylistically different but deal I think with many of the same themes.

>> That's really interesting and I love looking at the list holistically and that's why I wanted to bring everyone together.

And my question for the table is do we think that is a sign of the fact that they're all these quiet domestic stories? Is that a sign of the judging committee or is that a testament to the year in books?

>> Can you think of a big social novel? See, I was trying to think what were the novels that weren't domestic dramas that were really accomplished literary

>> like the director or

>> anything historical really.

>> Yeah. or like some sci-fi. There are so many novels set in the future and dystopian environments that reflect the kind of political environment.

>> That's a real I think literary trend of the past even 2 3 4 years that we didn't see in this crop.

>> Dave, you mentioned that it wasn't your favorite. Was there another book that you were rooting for?

I really enjoyed the rest of our lives of Ben Marovitz. I really liked the loneliness of Sonia and Sunny as well.

I thought I actually thought that was going to win. It would have been I hate to say safe choice because it's anything but a safe book, but it is that sort of old-fashioned and just in a wonderful way like that that kind of long Russian epic that you just want to sink into.

And it's such a hard book to put down. And

>> don't forget Toltoy never won the Nobel. That's also in James English's book.

First Nobel was 1901. Toltoy was alive. They had nine more years to give it to him and they never did. That's why he's great.

And the first nine winners you've never even heard of. Justice for Toltoy.

>> We should do a whole episode on all the writers who did not win.

>> My point is there'll be a call in.

>> So the Russian epic that doesn't win. Maybe the great book is the point.

>> Is there a book that you were rooting for, Emily? You just mentioned The Land and Winter.

>> I do love the book. The book surprised me. I just picked it up, frankly, off the galley shelf.

I think it was bumped up. I think the pub date was moved forward because it was a Booker finalist.

I hadn't read our review. I don't think it had come out yet. So, the book was totally unknown to me.

I actually like a lot of the books on this list. I realized we haven't mentioned Flashlight by Susan Choy. That was another finalist.

I haven't read that that novel. I I guess maybe the Karen Desai, the loneliness of Sonia and Sunny. I like a little bit more than Flesh.

I have some reservations about flesh, but I think it's a really controlled performance and a risky one,

which was the theme of David Sloe's Booker acknowledgement speech was he was really talking a lot about what it meant to reward a risky book.

It is a risky book. Now, based on how people were talking about Sea Scraper, which didn't even make it to the short list, this is a book about the interior life of a shrimper,

which sounds if you asked Claude, that sounds like a joke.

>> that sounds like a joke. I know it's out and you're like, "What is going to win the Booker this year? Give me a fictional plot of what's going to win the Booker this year. It's going to be like, oh, it's going to be a searustrusted shrimper in the middle of the ocean." You're like, "Yeah, okay."

But now, when you listen to the way the judges have talked about that book and just the critical reception to it, I'm very keen to read something.

I would I love to eat them. Don't know if I want to read about catching them, but I'm excited. Now,

>> can I tell you one book that I was really surprised by how popular it was and that is Audition by Katie Kamura?

>> Same. I'm actually surprised that it's popular because I don't I think the book is bad. I think the book is great. I love that book. I'm surprised because it is so opaque

>> intentionally. So, you're never sure what's going on. There's this big twist and there's little resolution,

but I saw a lot of people stumping for it. And I feel like in past years, just like online, I saw people something for it.

And I feel like in past years, one of the criticism that the Booker Prize gets and a lot of these prizes get are, oh, they're just giving us pretentious literary stuff that I can't sink my teeth into.

And I feel like Audition feels like one of those technical

>> abstract in some ways. Anyways, abstract.

>> I think that book is great, but I was surprised at the popular fervor around it. It's also a finalist for the National Book Award.

The only book that was on both lists. That's kind of extraordinary.

As much as I loved Audition, and I do think it was one of the standout books I read this year, I don't think it was long listed for the National Book Award.

>> It wasn't. It didn't make the list.

>> No, you're kidding.

>> But there is one commonality that I'm seeing this year, and the answer is in Central Europe because it's been a standout year for Hungarian writers.

>> It truly has. You are right. Jima,

>> David Saloy, and

>> Llo, our man Lazlo. Yeah. Extra points if you can say his whole name for us. Lazlo Krano Horai. How was that?

>> Pretty good. Pretty good.

>> Sounds good to me.

>> I'm sad that this is an audio, not a visual medium, cuz all of our eyebrows went up like, "Yeah, that's pretty right. That's good. That's good."

>> I have so much affection for this man the more I learn about him. He was born on the border of Romania and he he looks like a he looks like the dog from the friend.

And he's just like somehow really good at he seems like he has the world's most demented sense of humor that I would love to just be next to for a day.

>> I feel like I'm going to be the standin for the reader who knows nothing cuz I am the reader who knows nothing. Who is Lazlo Crash Horai? Did I say that? I think Dave should answer this.

>> Yeah. Who is he? Tell me about his Nobel win.

>> He's our correspondent for masculinity.

>> I will humbly take that mantle.

Cry the Horai has been a perennial Nobel contender for a decade and he's writing in the tradition of Thomas Burnernhard.

But I think you could also go back to the heavyhitting Russians like Gole and Dostoyvki.

He has a reputation for these difficult books about the absurdity of humanity.

They are they have long winding sentences. They're often called bleak and dystopian, melancholic.

But I think that's his reputation. And I did note that the Nobel committee cited I liked their citation which was which was he won this for his compelling and visionary that in the midst of apocalyptic terror reaffirms the power of art.

And I thought the last bit is a little corny but I think it really gets at what he's doing.

It's not just the sort of apocalypse. It's not just the darkness and bleakness, but there is something very reaffirming about his work that I think people overlook.

And there's something very funny about it. There's something very bright actually, even amid the darkness.

And I think we don't need to be reminded that the world is a dark place. But I think we often forget that humans have this remarkably unique ability to just pull order from the chaos and to try to find beauty in even the darkest places.

And I think Ka Horai's work is really representative of that and really captures that well. He he can really zoom in and out with his writing.

His sentences his sentences are his currency. He can do so much in a single sentence that can sometimes last for a page or more or even in some cases an entire book

and will fit in clauses and sub clauses and can take something so mundane and find the kind of universality of it within within the space of a paragraph or in the space of a sentence.

>> Dave, you can tell a book author that was great. That was great.

>> I don't know anything about him, but now I'm in. I'm sold. You make him sound more uplifting than the writer who did our appraisal for us after the Nobel Prize

who said in his books, "It's always October, it's always raining, and human projects are doomed to fail." Which actually made him sound really up my alley, I admit.

>> Who was that? Who was that writer?

>> I think that was G. Risk Halberg, wasn't it? No, but his thesis though was he definitely sold the bleakness, but I think his thesis was very much the same that it that even amid that I think this is a writer who who understands that that there's light to humanity and that we can pull that out of darkness.

>> Jima Emily, how much did you know about Crash Horai before the Nobel? How familiar were you with him and his work?

>> Well, luckily he had a book come out in English this year. Hashed is that

>> hashed 2566 or something

>> 07 something. Yeah,

>> this is a book that's a single sentence, right? This is remarkable for being a single sentence book.

I only knew about him because of our review of it. And when the review for us really doubled as a really good overture to who he is and who he's what he's about.

And actually, I gave that book to a very dear friend of mine and she was I only read modernism, you know, like I don't I don't want to read this this garb.

And I was like, I think you're going to like it. And then she finished it in a day and cried.

>> Oh my god.

>> Oh, that's a win. That's a Nobel laureate.

>> Yeah. That's the best feeling, too, when you give a recommendation and they loved it and they were moved by it

>> and I remind her of it daily.

>> Can I read one sentence of his work?

>> As long as it's not the whole book.

>> Yeah, I know. take up the entire podcast. So,

no, this is actually one of his shorter sentences. It's on the opening page of the book, The Melancholy of Resistance, which was my first exposure to this guy, and he really sold me.

And this is just a simple scene of a train being late and the train staff finding some coaches that were out of service because they because of some emergency.

And so, they they put the coaches on and the train is delayed by 30 minutes. And that's essentially the situation. And then the crowd gets on and tries to get on their get their seats.

To tell the truth, none of this really surprised anyone anymore since rail travel, like everything else, was subject to the prevailing conditions.

All normal expectations went by the board, and one's daily habits were disrupted by a sense of everspreading, all-consuming chaos, which rendered the future unpredictable, the past unrealable, and ordinary life so haphazard that people simply assumed that whatever could be imagined might come to pass, that if there were only one door in a building, it would no longer open.

that wheat would grow head downwards into the earth, not out of it, and that since one could only note the symptoms of disintegration, the reasons for it remaining unfathomable and inconceivable, there was nothing anyone could do except to get a tenacious grip on anything that was still tangible, which is precisely what people at the village station continued to do when, in hope of taking possession of the essentially limited seating to which they were entitled, they stormed the carriage doors, which being frozen up proved very difficult to open.

I love that. It It's such a great mundane moment that just opens up and somehow captures the an essence something about human nature about this

and it just describes the chaotic world in this in in a microscopic way and then a macroscopic way and tells us something about how human nature has adapted to this disorder. Right? We just go in and we just rush in and get our seats.

It's something so simple and yet I don't know I find I found it just a perfect description.

>> Experientially as you were reading that I felt myself so intrigued at first getting a little bit bored becoming rehypnotized again starting micro like this mundane thing going macro

I you mentioned about flesh or maybe you Dave that it felt participatory and I felt that about what you just read. Yeah.

And I think a lot of some criticism of him is that he can get a little bit lofty, but I don't care.

And it's f it's actually good still.

>> I love it.

>> Love it.

>> Dave, is there a book of Crash Horai that you think we should start with? How many are translated to English? Where should readers who are new to him, who are diving into his body of work, where should they start?

>> That's a good question. I feel weirdly enough the last book is probably his

>> most accessible I would say

>> and that's H07 something.

>> Yeah. And the one that won a national book award years ago which was Baron Work Time's Homecoming. That one is a tough one. Satan Sat what is it? Satan Tango. I thought I

>> I think we should just go with

>> Shot and Tango.

>> Shot and Tongo. Yeah. I'm not saying we're going to be have kids in Park Slope name that.

I would say that's his masterpiece. That's his best one really.

>> But the melancholy of resistance I think is somewhere in between. And that's it remains my favorite only because it's the one that started it for me.

>> Why are you surprised, Ramona?

>> Well, I just I'm It just seems so perfect that like Satan Tango is his master.

Just so I'm clear, what is the premise of Satan Tango? It's It's a bleak apocalyptic town where a con man comes to town and tries to screw everyone.

>> Readers, you're going to love it. You're going to love it.

>> Actually, I'm interested.

>> All right, so that's the Nobel. Let's talk about the National Book Awards. But before we do that, let's take a quick break and reset.

Okay, so through podcast magic, we've reset. One small change. Dave Kim unfortunately had to leave. So he is not with us for this last segment. Thank you so much, Dave.

But you still have me and Emily and Jima. And let's just dive in. Let's talk about the National Book Awards. So two nights ago, the winners were announced. And what were the winning books?

>> Okay, I'll take this one. So in fiction, Riia Alamidin won for his novel, The True Story of Raja the Gullible and his mother.

In non-fiction, Omar Alkad won for one day everyone will have always been against this.

The poetry prize went to Patricia Smith for the intentions of thunder, new and selected poems.

in translated literature, Gabrielle de Cababeson Kam and Ro her translator Robin Meyers won for We Are Green and Trembling.

And last but not least, in young people's literature, Daniel Naari won for The Teacher of Nomad Land, a World War II story.

>> So my question for the panel is, what do we make of it? Any surprises? Are we happy with the winners? Are we shocked by the winners?

Maybe let's start off by talking about fiction and non-fiction. What are our thoughts?

>> I think it was a total surprise this time, as it often is with the new National Book Awards.

>> Dave did say earlier that the National Book Awards are a wild card. Why were they surprising this time?

>> You start talking about books with your co-workers, with your friends you follow online, and conversation builds up around particular titles, and it's just always a surprise when none of those books make the five finalists at the National Book Awards.

So, it makes it exciting, but it also makes it just feel like a real wild card. I was much less surprised by the non-fiction winner to me that like Omar's book felt very much in the lead because that was a book that a lot of people were talking about.

And for any listeners that are not familiar with this, this is a really marketked departure for Omar who is a novelist.

He was this is really like a credur about what's going on in Gaza and in Palestine more generally and this was a book that I think a lot of people were talking about especially around the time it came out which is back in March or April I think

I think a lot of people were talking about especially around the time it came out which is back in March or April I think

>> yeah there was a huge conversation around that the book that I remember and I was I don't know if I felt surprised that it won

um actually I do I feel a little bit surprised largely because that conversation did feel like it dominated the first half of the year.

>> I feel like it petered out a little bit and I wasn't sure where the judges would land.

I also think it's tapping into a very specific literary tradition, the political tract, the pmic protest literature, resistance literature, and that has a particular imperative to it, has a particular style to it.

So, it was one that given the fervor around it, and given I I think it's so cleareyed is the word I keep using.

given that it was one that I was rooting for, but I don't know if I thought it would win. And so I was like pleasantly surprised.

>> It's a tough mandate that he set out for himself in a lot of ways. Like Emily, I thought your point earlier about the inciting emotion behind that book was a really good one.

>> Well, it is. It definitely has the qualities of a palemic. It is a palemic, but it's also an intensely personal book.

He folds in a lot of his own story. He's born in Egypt. He grew up in Canada. He's worked as a journalist and seen a lot of horror around the world and really wants to shatter this idea that what happened in Gaza is what happens to other people.

He's just an extremely eloquent writer. So, I think readers probably really resonated with that.

>> And he gave a really powerful speech, too. Correct. Emily, you were there.

>> I was there. And I would say that the evening felt more political, some more overtly political than it sometimes has.

His speech was overtly political, as were other speeches. That night, the winner of the award for work in translation gave her speech in Spanish because, as her translator then explained in English, speaking in Spanish makes fascists angry.

And Roxang Gay's speech was also political, really a a rebuke to and a kind of advocacy speech for the for what she calls the global majority of writers.

Gay won the literarian award and that's an award given to someone for distinguished service to the literary community. Can we talk about the fiction winner?

>> Absolutely.

>> What do we know about the fiction winner? I was caught off guard. I don't I know so little about this book and this author and I'm excited to dig into it. But

>> so I really thought fiction was anybody's game this year. I was taken aback by the composition of the short list.

So then at that point it's hands are off the wheel like we see what happens. But I'm really tickled because I happen to really like Rivia's work.

Part of this is also just a sort of I don't know Phoenician affiliation. Rivia, he's a Lebanese writer. He's Drews.

He's coincidentally from the same village that my family is, which I didn't know until I know. I didn't know this until I profiled him for his last novel.

And he's lived a totally fascinating life. And if you listen to his speech or even just look at the picture, he had this crazy tie on with Nancy, the cartoon character, and he's such a character.

He thanked his gastroenterenterologist and his psychiatrist and his drug dealers in his speech.

So like that gives you a sense of his flavor. But something to know about Rivia is that he's always been he's going to hate that I say this, but like he has always been a writer that has somehow ruffled feathers, right?

So he picked up and moved to the states. He lived in San Francisco for decades. And he didn't publish his first novel until he was like 40.

And he helped start a gay soccer team when he was living in San Francisco. And within a couple years, like half the team had died.

Oh my god. And part of I think he would agree with this like part of being Lebanese, particularly of his vintage, he lived through the civil war.

A lot of Lebanese, if not every single Lebanese person on earth has real psychic scars, even if they didn't live through the worst of the fighting.

But Rubia witnessed a lot of it, too. He was so fed up, he told me, with anything that was considered gay literature at the time, anything that was considered Arab literature, let alone anything considered Lebanese literature.

And somehow he has alienated all of his constituency.

>> Wow. Well, he told me the Westerners think I'm writing for Arabs. Arabs think I'm writing for the West. I don't care about any of them.

So, his latest book, The True Story of Raja, the Gullibible, and his mother.

Personally, this is not my favorite one of his books, but I am delighted to see him recognized because he's been putting out books and books and really actually challenging himself to try new approaches for a long time.

And so it's nice to see that rewarded. I think

>> you we mentioned earlier in the conversation that discovery is a really big aspect and a really big value of award season in general.

And for me, this is one of those discovery picks. I'm excited to discover his work and go it back into his catalog.

So this is the story. Raja is, and this is the preferred term in the book, the quote neighborhood homosexual. He's like in his 60s and he still lives with his mom.

and he's a very popular high school teacher at his alma mater. He teaches philosophy and to me this is the most Bohemian mountain Arabcco coded novel I could think of.

It turns into an exploration of memory and trauma and diaspora and all this stuff but it's also just like very funny on the sentence.

>> That sounds hilarious. Neighborhood homosexual. I will be adopting that tag.

>> Yes. I could never come up with such a phrase.

It's interesting that even among the finalists though, we have this comic novel set in Lebanon with the hilarious characters of the mother and the son and their dynamic.

And then we have had a the one of the finalists was Yian Lee's memoir, a memoir of her son's death to she lost both her children to suicide.

And again, it's just that kind of range just made me think that everything is fair game for this jury.

How is this going to go? juries because there are separate juries that picked non-fiction fiction in all of the categories.

>> But what you said made me think of something that we've talked about being mystified and stumped and all of these things which I definitely feel about the lists this year.

I just was shocked by all of the books partially because they just weren't on my radar as award contenders. That's not to say that they weren't great, but I feel the energy had gone to other books throughout the year.

One thing in addition to the wildcard discovery aspect I love about the National Book Awards is the idea that it's this kind of gathering ground for literature at large.

Again, there the other awards are for one book and one author. These have five categories. The long lists are long. They give the literarian award and a lifetime achievement award.

For me, the National Book Awards isn't just a here is the best books of the year, but also here is a way for the community to gather, which I love.

>> Well put, MJ. Whenever I go to the National Book Awards and also watching it at home on my couch is amazing now that they stream it.

But yeah, whenever I'm there, I'm in Chipriani Wall Street. Like, you're paying attention to the spirit of the mission and I am paying attention to the catering.

>> Oh my god.

Next time we have to get catering in the studio for our gathering to talk about awards.

>> You guys missed a good file min.

>> Well, unfortunately that's all the time we have. I just want to say Jima, Emily, Dave, wherever you are, thank you. This has been super super fun.

>> Thanks for having us, MJ.

>> Again, one of the things I love about book awards season is how it sparks conversation and this conversation is exactly what I've been looking forward to.

Thank you to everyone who's listening. I hope you continue talking about the best books of the year.

We'll have our best books of the year episodes, all that stuff down the line. But until next time, happy reading.