Sunday Sundries 038: A New Favorite Author Interview & A Viral (?) Bookish Video Series

Plus, links. Lots of them.

Welcome to Sunday Sundries, the antidote to—or at least a distraction from—your Sunday Scaries.

Hi friends,

I’ll keep things short up top, because it’s a jam-packed and ultra-bookish Sundries.

Earlier this week, paid subscribers got a full debrief on what’s new in my world. My only update to add is that I think I’m about 4 writing days out from finishing this draft of my second book, which is exciting. I hope to be telling you next Sunday that I finished!

In the meantime, let’s sundry!

🎧 A Fave Author Interview

It was book club week over on Bad on Paper, the podcast I co-host with

Olivia Muenter

. This month, we read Audition by Katie Kitamura—admittedly a departure for us, skewing far more literary and experimental than our usual fare. But I surprised myself with how much I enjoyed the book, which dives into the ambiguous relationship between a middle-aged actress and a much younger man.

We followed our regular discussion episode with a bonus interview with the author, and I think it may be a new all-time favorite. Not only did the chat add nuance to my understanding of the book, but Kitamura also has an incredibly thoughtful perspective on the author/reader relationship. Much like the book (208 pages), the episode is short (30 mins) and IMO worth a listen regardless of if you read the book. (Though it does contain spoilers, so if you’re planning to read it, do that first.)

If you want to read along with us in June, we’ll be reading All the Other Mothers Hate Me by Sarah Harman, which Olivia pitched as a hilarious and non-scary mystery. We’ll discuss it the last Wednesday of the month.

Before we move on, a question for you: Sometimes I get in my head about being repetitive when I share things here that I’ve already discussed on the podcast. I’m curious, are you a listener?

📚 Books Gone Viral?

Simon & Schuster launched their new web series Bookstore Blitz this week. If this sounds familiar, it’s probably because it was mentioned in that profile on The Cut wondering “Can Simon & Schuster Become the A24 of Books?” where Publisher Sean Manning compared his hopes for the series to Chicken Shop Date or Hot Ones. (Anyone who’s ever worked in marketing is probably mumbling to themself, “The whole strategy is to go viral… what could go wrong?”)

And you’re not silly to wonder. Despite the relative star power of the first two guests—Anna Marie Tendler and The Office’s Ed Helms—each episode has around 2K views at time of writing. So… not quite viral yet.

The premise is that an author gets 5 minutes and $100 to spend in McNally Jackson, lending itself to a Supermarket Sweeps type frenzy. The production value is good, the editing is snappy, but there are still kinks to work out. First of all, $100 isn’t very much money to spend when a hardcover book costs around $30. Also, it’s a bit insider baseball-y; there’s a lot of name dropping authors and books as guests browse that assumes the viewer can follow. Then, in the final interview section, Tendler doesn’t even pitch her own book. Helms’ interview is a bit more robust, but none of it lends itself to clippable, sharable moments (yes, even marketing needs marketing).

But despite my lukewarm review, I’m rooting for them to find their footing. And if they do figure out the formula, I’ll be curious if they can effectively leverage the series for authors who aren’t already famous to help spread the word about their books.

🏅 On The List

Something book-related that is certifiably viral? The newly released romantasy novel The Knight and The Moth by Rachel Gillig, which took the #1 spot on this week’s NYT best-sellers list, beating out both the latest Emily Henry and The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong, which is the current Oprah’s book club pick. Perhaps even more impressive is the book’s almost uniformly stellar Goodreads ratings (it currently has a 4.51 overall rating, which is somewhat unheard of on the persnickitey platform).

This book has come up a few times here already (and as recently as last week), so bear with me as I repeat the pitch. The story follows a prophetess who must team up with a mysterious knight to challenge the gods and save her fellow diviners. Need more convincing? Let’s take a look at a reader review.

If you’re wondering how this book landed on reader’s radars, the answer is BookTok, where the author’s first series (The Shepherd King duology) went mega-viral.

Personally, I’ll be bumping this to the top of my TBR. I love a big book moment.

• Voting an enthusiastic YES on a frozen yogurt renaissance.

• Interesting chat with Meredith Hayden (AKA Wishbone Kitchen) on how and why she wanted to innovate her book tour.

• I don’t think I’ve ever owned a white purse, but very intrigued by this one! (It also comes in butter yellow.)

• Best thing I read online this week: this interview with Candace Bushnell.

• Big fan of this tank top I picked up during the Memorial Day sales. The fabric is thick and the buttons are an interesting detail.

• The NYT has a round up of their best books of the year (so far), and I found it just as head scratchy as the rest of their best book coverage.

• This conversation between Lindsay Lohan and Chloe Fineman doesn’t go too deep, but I am here for the Lohanaissance in all its forms. (Also, this is where that facelift denial that’s been circulating came from).

• Has anyone tried this natural bug balm? I am a mosquito magnet during the summer. I like the idea of a natural option and that it’s small enough to keep in my purse.

More soon,

Becca