Listen to the chapter here!
Neil:
Hey everybody, it's Neil Pasricha and welcome or welcome back to chapter 140 of three books. You are listening to our epic 22-year-long quest to uncover and discuss the 1,000 most formative books in the world with guests all over the publishing industry. Authors, writers, George Saunders, David Sedaris, Judy Blume, editors like Kerri Kolen and today's dream guest, Amy Einhorn, who we're going to get to in just a second. And of course, people I just meet and bump into every which way, like two shawarma chefs, Shirley the nurse or Vishwas the Uber driver. We're hanging out, we're talking about books and how they change our lives. Thank you so much for being here and for joining us on today's Harvest Moon.
Yes, every single time there is a full moon, including today, September 17th, 2024, we drop a new chapter of three books. By the way, it's my birthday. I turned 45 today.
It's the first time a chapter and a full moon has ever hit my birthday like a bingo. So to celebrate, I've done what I've done the last few years, which is I put out a list of advice. I don't know why I do it.
I think I copied it from Kevin Kelly, actually, originally, our guest in chapter 110. When he turned 68, he started putting out like a list of 68 pieces of advice on his birthday. It's a practice that I find great because I keep a little note on my phone all year and then I kind of curate them and write them and rewrite them.
And I started when I was 43. 43 things I've almost learned as I turned 43. And now today, I just published 45 things I've almost learned as I turned 45.
So head on over to Neil.blog if you want to see it or to my social media or email us or whoever you want to check it out. Also, quick update before we get into the dream guest is Leslie and I have a new journal. It's called Two Minute Evenings.
And it is the game Rose, Rose, Thorn, Bud, the gratitude game we play every night, either at our dinner table with our kids, or before we go to bed. And it came from Leslie's mom. I think it came from her mom.
And they played it at camp growing up. And when Leslie was a little girl, her mom would always ask her before bed, what was your rose from the day? What was your highlight, a tiny win, a small pleasure?
Then she would ask her, what is your thorn? What didn't go well? Giving Leslie a place to vent or to be heard so she wasn't sleeping on it.
And then finally, what's your bud? B-U-D, what's something you're looking forward to? We added a second rose to the game.
We complement this in the evening side with, of course, our morning practice, which is Two Minute Mornings, which is I will let go of, I am grateful for, I will focus on. And the Two Minute Morning journal came out in 2017 from Chronicle Books. And it ended up selling like 150,000 copies, has 1000 reviews on Amazon.
Nobody expected this. The top reviews are also hilarious. There's like one star review saying it's the same thing every day.
And there's five star reviews saying, I love this habit. It's the same thing every day. So everybody has their own interpretation.
So Two Minute Evenings just came out. It's called Two Minute Evenings. It is the Rose, Rose, Thorn, Bud evening gratitude practice that we use.
In case you want that for yourself or your friend, you can check it out online. But now, let's get into it. Let's get into it.
Let's get into The Help by Katherine Stockett. You know that book, Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty. Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson, who, by the way, was our guest in Chapter 76, as you'll recall.
American Dirt by Jeanine Cummings. This is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel. Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera.
We Begin at the End by Chris Whittaker. A Higher Loyalty by James Comey. And even The Book of Awesome by Neil Pasricha.
What do these books all have in common? Their editor, Amy Einhorn, the famed but always kind of invisible editor, pulling the strings from behind the curtain. How do you get a book published?
What does an editor do? How did the pieces of publishing all fit together? There's nobody better to ask than Amy Einhorn.
According to The Observer, New York editors and publishers speak of Amy Einhorn's success as the product of an almost mystical editorial instinct. Colleagues cite Ms. Einhorn's good taste, her nose, her eye, and her gut. Her unique ability to pinpoint the kinds of books that thousands of people want to read.
Most editors separate mass market books from literary enterprises, which is why Ms. Einhorn's peers marvel at her expertise in the sometimes amorphous middle ground of smart commercial fiction. Or I guess in my case, in James Comey's case, in Jenny Lawson's case, sometimes also nonfiction. How do I know Amy?
Well, 15 years ago, my seven-month-old blog, 1000 Awesome Things, was nominated for Best Blog from the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. I signed on with Erin Malone, a big literary agent at William Morris Endeavor. She said, we want to auction this book next week.
Amy was one of the people that wanted to turn the blog into the book. I was very attracted to her clear, sharp vision. She was different than everybody else I talked to.
She was like, this is a hardcover, Neil. This is a gift book. This is for soccer moms.
It's not going to have all your frat boy humor in it. You got to take out the fat baseball players and the blowing your nose in the shower and all this stuff I was writing on my blog. She had a really clear vision.
I loved working with her over the next few years and over several books, handing, banding about 300-page manuscripts, having debates at midnight and 1am over email. She is a real incredible editor. I don't want to say I took it for granted, but basically when I worked for her, I thought all editors must be like this.
All editors must be this good. No, she sticks out. She has one of the highest percentages, New York Times bestseller hit rates of any other editor.
That's why I flew down to New York City, met up with her at Broadway and 55th, went up to the 19th floor and the Penguin Random House office where she is currently the Senior Vice President of Fiction at Crown, which is one of the oldest, biggest imprints that they have at Penguin Random House. And she's running fiction for it. You can tell by her instinct, she's got great taste.
And we hung out and we talked about how you get your book published. Who are the people involved in publishing a book? What's the job of an editor?
What helps make a book sell? Amy's three most formative books, of course, and much, much more. Let's jump into chapter 140 now.
Now, you know, I'm really your friend because I just told you you had something in your teeth.
Amy:
Yes.
Neil:
Right before we did a podcast, which is where nobody can see your teeth.
Amy:
Doesn't matter. Spending all this time with you. And if I came out and I had this thing on my tooth.
Neil:
It was an entry in the book of awesome. When somebody tells you there's something in your tooth.
Amy:
Right.
Neil:
Right. But people don't do it.
Amy:
But they should because you immediately have trust with somebody. Now I feel like I'm in the hands of someone who I could trust.
Neil:
Oh, that's a good way. That's a good way to feel. I really appreciate you coming on 3 Books, Amy. It's been a long time coming. We are sitting on the 19th floor. Yes.
Is this the Penguin Random House building?
Amy:
This is the PRH building.
Neil:
In midtown Manhattan?
Amy:
In midtown Manhattan.
Neil:
Overlooking the New Jersey.
Is that the Hudson River?
Amy:
That is the Hudson River. Well, we're in the house that Neil Pasricha built because we're coming back full circle to, we are just looking up how well your books did that we did together. So, yes.
So you're responsible for our lovely real estate here.
Neil:
Yeah. Right. Although when I first met you, you were down at.
Amy:
375.
Neil:
Because it was Penguin before the merger, when we started working together in 2009.
Amy:
That was a much cooler neighborhood.
Neil:
Yeah. Well, that's where I, that's where you introduced me to the chocolate chip cookies, which I still get.
Amy:
Oh, Jacques Torres?
Neil:
Yes.
Amy:
Yeah.
Neil:
The best chocolate chip cookies ever in the world.
Amy:
So funny. I don't remember.
Neil:
And the hot chocolate. You got that molten lava.
Amy:
They had the hot chocolate. They had like a spiced hot chocolate. Remember there was like, oh my God, I have a cha.
No. Oh my gosh. There's like a spicy hot chocolate that they have.
Neil:
And it was basically like a melted chocolate bar. That's why it was so good. It was like the richest.
And that's when my kids asked me to make hot chocolate. All I do is pour a bag of chocolate chips in a pot and put it on low heat. Because I remember it from the Jacques Torres chocolate chip cookie place. So we're here today. You're you're the vice president of fiction for crown.
Amy:
I think.
Neil:
Is that not your title?
Amy:
I don't know. I want to say.
Neil:
I hope I have your title right.
Amy:
I want to say I might. Maybe it is my title. I want to say I was senior vice president, but maybe not.
I should look this up. Should I see what my things.
Neil:
Maybe executive vice president. You're in charge of fiction. Let's put it that way.
Amy:
Let's just see what happens when I send somebody something.
Neil:
Oh, you're looking at your email signature.
Amy:
I'm looking at my email signature. You can tell how much I care about my titles. But then, of course, when you said it, I'm like, aren't I a senior vice president?
Let's just say I'm a vice president. Sure. I think I'm not.
But go ahead.
Neil:
No way. What does it say when you email somebody? You can't see your own name.
Amy:
Oh, it is. I'm a senior vice. I'm a senior vice president.
Neil:
That means your boss is the head of Crown Publishing.
Amy:
Yes.
Neil:
Their boss is the head of.
Amy:
Their boss is Nihar, who's in charge of all around about PRH.
Neil:
PRH. And so that's the first question I have for you is like, you know, people from the outside are like, what's a publishing company? Like, what's the publishing ecosystem?
Who are the players? Not just the publishing companies, but within the publishing company, you're an editor.
Amy:
I'm an editor and a publisher, which is confusing.
Neil:
Yeah. Can you just explain these roles? Can you define the terms of what a publishing? Who are the players in the publishing industry today?
Amy:
You mean in a generic publishing company?
Neil:
Yeah. Well, I know people know Penguin Random House, Simon and Schuster, HarperCollins, Hachette. These are like the big ones, maybe the big four, big five.
But below that, inside the publishing house, you're the senior vice president of Fiction for Crown. Like, what does that mean? What are the roles inside a publisher and who does what?
Amy:
OK. It's a good question. And I will say it's confusing because we use terms interchangeably that are actually not the same term.
So we're saying that PRH is a publishing company.
Neil:
Penguin Random House.
Amy:
They're a publishing company. But then I'm saying within the publishing company, there are other publishing houses. So then I'm saying Crown is its own publishing house, right?
Because within Crown, as I was just showing you, there's Clarkson Potter and Ten Speed and Crown Currency and Fiction, Nonfiction. Basically, whatever anybody sees on the spine of a book is an imprint of another big, you know, or for instance, like we refer to Random House as Little Random House to distinguish it from when you say Random House, you might think of Random House as, oh, that's Crown, Random House, Knopf, all of that. Does that make sense?
Neil:
Yeah, well, kind of. What does an editor do?
Amy:
Oh, gosh. OK, so what does an editor do? It also depends.
There are certain editors who never actually edit. They just go and buy stuff and they're acquiring editors.
Neil:
Acquiring editors.
Amy:
And then they might give it to a lower editor to do the actual editing.
Neil:
OK.
Amy:
There are other editors who just do line editing.
Neil:
OK.
Amy:
And they're not actually acquiring.
Neil:
That's not called a copy editor.
Amy:
No, different than a copy editor. So the copy editor would be doing things like, that's faulty parallelisms and grammar. Or, you know, you said that you got on the red eye at 11 o'clock at night in L.A., but you ended up landing at 11 a.m. in New York. That doesn't make sense because you would actually land.
Neil:
They're checking like logic and coherence and spelling and grammar and so on.
Amy:
Yes. Or, you know, you said that this character was four years old in Chapter Three and all of a sudden in Chapter Five, they're 10 years old and seven years hasn't passed in between. Right.
So that's a copy editor. In theory, your editors should be catching stuff like that. But there's sort of, you know, I think I really wish I knew this.
Back in the day when I was at Penguin, they did some study of how many people worked on a book. And I think it was either 45 or 63 people touched a book. In the publishing house.
Neil:
So I want to ask you, who are the players? It's a long list.
Amy:
There's a long list. So I feel as if editors, justly or unjustly, get all the glamour of glamour. Neil just saw my cubicle, so he knows there's no glamour.
Neil:
That's why we're in this meeting room, by the way, right? Because we couldn't, we couldn't do this in your office because your office.
Amy:
Because I don't have an office.
Neil:
Because you don't have, there's no offices anymore. So you have no walls and we would be bothering people.
Amy:
Yes.
Neil:
So now we're on the 19th floor in a little boardroom overlooking the Hudson River.
Amy:
Yes.
Neil:
And you're telling me all the players of inside a publishing company, 45 to 63 people touch a book.
Amy:
So that's everything from people who you wouldn't even know exists. So from the production team to the person who is picking out the paper and the headband. So do you know what a headband is, right?
Neil:
No.
Amy:
Oh, okay. So this isn't going to be helpful for the people on the podcast, but when, if you look at it, if you take a hardcover and you look at the spine of the book.
Neil:
I'm splitting open a hardcover by Liane Moriarty.
Amy:
And there's the, how the six books are made in increments of 60, it's called a signature, which are 16 pages. And then you, those 16 pages, those signatures are sewn together and those are called headbands. So that's what color thread they're using for the headband.
Neil:
At the top of the book, when you're looking at the top, there's a different color thread and someone's choosing the color of the thread.
Amy:
Someone's choosing that.
Neil:
Pick the color of the thread inside the headband of a book.
Amy:
Well, they're also choosing what color. So for instance, see how that has like a red there. That's red.
Neil:
Okay. That's a different book.
You open all the colors.
Amy:
Of the Dark by Chris Whitaker.
Neil:
Okay.
Amy:
So anyway, so there's all these people who are doing things from everything from helping with the printing to the art, what's the cover look like to the contracts department, to the legal department, to my sales department, to my IT department. So I feel as if, you know, the whole Hillary Clinton takes a village. It really does.
Neil:
Yeah. What's the purpose of a publishing company? What are they trying to do?
Amy:
Depends what publishing company you're speaking to. And I'm being very serious in terms of there are certain publishing companies that are very much ideologically driven, especially if you're a nonprofit, there are certain publishing companies that are conservative bent. There are others that are just sort of whatever they want to do to make money.
So I think it's different to every publishing house.
Neil:
Is there a vision or a high level mission statement for Crown?
Amy:
I can't speak for Crown. I can speak for the fiction team. And I would say that I want to be publishing books that are exciting and that have very strong voice.
Neil:
Okay.
Amy:
Which I know sounds sort of, you know, I said to someone the other day, I really want books that are well written and have a real story, which sounds incredibly reductive, but you'd be surprised how usually you have one or the other.
Neil:
Right, right, right. Well-written and has a great story. Mm-hmm.
Okay. Got it.
Amy:
Can I take a drink or is this going to screw up?
Neil:
No, you can take as many drinks as you want. I got a little cup of water here. You have, you've got a coffee.
Amy:
Okay.
Neil:
And can you tell us the story of the help?
Amy:
The story of the help?
Neil:
Yeah. I don't know what the story would be. Well, you're running an imprint with your name on it.
Amy:
So I had just come to Penguin, I- 2000 and- I'll tell you, wait, I got, I think it was 2004. Does that sound right?
Neil:
No, that's too early. I think, I think the help came out in 2009 or 2010.
Amy:
Sorry. Sorry. I'll tell you this.
My daughter, sorry. My youngest was born in 2006. I came over in 2007 to Penguin.
And the first book I bought was the help. And actually I remember making the deal because I was biking to work. For some reason, I was biking to work and I made the offer on my cell phone, putting my helmet on.
I remember exactly where I was in my building on the sidewalk.
Neil:
How did it come to you?
Amy:
This was back before we, this was right before we had electrics, electronic submissions. So it was still a real submission. And I used to work when I was an assistant, I worked for a woman who would only read the first sentence of books.
And if she didn't like them, she would put them back on the shelf and then she would give them to us to read. And I always read the first sort of paragraph or two. And now I can't tell you what the first paragraph is of the book.
But I remember you do get this feeling when you read something that you love where you're like, oh, like you just sort of come alive and there's this tingly feeling. And again, obviously that's now considered a quite a controversial book. And I don't know if one could publish it now, but then it was a voice I hadn't heard.
Neil:
What do you mean could publish now? You mean so now there's more censorship in publishing?
Amy:
Oh, um, I think times have changed.
Neil:
Yeah. Just because of the voice, right? The voice of the characters.
She's writing, she's a white woman writing black characters. Is that what you mean?
Amy:
Yeah. And I do think that there's a lot of valid criticism, although I, I actually disagree, you know, in terms of, look, there is a very long history of white saviorism. I always thought actually that the white character in that book was the most stupid character.
Like I thought Skeeter was kind of an idiot and that the two black women were the smart, smarter ones and were smart. Like, like I felt like they were the heroines of the book, but I understand people viewing it through the prism of no, this is a white woman who saves these black women and that's problematic.
Neil:
Oh, I see. It seems like everything's problematic these days though. I mean, no, I mean, you get in trouble anyway.
Books are meant to, you know, provoke and send us somewhere else and be stories. And, you know, we interviewed Maria Popova on the show and she said, you know, without appropriation, there could be no learning. It was a great quote.
She's like, everything is appropriation in one sense or the other. And, you know, I asked about this story because, you know, you came in, you had an eponymous, if I said that word right, imprint at Penguin Random House at Putnam. And it was your first book by an unknown author, went on to sell like something like 15 million copies.
And people have pointed to that as an example of you having this nose, this gut, this eye, this sense for like finding that perfect blend between commercial and literary fiction. One that you have done many times with Big Little Lies and this is how it always is. And, you know, you've had, you've had this string.
And so I'm, hoping that this conversation today can open up for people listening, like what an editor does, how books get published, and also do that through the story of your life, your journey, and your three most formative books. That's what we're going for.
Amy:
Okay.
Neil:
That's what we're trying to do.
Amy:
Okay.
Neil:
You're like closing your eyes and kind of like, it's like you're going up a roller coaster. We have the trust.
Amy:
Okay.
Neil:
We have the trust.
Amy:
You told me I had something in my teeth. We're good.
Neil:
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So you told me that the very first formative book that came to mind when I asked you for your three most formative books was called Goodbye Columbus by Philip Roth.
I might just take our listeners down a 30 second visual journey so they can picture all in this book. And then I'm going to ask you to tell us about your relationship with it. Okay.
So Goodbye Columbus is Philip Roth's first ever book published in 1959 by Houghton Mifflin. If I said that right, a light blue cover with black all caps, Goodbye Columbus at the top and a white all caps, Philip Roth below with a copper burst, like a little circles. I think you told me it's called a burst.
It's a national book award winner and a short blurb from Newsweek that says a masterpiece. Philip Roth was born in 1933 in Newark, New Jersey, just across the river here and died at 85 in New York City, not very far away in 2018. Considered one of the most successful decorated authors of all time.
What is it about? Well, Philip Roth's first book is about Neil Klugman. Klugman?
Amy:
I think so.
Neil:
From poor Newark and pretty spirited Brenda of wealthier, short hills, New Jersey, as they meet one summer and dive into an affair as much about social class and suspicion as about love. Dewey Decimals can fire this under 813.54 for literature slash American fiction slash 20th century American fiction. Amy, tell us about your relationship with Goodbye Columbus by Philip Roth.
Amy:
Oh God, this is like, it's like therapy, right? Does everyone, does everyone say this is just like this?
Neil:
I've heard that a few times. I mean that in a good way.
Amy:
Okay.
Neil:
Hopefully, hopefully they mean it in a good way.
Amy:
Well, when I originally think of Goodbye Columbus, I think that this was the first book I remember being in a classroom and having a book assigned to us and being electrified by something and seeing myself in a book. Um, and it was Ronald Schachter, who was my English teacher, grade, um, 11th grade, um, in Rockaway, New Jersey. I went to private school.
So I was, so actually one of the things was I was Neil in the book because I went to school in Livingston, New Jersey, where it was right adjacent to short hills. So there were all these very, very rich private school girls. And I was not, not that there were violins playing for me, but just like I came from a very middle to lower middle-class neighborhood.
Neil:
Yeah.
Amy:
Um, 6,000 person town, but like fairly blue collar. And then I was going to school with these kids who had literally, you know, on their 16th birthday, got Mercedes for their birthday and had trust funds. And I remember I was dating a boy once and he said something about a trust fund.
And I said, what's a trust fund? And I'd kept walking and he had stopped. He looked at me, he's like, you don't have a trust fund?
I was like, no, I don't have a trust fund. What is it? Um, anyway, so, so it was the first time somebody taught me literature in a way that sort of just sort of just spoke to me and just sort of like sparked that, you know, I guess a recognition, but B sort of just excitement.
Neil:
And it was assigned to you.
Amy:
It was assigned to me. And there's a scene in the book where, so Neil is, he's staying with his, with his aunt Gladys or his cousin Gladys, I think.
Neil:
Yeah. Aunt Gladys.
Amy:
Aunt Gladys. God, I really haven't seen that. And I, I swear to God, I didn't look at it beforehand.
And he is working in this library in Newark and he meets this very rich nouvelle riche girl. And he goes and he ends up staying at their house and they live in Short Hills. And he's, there's this one scene where he says something about he's in their basement.
They have a basement fridge, they have a fridge in the basement. And they were like, says something like, and there were plums in the basement. And he said something about like fruit grew from the fruit.
Fruit was in the refrigerator and sporting goods grew from their trees because her, her brother would throw sporting goods stuff into the trees. So they had like sneakers or tennis rackets in the trees. And it was just like a crazy exotic world to him that, you know, he's living in this damp, dark apartment in Newark.
And this was this completely other glamorous, shiny place.
Neil:
Wow. Page 41 of Goodbye Columbus. I flipped on the light at the foot of the stairs and was not surprised at the pine paneling, the bamboo furniture, the ping pong table, and the mirrored bar that was stocked with every kind and size of glass, ice bucket, decanter, mixer, swizzle stick, shot glass, pretzel bowl, all the bacchanalian paraphernalia, plentiful, orderly, and untouched as it can only be in the bar of a wealthy man who entertains people, who entertains drinking people, but who himself does not drink, who in fact gets a fishy look from his wife when every several months he takes a shot of schnapps before dinner.
Amy:
There's another line in there. And I kind of, um, I should also point out to people listening, Goodbye Columbus is actually a novella. So it's actually not a whole novel.
Um, there's another line where it was just, but I remember Ronald Schachter saying like, you know, fruit grew, you know, and sporting goods, sporting goods grew on their trees. And it was just sort of like, oh, this is so much more than all of that, obviously.
Neil:
Yeah. So it struck you, the voice hit you, the energy of the book hit you. It was one of the first times you said you were electrified reading.
Amy:
Yeah. And I should say the whole thing that's ironic about all of this is actually, it's funny because when I, my first job in publishing was working at FSG, Farrar Straus and Giroux. And when I got there, Philip Roth was published by FSG.
And back in the day, apparently Philip Roth would go to lunch with Roger Straus and they would both write down what they think his next advance should be. And then they'd pass the thing to note to the other person. And then they would come to some agreement.
And when I got there, Philip Roth went to Andrew Wiley and then left to go to Houghton Mifflin. And it was a huge deal. And I remember they sent around to the whole company, I think his royalty statements just sort of showing like, it was something bizarre, but like the whole company got this whole thing that Philip Roth left.
Anyway, fast forward a couple, like 20 years, I'm at a book publishing party because a guy used to work with at FSG is now a professor at Bennett Brown. He had a book coming out in the subway with this woman who had been brought in to be Philip Roth's editor. And so I said to her, I said, you know, I was always so jealous that you're Philip Roth's editor.
I love Philip Roth. And at this point, I'm all of, maybe I'm 30, maybe I'm 35. And she says to me, she goes, Oh, Amy, you're much too old for Philip Roth.
Cause Philip Roth had a lot of affairs.
Neil:
Oh, that's so funny.
Amy:
Yes. Which, um, so, so the irony is, is I don't know if I'd ever met Philip Roth, if I would love his work, but I didn't get to meet him, which was good.
Neil:
Oh yeah. Yeah. Befriend the dead.
They're not going to change kind of thing. Class fitting in is interesting. You know, the main character in the book is, is from New York, as you mentioned, Brenda's the Radcliffe going money to the object of his desire from short hills. And you're from Rockaway, New Jersey, right? Which in 2020, I looked up the census population has 6,598 people. And you describe in a 2014 interview with poets and writers magazine that you started in the industry in 1989.
That means that's the year you graduated from Stanford.
Amy:
I think I started in 1990. So I lied to poets and writers.
Neil:
You made $13,000 a year and you worked weekends cleaning apartments to help pay your bills. So both of you, you and Neil, the main character have this sort of outsider perspective, but you've climbed to the highest and you're running fiction for crown publishing. You are considered one of the best editors in the world.
You have this high percentage in New York times, bestseller hit rate that people talk about, you know, Amy can sort of pick objects from goal. How did, how did you see yourself as part of this industry? Now I've heard you talk a little bit about going to like, like, cause publishing from the outside sounds very like a fancy, you know, Seth Godin, our guest in chapter three said it's ladies and gentlemen, making books for ladies and gentlemen.
That's how he described the industry.
Amy:
That's funny.
Neil:
You know, was it like a culture shock when you came into it?
How'd you get acclimated? How do you, and also I want to just throw in here another question from Jim Levine, our guest in chapter 34. Do you recommend, do you recommend publishing for new college grads looking to get into this, this industry?
Amy:
Okay. Where do I start?
Neil:
I gave you lots of questions there. I want to talk class. I want to talk fitting in.
Amy:
I should point out class. I think like, let's just start off with the fact is I come from a very privileged background. I had my parents always to, it wasn't like, yes, I did work as a cleaning person on the weekends that said I had health insurance from my parents.
I had my parents in New Jersey if I ever needed anything. So I don't want to make it out. Like I was sort of, you know, like pulling myself up from my bootstraps.
But that said, like, I wasn't making any money and you know, I didn't have a trust fund. Sorry, then I got lost in your question. What was the next one?
Neil:
Well, it's like, how'd you fit in?
Amy:
Oh, okay. This was what I was going to say.
First of all, I feel like I want my therapist to listen to this tape recording. Cause you were just like, and I'm like, this is everything I talk about. I think, I don't know.
I think I have this whole theory about published, about literature that I think people who read books, that you find your truck, that you kind of, it's the ultimate of being an outsider and that you find, you see yourself in a book, right? And that sort of in a way, and also a lot of people who are attracted to publishing were like the nerdy kids in the library who felt like they didn't fit in. And then in a book you see yourself or you connect with something.
So I do have this theory that all of publishing is about being an outsider. But I still would say, I don't feel like I still feel today that, oh yeah, I don't have the right pedigree. You know, I didn't go to Harvard.
I didn't go to Brown. I didn't go to Vassar. I didn't go to the Paris review parties.
Like I don't do the things that kind of other people who I would say fit in more do. So I don't know if I would say I feel like, but then I would say to you, if I'm going back and forth, this really has become a therapy session. I went from not wanting to do this podcast.
And now Neil is going to be like, she just went off.
Neil:
I love talking to you. You're a wonderful conversation.
Amy:
I do think that a lot of the people who are very successful in publishing in a way actually transcend that. Like John Karp for a long time, like didn't go to lunches with people. Like he they're like the two most successful people in the industry.
So I don't think you have to run John Karp. John Karp runs Simon & Schuster and Goddoff runs Penguin Press and both are sort of renowned editors, the best in their class. And they're not the people he would see necessarily at like a party.
But I do think there's a group of sort of very socializing and doing all of that to which I've never felt.
Neil:
Why is that part of the industry? Is it because the people you're editing are often famous?
Amy:
No, because I don't think it's that. I think it's, first of all, there's very, there's, as opposed to if you were a lawyer, you could go work in how many million law firms. If you're in publishing, there's, I should point out again, if someone's listening to this, who's working at a small, like working at Milkweed or, or, you know, they would say, there's a lot of small publishers.
So it's not just all New York. If you're looking at corporate publishing for the kind of publishing we are doing, it's pretty much based in New York. There's five big publishers.
So in that respect, everybody sort of is working with someone at one point. And then the other thing is, is that part of what we do is, you know, one of the reasons Goodbye Columbus spoke to me is it take place in New Jersey. I grew up in New Jersey.
So if I'm a literary agent, I want to go out to lunch with Amy, find out about her. Oh, she has three daughters. She's from New Jersey.
She likes yoga. So then next year, if I have a novel and it's about a woman who has three daughters, oh, I'm going to send that to Amy. So there is a part where you need to know.
Neil:
The social thing creates the connection that's important for the.
Amy:
And also just sort of what is going to speak to someone. I mean, I think you and I were just talking about this earlier over lunch. So much about publishing is having an advocate.
And also, since all of it is subjective, you and I could read the same book and have completely different opinions about it. But you just need one person who's going to be messianic about your book and sort of tell everyone they need to read it. And in order to be messianic about that, I think you need to have you need to have an emotional connection.
And I would say any time I've bought a book, a cynical buy where I've sort of said, oh, you know, statistically there's this many people. It doesn't work. Which I think in a way is kind of good.
Neil:
Yeah. It's interesting you mentioned, you know, it's just in one city, New York, there's just five big publishers. That's been my experience too, is that everything's here.
Everyone's worked with everybody. So it sounds like a bit of an in groupiness. But you would imagine that that would make the industry kind of fragile at the same time, like there'd be entire waves and trends that would get missed because they weren't cool or popular or interesting to people in New York, you know?
Amy:
Oh, I mean, we're totally out of touch with the rest of America.
Neil:
That's what I'm saying.
Amy:
Yes.
Neil:
We're totally out of touch with the rest of America.
Amy:
I mean, yes, in that, you know, I can't tell you how many times you would write to your Barnes and Noble rep and you'd be like, you know, I was in the Barnes and Noble on 81st Street and Broadway and I didn't see my book, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then they would say that Barnes and Noble is not indicative of the rest of the country, you know, because the stores in New York are not indicative of the rest of the country. But yeah, I do think.
Neil:
Meanwhile, you know, it's often the cultural and taste kind of makers, right? Like books, to my mind, I know I'm a biased book podcaster, but books are creating the conversations that the culture is then having. I mean, Jonathan Haidt's Next Generation comes out.
Then, you know, you see cell phones are getting banned everywhere. Like, you know, a lot of the biggest conversations originate in like a book.
Amy:
Yes, but you could also argue that we're coming to the like sometimes we're coming after the curve.
Neil:
Right. Yeah, right. OK, cool.
But speaking of books, though, because we open this up in a 2009 interview with Tina Brown in The Daily Beast. Tina said to Philip Roth, you said in an interview, you don't think novels are going to be read in 25 years. Do you really believe that's true?
And Philip Roth replied, I was actually being optimistic about 25 years. I think it's going to be cultic. I think people will always be reading them, but will be a small group of people, maybe more people than now read Latin poetry, but somewhere in that range.
He went on to say the book simply can't compete with the screen. It could compete. Beginning with the movie screen, it couldn't compete with the television screen, and now it can't compete with the computer screen.
And now we have all those screens. So against all those screens, I don't think the book can measure up.
Amy:
I think ever since I got in publishing, people were crying about, you know, it was sort of the sky is falling. And so now you look back at FSG, I remember 1990, it was terrible. The sky was falling.
Now you look back and you're like, those are the good old days. I think everyone likes, I remember actually someone said to me, well, people in publishing love to sort of just sort of pull their hair and sort of say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, are we? I think when the ebook came out, that's going to be the death of the book, the physical book.
And in fact, it wasn't. I do think it's interesting. And I don't want to look, I think there's obviously lots of serious problems for publishing, but, and I don't want to be all kumbaya, but I do think it's interesting that part of one of the biggest discussions is about intellectual property, sorry, intellectual property and in terms of source material.
And that's why all these companies are sort of, you whether or not you had Harper Collins with Fox, whatever. I still think that at the end of the day, the book delivers something that you can't get somewhere else. I mean, there was a very funny video, a couple, maybe it was like 15 years ago when the eBooks were coming out.
And it was, it was this very funny mock of this new invention called the book. And they had it out and they're you can open it. You can read it in the sun.
You can bring it into the bathtub.
Neil:
You can rewind it in one second.
Amy:
You can do all this stuff with it. If you think about it, you're like, yeah, that's kind of cool. Right.
Can't do that with my iPad. I can't read it on the beach.
Neil:
And when you say the book can do, the book gives you something that nothing else can, how do you articulate what that is?
Amy:
I will say I'm actually right now, I'm going to say I'll make a distinction between fiction and nonfiction. I do think for nonfiction, I think, look, I think fiction is up against all of those things. You know I remember when my girls were watching Big Little Lies and my oldest daughter said, I can't wait to see what happens next.
What happens next? And my middle daughter just tells you a lot about their relationship, started screaming at her, like, it's a book. You could read the book, you know?
And she had no interest in reading the book. Right. So I think you always have that.
But I do think that novels, the book delivers a novel in a way that you can't get from reading an excerpt in The New Yorker or you can't get online or, you know, from Instagram or Snapchat or anywhere else.
Neil:
Yeah. I agree completely with you. I think the book sends you somewhere that you can't go anywhere else.
Amy:
Right. And I do think in terms of storytelling, storytelling is, I mean, thousands of years old, right? So, so I can see Philip Roth's point, but I also feel like that's a little bit sort of, I do think everyone loves to sort of talk about doom and gloom.
Neil:
And it's not what you're seeing inside here. You know, books, I think Penguin and Random House just released better numbers than ever. You know, this year has people read more books or they certainly sold more books than they ever have before in their history.
So it's, if that is the case, then we merge that with data like 58% of Americans read zero books last year from the time you study, like less people are reading, but somehow it still seems that we're good. Like books are still, I don't want to say thriving, but they're still working in our culture.
Amy:
I think they're still relevant.
Neil:
Still relevant. Yeah. That's great.
That's great. Sex scenes. I want to talk to you about.
Amy:
Oh my god.
Neil:
Philip Roth was once called a crazed penis after his 1969 book Portnoy's Complaint. And although this book was written in the 1950s, it does have soft core sex scenes, you know, page 17 of the book. I went to pull her towards me just as she started fluttering up, my hand hooked onto the front of her suit, the cloth pulled away from her, you know, her breast swam towards me like two pink nosed fish.
She let me hold them. This is 1959.
Amy:
Oh, and then they're swimming at the country club.
Neil:
They're swimming at the country club. What role does sex have in books? Do you think?
Amy:
Oh my God, that's such an interesting question. I should point out one of the other reasons why it's interesting that I chose Goodbye Columbus is because I don't think I can, I think I can say whatever I want to say cause he's dead, but I don't with, with no disrespect, you know, a lot of people think Philip, Philip Roth was a misogynist and I can't remember which book of his, there's one novel of his that I started. And literally the first opening is it's a man who is having oral sex with a woman.
And it's just all about him thrusting into this woman's mouth. And I was just like, you know what? I'm good.
I don't need to read this. And it was very, very violent. And if you read, I remember reading Goodbye Columbus years ago after, you know, and thinking, oh my God, Neil is such an asshole.
Like the whole thing with the diaphragm, like it's such a, anyway, so, so.
Neil:
He wants her to get a diaphragm, doesn't want to go with her to the appointment, all this stuff.
Amy:
Right. And he makes this huge thing about her getting a diaphragm, which is just completely just such a male power play. But in terms of sex in the novel, I guess I don't view, I feel like there's a, there, it's not just sort of sex for the sake of it's not gratuitous.
I think that was all to me. Like you read that scene, it's like, there's this, he's in this country club, what's above the water, what's happening underneath the water. He's getting secret things that are forbidden, which to me goes with the whole, so much more about the novel rather than just, oh, I'm just going to start putting in people fucking for the sake of people fucking.
Neil:
Right. Right. And so what makes, do, do the books you edit have sex in them much?
Judy Blume told us in chapter six, that she wants to see more sex scenes in books. She thinks that when she was a kid, like people learned about sex through books and they don't anymore.
Amy:
Well, they learned about sex through her books. We all had forever at camp.
Neil:
Exactly. And, and she thought that was a great thing. And she doesn't see that in the culture as much anymore.
You have three girls as well. Do you educate them through books?
Amy:
I would say they probably educate me. Did you ever watch sex education?
Neil:
No my wife has been big fan of that show for years.
Amy:
Oh, so good. But I remember the originally my daughter's like, do you want to watch this? And I would walk in and actually I think the first episode I saw, it starts with these two girls are having sex.
And it's very explicit. And I just said to my girls, like, I'm good. And they of course jumped all over me.
They're like, why is it? Cause it's two girls having sex. And I said, it's nothing to do with that.
It's two girls having sex, like just don't really. And then it was interesting. So I was always in the room when it was on.
And then you realize that actually, first of all, it's the most non-sexual show because it's like sex as a very physical thing. It's not at all. It's like really sort of almost desexualizing it.
And then you realize the show is actually incredibly sweet. Like it's a really sweet show. So to answer your question about most of my books, do they have sex in them?
I think a lot of people don't write sex well.
Neil:
Yeah.
Amy:
So usually I'm very adverse to, I'm very worried when some of my authors write sex and I feel like it seems like very purple prose.
Neil:
Purple prose. What does that mean?
Amy:
Purple prose is kind of, you know, like, it seems like it's, it's just purple prose.
Neil:
Bad?
Amy:
It's just sort of like, it's purple.
I mean, it's just like icky and just sort of sounds like a little bit like soft porny.
Neil:
Well, Philip Roth was asked in that same interview, how do you, how do you, are sex scenes harder to write than others? And he said, well, you don't want to repeat yourself for one. You don't want to fall into the cliches for another, and you don't want to be licentious.
Amy:
Licentious. Yeah.
Neil:
Licentious. Really? You want to be descriptive if you can be, and you're not setting up to arouse anybody.
I thought that was an interesting answer.
Amy:
I just don't think I, so I'm trying to think if any of my books have, oh, that's not true. I'm about a couple that have been having an affair for six years and they meet once or twice a month. And on this night, they never spend the night.
And on this one night, the man in the affair books a hotel room and they're going to spend the whole night together in Manhattan. And the novel starts with them having sex and the fire alarm goes off. And they call down, they said, oh, you know, it's a new hotel.
Fire alarm's been going on for, off where you've had this problem all week. And so then keep having sex and then fire alarm goes off again. Anyway, the novel ostensibly has a lot of sex in it, but yet I don't find it a sexy novel.
Neil:
Right. Right. Interesting.
Yeah. Yeah. I find it really interesting.
I'd like to teach my kids sex through books more. I'm worried about, you know, online and them discovering sex through visual means only. And I want to kind of explore the like, you know, thoughts and feelings and emotional side of it.
So I was looking for books to give to my kids.
Amy:
I just feel like this generation is so much better than we were.
Neil:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
What do you mean?
Amy:
I just think that they're just so much more advanced. And I remember my oldest daughter, she must've been 12. She came home one day and she's telling me something.
And like the 20th thing she said was so-and-so at school is bisexual. And I should point out, I have a gay sister, plenty of gay people in my family. And I said, the first thing that came to my mouth, I said was, well, did people make fun of him?
And she said to me, well, why would they make fun of him? And I was like, oh, isn't that lovely? Like why would they make fun of him by my year?
Neil:
Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah.
Pejoratives galore, right?
Amy:
Yeah.
Neil:
High school was a hundred percent heterosexual when I went to high school in the nineties, right? It's not that long ago. And so I see what you mean.
You mean from a progressive standpoint, we've shifted the needle quite a bit.
Amy:
And I think you could probably look at, look, if you look at sort of young adult literature, there's so much more representation, right? In terms of trans, gay, lesbian.
Neil:
People of color.
Amy:
Yeah.
Neil:
It's all there. James Wood, by the way, one quote on Philip Roth before we go to the next book said, "More than any other postwar American novelist, Roth wrote the self—the self was examined, cajoled, lampooned, fictionalized, ghosted, exalted, disgraced, but above all constituted by and in writing."
Amy:
You know, for me, Philip Roth was the exact same age as my father and my father grew up in New Jersey. And so to me, I think also I viewed him as this insight into my father in that this sort of you know, generation that grew up in World War II and post-World War II and in terms of secular Jewish assimilation. So that's another thing where I think that's what I found. You know, he wrote this book called The Counterlife, which I think is one of the best portrayals of secular Judaism.
Neil:
Yeah. And he really renounced being called a Jewish writer. He didn't like that.
Amy:
Right.
Neil:
Yeah. He was really against that. He said, I'm an American writer.
If you want to call me anything. And he even had a quote when the whole world doesn't believe in God, it will be a great place.
Amy:
Which is interesting because also for the same reason, it was funny. My daughters were talking about something and they asked me. Someone was asking me about what to read or something.
And someone said, well, what is that person considered? And I said, well, they're considered women's fiction. And then I must have said something.
And they said, what? And I said, well, they don't have a term for men's fiction. Like the fact is women's fiction is so pejorative.
Neil:
Right. Right. Even like where do you come in on like genres in general?
You know, we had David Mitchell on the show in Chapter 58, Cloud Atlas, one of his books. You know, he's like some people put it in fantasy. Some people put it, you know, he's like, well, what is fantasy?
Like and also can't gender be an organ of the novel, you know, as opposed to where the novel is filed?
Amy:
I think we in publishing love to categorize things. So in publishing, there's a huge um, divide between, you know, you publish literary books, you publish commercial books.
Neil:
Even that, what does that even mean?
Amy:
Well, I don't think I would say that most readers don't go into the bookstore or the library and say, I want literary book. I only read commercial. I think you read across all genres.
But I think in publishing, we like to put labels.
Neil:
Literary and commercial is like, was that smart and dumb? Like, what is that?
Amy:
It depends who you're talking to. So some people might use commercial pejoratively, um, you know, for the people who would say, oh, I'd never read anything on the bestseller list, you know, because that must be crap. If a lot of people like it.
Um, the interesting thing about that is my literary authors always want to have more sales and my commercial authors always want to be perceived more, more literary.
Neil:
Oh, wow.
Amy:
Well, not just mine. I would say most authors.
Neil:
Yeah, literary authors want to have more sales and commercial authors. And I can sort of somewhat relate. I think the book of awesome would be, you know, and the books I've written are clearly on the commercial side, the mass side, but I aspire to and read about and interview people that are more, more literary.
Cause that's where I'm, you know, that's where I'm, I'm looking up to, you know, commercial authors wish they were more literary. Interesting.
Amy:
I don't think it's that they wish they were more literary, but they, I think that they would get the respect that the more literary authors would get.
Neil:
Having a book reviewed in the New York times book review or being considered for some of these fancier awards and things like that.
Amy:
I don't think it's necessarily being reviewed in the New York times, but I think more like, um, I just think that there is, again, I think it goes to back to sort of publishing and bona fides and sort of, did you go to the right school?
Neil:
Um, and did you, I'm writing that down bona fides. I didn't know how to pronounce that word ever in my life until right now.
Amy:
I don't know if that's correct.
Neil:
No, I'm going to go with that. So I have a word of the chapter at the end of every show where I, so far I've already written that I wrote Messianic as well.
Amy:
Okay.
Neil:
Right. Right. And down interesting.
Amy:
I know, but you shouldn't go by me for a presentation because, um, pronunciation, my French teacher told me I spoke French with a New Jersey accent.
Neil:
Oh, really? I think you're, I think you're
Amy:
It was not a great compliment.
Neil:
What do you mean on the literary?
So literary wants more sales commercial wants, you know, to be more respected maybe. And then you said bona fides, that's one of the things in publishing, like, why is there even a split? Why they don't go to different bookstores?
Amy:
I would say, but you could say they do, right? You know, is there an indie bookstore? Is it a chain or is an airport bookstore? So I do think there's sort of, again, this sort of, I don't want to say hierarchy,
Neil:
It's an important question because this is kind of what you're known for is that you are known for, you know, finding that middle ground that others can't seem to find. It's a chasm for most people to try to find a book that's both literary and commercial, but you seem to do it over and over again. You find books that are appealing to the higher brow reader and mass appeal enough that they sell boatloads and get turned into movies and TV shows.
So you've identified some big gap here that others can't seem to see as well as you.
Amy:
Oh, I think there are plenty of people that see it as well as I do. I mean, I can name like 10 editors, but, but so, but I do think that, um, I think that we bandy these terms about, and in a way it's helping us trying to put sort of order on something that has no order.
Neil:
Oh, interesting. Yeah. Right.
Like my band is a combination of Radiohead and U2.
Amy:
Yeah. Well, I mean, that's, what's also interesting in publishing is because when you go to sell a book, you have to say, well, it's just like this book. But one of the reasons you bought it was because it wasn't like anything you've read before. Right?
Neil:
Right.
Amy:
So then you're having to say this book is so incredibly unique, but yet tell me why it's going to be exactly for the reader of X meets Y.
Neil:
This is a problem with people in general, though. It's not just editors and publishers that want to categorize. We all want to filter sort because it is a faster way to navigate the world.
You don't have time to read the first page of every book. So you go to a genre like murder mysteries or whatever, and then you try to find something that you've liked before. And arguably the algorithms deepen this tendency because they are feeding us what we are looking at in amplified terms.
So if you were to read an Agatha Christie book or whatever, you're going to get fed a lot more like that. And it's harder and harder in our culture to break out of where you've come from and find something wholly new. That's probably why the Amy Einhorn's book challenge was so inspiring.
Amy:
Oh, my God, I forgot about that.
Neil:
There's yeah, there was a big book club following online that was specifically geared towards reading every book that you edited. Fiction or nonfiction, The Help, The Book of Awesome, The Weird Sisters, The Postmistress, they were following your editorial instinct as opposed to genre, which I thought was really interesting.
Neil:
Mm hmm.
Neil:
Yeah. You don't remember that Beth Fish reads. OK, let's go to the second.
Shout out to Beth Fish. Let's go to the second of your formative books here and continuing this wonderful conversation with The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank. By the way, I loved Goodbye Columbus.
I had not read it before. And I also love this book. Some people say, Neil, you don't tell us if you loved it or not.
I loved this book way more than I was expecting.
Amy:
Well, wait a minute. That could mean like you liked it because you just thought it was going to be utter crap.
Neil:
Like, I genuinely love this book. I was in the city. One way I know that I love a book is when I don't want to finish it.
Like when I get close to the end, it's the last chapter. And I'm like, oh, I want to. This is such good gold that I want to like paste this out, maybe read a couple of pages a night.
I want to make this last a week. I just don't want to finish. And I have that feeling a lot when I was reading The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing, which is published in 1999 by Viking Press.
It's an all white paperback I'm holding with a picture of a girl from the back, seemingly running away from the reader. She's wearing a big red coat, black furry hat, black leggings and rain boots. And at the top, it says Melissa Bank in black with The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing on the bottom in the same font in gold.
There is a red plaid ribbon on the side of the book, like a tartan seal like you might see on like a Macintosh toffee chocolate bar, if you know what those are. Melissa Bank lived from 1960 to 2002, born in Boston, died in East Hampton, New York City. She worked in publishing in New York before getting her MFA from Cornell and later taught at Stony Brook University.
She published two books in her career. This, The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing and The Wonder Spot. What's it about?
Well, it maps the progress of Jane Rosenal as she sets out on a personal and spirited expedition through the perilous terrain of sex, love and relationships, as well as the treacherous waters of the workplace. Follow this one, Dewey Decimal Heads under 813.54 for literature, slash 20th century, slash 20th century fiction. You might remember that from the last book.
Amy, tell us about your relationship with The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank.
Amy:
OK, I should point out I got all of these books because I was going to look at them before this interview, and then I didn't read them because I had got I had to do editing. If I remember correctly, well, first of all, I do know because I did open this one and I remember the first opening is actually this young woman or girl. I think she's a young woman.
And she's at her parents' beach house on the Jersey Shore. And she's upset because she had wanted them to buy a house in East Hampton or the Hamptons.
Neil:
Yeah.
Amy:
Do you need me to do that?
Neil:
No, no. There's just someone like stapling the door of the room we're in while we're in it. She is looking out the window.
She wishes she was somewhere else.
Amy:
She wishes she was somewhere else. And she's on this house on this lagoon, which has been called sort of like the New Jersey Venice. And and she's waiting for her brother to come.
And also, if I'm remembering correctly, each of the chapters read almost like interconnected short stories.
Neil:
That's right.
Amy:
OK.
Neil:
And they leapfrog like if you finish chapter one, you're like, oh, she's 14. And you open that chapter and you're like, you realize she's 23.
Amy:
And she's an assistant in publishing. So I think the other thing is I love short stories. And I sort of that was one of the formative things that I read in college was Raymond Carver.
And well, and oh, my gosh.
Neil:
Tobias Wolfe.
Amy:
No, I didn't actually read that much Tobias Wolfe. I actually oddly I never loved his novels, but I loved Hemingway's short stories. William Carlos Williams short stories.
And I can't believe I'm forgetting there's a woman.
Neil:
Joy Williams.
Amy:
Oh, I'll think of it in a little bit. It'll come to me when I'm thinking about it. So I love short stories.
Very hard to do in publishing. But I think there's something about it where it's sort of and that's the interesting thinking about it because Goodbye Columbus is novella. There's something really nice about everything's more contained as a, you know, when I started in publishing, everything was, you had to submit something as a manuscript.
So a long manuscript would have been 300 pages. And now with the advent of the word processor, first word processor and then computers, you know, if you had to type a word, it really needed to it had to deserve to be typed. Right.
As opposed to when it's on a keyboard and in the ether, you can just sort of type away.
Neil:
So you're saying by going from a finite kind of paper and ink to an infinite sort of limit, people say more.
Amy:
When maybe they don't need to. You know, if you look at.
Neil:
Like it was terrible on Twitter and they abolished the 140 character limit. Then they made it 280. Then they took it off completely.
Amy:
Well, I'm not on Twitter.
Neil:
No, but the point is.
Amy:
But if you look at, like, if you look at The Great Gatsby, it's not even 200 pages.
Neil:
Right. Exactly. Or Animal Farm or Siddhartha or Old Man in the Sea.
Amy:
So I do think there's an art to that that we've sort of thrown out because we don't need it. So why did I love this book? I think, again.
Neil:
Where were you at the time? The first book you read in 11th grade in a private school in New Jersey.
Amy:
And this came out. When did this come out?
Neil:
1999.
Amy:
So 1999, I would have been in publishing for nine years. I was in New York City. I would have been a new mom.
Neil:
All of these are elements of the themes in this book.
Amy:
Right.
Neil:
So you see yourself in here.
Amy:
Yeah, I don't think there's like a huge hard thing to figure out.
Neil:
Yeah.
Amy:
Jewish woman in publishing. Oh, wow. Maybe that's why she liked the book.
But I do think in a way was also interesting, which is that you think that, oh, you had a life similar to hers and she made it feel important and worth looking at. If that makes any sense.
Neil:
Oh, yeah, totally. You had a life similar to yours and she made it feel important and worth looking at.
Amy:
In a way that I didn't feel like, you know, like.
Neil:
It added levity to your own life or like a strength, conviction.
Amy:
I don't know if I'd say levity, but it.
Neil:
Weight.
Amy:
Gravitas?
Neil:
Gravitas. That's the word. You're the editor.
Levity is like lightness.
Amy:
I did need lightness.
Neil:
It was the opposite. I meant like weight.
Amy:
And not that it added it, but I think there's like a value. It sort of was a you sort of felt there was a valid. Oh, now I'm not thinking of the word.
I'll think of it. But yes, you felt sort of like, oh, you felt. I want to say valify, but that's not the word.
Why can't I? Why can't we think of words today?
Neil:
No, it's just justified. People are saying and be like, I know the word that they're talking about.
Amy:
I'll come up with it. Grace Paley was the other woman who I wanted to, who is a short story writer. So let's go back to that.
I remember that. I loved Grace Paley's short stories and Raymond Carver. But yes, I think I think this is like a very easy thing to psychoanalyze as to why I like the book.
Neil:
It's got a very unique title. I mean, when you hear this, the girl's guide to hunting and fishing, it sounds like a nonfiction book, like about a guide to hunting and fishing. Of course, has nothing to do with hunting or fishing.
And in fact, that title is just the name of a book that the main character reads in the last chapter of the book. So you don't figure out the purpose of this title till way into it. And I thought, OK, this book has a really strange title.
Doesn't sound like fiction. Title makes no sense at all to get the last chapter. You also have said many times interviews like you think titling, of course, is extremely important.
And I looked at the list of books that you've edited and published, and so many of them have intriguing titles. This is not the story you think it is in 2010. Let's pretend this never happened.
2012. This is how it always is. 2017.
We begin at the end. 2020. Listen for the lie.
2024. I mean, how what's your how do you title? Like, how do you do it?
You have a and I will also just add for people. The Book of Awesome was not called The Book of Awesome till the 11th hour when you interjected after we had a title and a cover approved for the other side of the pillow. That's what the book was going to be called with a picture of a pillow on the cover.
You came back and said, I don't think this title is working. And you changed at the last minute past the point past the deadline that we weren't supposed to cross or whatever, you know. So you've got this knack for titling.
I'm curious what importance you think titles play and how you go about titling the books that you edit.
Amy:
I will say the only claim I can. Liane Moriarty's success is all Liane's because she's so freaking brilliant. But actually, when she submitted Big Little Lies, it was called Little Lies.
And I remember saying, well, that doesn't. So I said, what about Big Little Lies? And she loved it.
And Australia loved it. And the UK didn't. So the UK actually published it as Little Lies.
And we all published it as Big Little Lies. And then it became really big. And then they changed it to Big Little Lies.
Neil:
Oh, nice.
Amy:
So that was kind of cool.
Neil:
This is what I'm talking about. So you've added another like data point to my proof here that you have this knack for it. I think.
Something made you change that title.
Amy:
I do think in a way, you know, it's funny because I was once on this panel and it was all about your best mentors and everyone's talking about these great people they worked for. And my best mentor was this woman I worked for who was just like a horror and was just the worst boss ever. But she was a great mentor because she had the most profound influence on my career, because I would always try and do the opposite of what she did in terms of to my staff.
So I actually think it was incredibly, really helpful. I do think it's interesting how much you're shaped by the people who you started working with, because going back, and I should say these are two different women, but that woman who would only read the first sentence. And that's where I feel.
Neil:
That's not Ann Patti, is it?
Amy:
Yeah, it is Ann Patti.
Neil:
Oh, it is Ann Patti. Who I reached out to. Before this, I'll tell you what she said.
Amy:
Oh God, I remember she was amazed that I couldn't spell because it was back before I'd spell checked. She's like, your spelling is atrocious. Ann would only read the first sentence, right?
And in some respects, you could say that's ridiculous. But in other respects, you're like, you know what? You're asking readers to spend money and time to read your book.
And if you can't be bothered to figure out a way to hook them from the beginning, and I would argue the beginning is the title. So if you can't spend time on that, and you just do a title that's not intriguing, then why do you deserve my money?
Neil:
Oh, intriguing. That's the word. That's the word that you're looking for.
Intriguing. You want the title to be intriguing.
Amy:
Right.
Neil:
Interest provoking. And Little Lies was not doing that, but Big Little Lies would.
Amy:
Well, because Little Lies, you've heard that before, right? It doesn't make you say, oh, huh?
Neil:
Oh, huh. That's an interesting reaction. Yeah.
It doesn't make you say, oh, huh. I like that. Yeah.
Kind of like the Book of Awesome, right? The other side of the pillow was and by the way, the full title was going to be the other side of the pillow and 199 other awesome things in life. The Book of Awesome is a bit of an oh, huh?
What is that?
Amy:
Right. But it's also you're kind of like, what is it? But I want it.
Neil:
Right. What is it? But I want it.
These are all really powerful reactions that you're having. What is it? But I want it.
Amy:
Let's see. Book of Awesome. The Postmistress.
I came up with that title. I forget what that was called. The Weird Sisters was called The Weird Sisters, which I love that title.
You Know When The Men Are Gone, which is a collection of short stories that are about family members of family members left behind when their partners or husbands and wives were deployed that I came up with that title or I helped come up with that title. And I like that title because to me, it seemed reminiscent of Raymond Carver.
Neil:
Oh, right, right, right.
Amy:
And then I'm just trying to think of Jenny Lawson always came up with her own titles.
Neil:
You're editing such diverse people here. Jenny Lawson, James Comey, Amy Sedaris, Katherine Stockett. Do you edit differently based on who you're editing?
Amy:
Yeah, I think. Well, I think you edit differently in terms of stylistically in terms of how they want to be edited.
Neil:
They send you a manuscript. What's the first thing you do?
Amy:
Well, it depends. Sometimes I'm reading it as a proposal. So if it's nonfiction, you're reading it as a proposal.
If it's fiction, you're reading it as usually a whole novel. And usually what would happen is if I thought it needed a lot of changes or it needed any substantive editing, you have a conversation with the author before you buy it. Because as I always say to authors, our relationship is a bit like a Mormon marriage.
And so you want to make sure everyone's on the same page. And at the end of the day, it's the author's name that's on the cover of the book. So I might have a vision for the book.
But if that doesn't align with what the author's vision is, then as much as I like it, we shouldn't work together.
Neil:
So you have this conversation of making these substantive changes. And how do you define substantive? Like big changes?
Amy:
Yeah. I mean, I think that if, you know, it was funny where... Oh, I just bought a novel recently that I'm a little obsessed about.
And it's called The Beheading Game. And it's about Anne Boleyn. And Anne Boleyn wakes up the day after being beheaded.
And she's in this box and she's holding her head in her hands. And she then escapes the box and finds... She breaks into someone's house and finds a sewing kit, sews her head back on and then goes to seek vengeance against Henry.
And along the way, there's this queer love story. And so when I spoke to the author... And the beginning and the end are fantastic.
The middle doesn't really work. And so when I spoke to the author, I was telling her... And she said, well, do you want me to get rid of the queer love story?
And I said, no, no, no, the queer love story is fantastic. But it just... I was going through and it was interesting.
That would be sort of something where somebody else, I think, might have said to her, I want you to get rid of the queer love story. That, to me, would be a substantive edit, right? Because you're getting rid of a huge portion of the book.
Neil:
But what made you say the middle doesn't work?
Amy:
Right now, it doesn't work. Because it just needs to be tightened. And I need more...
There needs to be more in the middle. But it's going to be great. It sort of feels weird talking about a book before it's out.
Neil:
Well, yeah. And we don't have to talk about this book in particular. But when you say if...
I've heard... I remember you talking on like a Monday morning. And I was like, what did you do over the weekend?
You're like, I just read books. I was like, oh, yeah, what'd you read? And you're like, I read seven books over the weekend.
None of them were good. It was... The worst was the 700-page book that fell apart 500 pages in.
Amy:
Yeah.
Neil:
I remember you saying that.
Amy:
Yeah, happens a lot. That's just sort of... Again, though, I'm not working in a coal mine.
I have a great job. But it's a bummer when you spend a whole week reading a book and it falls apart.
Neil:
And it falls apart. This is all like... This is the nose.
This is the gut. This is your feeling. This is the energy you get when you're reading it.
The spark that you're having as a reader.
Amy:
Well, some of it, though, could fall apart. And then you think, oh, I know exactly how to fix this. And so that's why I want to talk to the author to see if they're on board with this.
But sometimes it falls apart and you don't know how to fix it. And then you know, OK, I can't do this because I don't see a way to get around this.
Neil:
So if you see substantive as you talk to them before you buy it. And this is the process, though, just to clarify for people, is that the editor buys the book. They offer an advance if the advances of the author is liking.
The author says yes.
Amy:
Well, there's an agent. So usually anybody listening to this, you want to have a literary agent. So there's a literary agent.
Neil:
How do you get a literary agent?
Amy:
That's a whole nother podcast in and of itself. And I think from what I've been told, I think it's harder getting a literary agent than getting published by some people. Because I do think it's sort of getting your foot in the door.
Because some people only take queries from people that they know or they're writers, friends, whatever. There are some agents that do read this. We call it the slush pile, which is you're just writing cold into somebody and saying, you know, here's my book.
Neil:
There's no like I used to use the website agentquery.com, which had a list of all literary agents. And you could try to filter it by genre or past books you liked. And I used to borrow the advice from David Sedaris, who said, go to the biggest books you can find.
Find the three or five books most similar to yours. Read the acknowledgments. They will thank their literary agent.
That gives you a name and a person to look up and then send your to be in the slush pile like query to a query is like a letter that tells you, tells the agent what your book is about and a chunk of the book and then let them get back to you if they like it.
Amy:
Then I would probably amend that and say, go find a younger or less senior agent at that agency. Don't go to David Sedaris as agent because David's because also the other thing is if you're saying I'm just like David Sedaris, guess what? That agent already has David Sedaris.
They don't need another David Sedaris or David Sedaris wannabe. But there might be a younger or less successful agent there who's hungry or who's hungry now and who would be willing to take you on.
Neil:
Yeah, that's a great that's great feedback. So then you would buy the book. You decide the substantive changes.
If you do, you talk to the editor. If they're on board, you potentially buy the book. And then comes what step of editing after that?
Amy:
Usually what will happen is when we're reading it on submission, you're reading it fairly quickly because you're competing against other people. And there's something called a preempt where someone could come in and just say, call the agent and say, give me the book right now and I'll give you this amount of money. If I give you this amount of money, will you take it?
And then you ideally they take it and they call up everyone else and say, sorry, so-and-so just bought this book. So there is you want to you need to be quick. Um, but so when you're reading, you're reading, you know, you're not reading a book, a submission over two weeks.
Like you might be reading the submission over two nights or one night. Um, so then usually what I would do is go back and read it much more slowly. Um, so then I can really pay attention to, oh, you know, does, does this chapter, did the tension, you know, did the pacing go off in this chapter or does this make sense?
Or now that I've read the whole thing and I'm reading chapter one again, does it make sense that this character is introduced this way when in fact the rest of the time they're actually not like that at all. So it gives you time to just sort of delve into the book in a much deeper way. And then I'll send an editorial letter.
So it'll be sort of a structural edit, which is all the stuff we were just talking about, along with a marked up manuscript, which would be a line edit, which would say, you know, is this the right word choice here? I thought this was a non sequitur. I think you should put a paragraph break in here.
Um, I think this could end, that you could end the chapter here, things like that.
Neil:
Wow. And then it goes back and forth until it's done, ready to go.
Amy:
Yeah.
Neil:
There's, and you mentioned acquisition editors sometimes being involved, but you talked about copy editors and then there's also line editors, you said sometimes.
Amy:
Well, there's some editors who they just line it. So it would be someone like me, for instance, buying a book and then handing it to a more junior person. And so their job is just to do what I was just saying.
Neil:
Yeah.
Amy:
But they're not the person deciding to buy the book.
Neil:
Right, right, right. And this deciding to buy the book, this is such an interesting concept, because it basically means that you're taking a bet. You're making a bet on whether a book is going to be successful or not.
And then you crunch some numbers. And if you think it's going to sell a million copies and, or 500,000 copies or 100,000, you laugh. So that's like a bizarre number.
Amy:
I just laugh because I always say that the biggest fiction we publish are our P&Ls because we have to do these numbers, right? And that's where you have to say, this book is just like this book and this book sold this many copies. And it's not a science.
Neil:
Is it the true thing that nobody knows? Like nobody can predict sales then?
Amy:
It was interesting. I remember people giving, like I've heard after all those, those, you know, the hearings. And I remember people sort of making fun because John Karp said something like, you know, we don't really know.
And I think he's right. You just don't know. Because why does one book work and one book doesn't?
And, you know, and we've all read books that we think are fantastic that no one else has heard of.
Neil:
Yeah. That's a great point. We've all read books we think are fantastic.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. My favorite book of fiction ever is A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz.
And everyone's like, no one's heard of that book.
Amy:
Yeah. I've never heard of it.
Neil:
Even though it was nominated for the Man Booker, it's an Australian writer's debut fiction. And it was like, to me, it was like just the best book I've ever read.
Amy:
Okay. And so why do you think no one's heard of it?
Neil:
I don't know. Yeah, I think it's great. Everyone I've put it in the hands of, I mean, I think it's thick, 600 pages or something. So that does dissuade people, but it's propulsive.
It has a really fast pace. I thought it was wonderful. I don't know.
I guess my taste on that particular book, like it hit me on a vibe or a valence that happens to be really uniquely me in some sense. I also read it on my honeymoon. So I probably had like some, I was probably in like an emotional state to receive it.
That was different than most people when they're reading it. I don't know. I don't know why.
But to your point, it's hard to predict sales. The biggest fiction you write, you say, is your P&Ls. Yes.
Amy:
The profit. Now I'm going to, I feel like we're going to have this thing air and all of a sudden, I'm going to get called down to finance people.
Neil:
No, but it's true. Nobody can predict sales.
Amy:
Yes.
Neil:
And so then you come up with an advance, right? How does that work? Like how do you come up with what number you're going to offer authors?
And what is the range that that usually is within?
Amy:
So you're doing a P&L, which is a profit and loss statement, right? And that's where you're saying, okay, if in the past books of this type have sold X amount of copies, that means we will advance X number of copies. If I advance X number of copies, how much is it going to cost for me to produce the book?
Like literally how much will it cost between the paper and the binding and the printing and the press material? So what is my unit cost? And then you're sort of figuring out the unit cost.
You're figuring out, okay, if I'm going out with this many copies, what's the percentage of copies I'll be selling? And based on that, what's the author's royalty on all of that? I don't know what the statistics are of how many books are now, but I feel like the majority of the books don't earn out.
I feel like it's less than...
Neil:
Earning out means that they make more money in royalties than they were given in their advance.
Amy:
Yes.
Neil:
And so as a result, most advances probably fall in the... I heard $5,000, $10,000, $20,000 range.
Amy:
It could be anywhere. It depends, again, where you are.
Neil:
And then if a book is... If a lot of editors want it from a lot of different houses, then there's like a bidding war.
Amy:
Yes.
Neil:
And then the number ratchets really high.
Amy:
Yes.
Neil:
Right. And then you hear stories about Barack Obama getting a $47 million advance or whatever it happens to be.
Amy:
So it's all depends upon... I mean, in a way, it's sort of the marketplace speaks, right?
Neil:
Right. Right. Okay.
That's interesting. Speaking of this, on page 80 of the book, there's a quote. His name was Archie Knox and my aunt liked him.
That was rare. In the cab home, I asked her if he was famous. More famous than an editor should be.
She said, the best are invisible.
Amy:
Yeah. That's why I didn't want to do your podcast.
Neil:
Because the best editors are invisible.
Amy:
I remember actually...
Neil:
You're not the first editor on the podcast. Kerri Kolen, Chapter 11 was on the podcast. These are pros will be on here.
Amy:
I remember actually doing an event with Sarah Blake, who wrote the guest book and the post mistress, and we were doing an event. And actually, I did it with her. And someone asked about what we did as editors and what you can see.
And I said, I think I said something to the equivalent of, which is true. I think that if you're a really good editor, you shouldn't be able to see any of our work. Right.
I think the authors should know what we did, but I don't think the general populace should be seeing what we've done.
Neil:
And why is this? Why is that? I pick up a book.
I can see the designer. I can see every... Like there's a lot of names listed in here.
Amy:
Oh, I think now they're actually changing that though.
Neil:
The editor's names are not on books.
Amy:
Well, no, I think they're actually changing that. I feel like Avid Press changed that. And I feel like some places are starting to do that, but they're starting to put other people.
Neil:
It was so hard for me to figure out a list of books that you'd edit. And I tried, like, I worked on ChatGPT and Google for like hours trying to figure out even just a list of books you've edited was impossible to find.
Amy:
I guess because I feel like, but I'm... My job is to help an author write a better book and to reach as many readers as possible. But I'm not writing the book.
For the same reason that it's not the same as with film. But, you know, like, it's different. The film is a bad analogy.
Neil:
No, but what you just said is really interesting. Because I had like, what's the definition of an editor? What is an editor's job?
And you said very clearly, my job is to help an author write a better book and reach as many people as possible. It's not to have your name in lights.
Amy:
Right. I mean, I think then you're in the wrong business.
Neil:
Right. That's why the phrase is more famous than an editor should be. Uh-huh.
That's great. Okay. We talked about whether a first time...
Did you answer the question that Jim Levine asked? Would you recommend publishing as an industry for a recent college grad?
Amy:
Oh.
Neil:
Because the main character in this book does work in publishing. And I won't say she doesn't really have a good experience with it.
Amy:
Right. It's so funny. I just talked to...
I had a young woman in my office yesterday who's in college who wanted to... So she shadowed me for two hours yesterday. And we talked about if she should go in publishing.
And I kind of made a bad joke, which is, you know, when someone wants to convert to Judaism, you're supposed to turn them away three times because you're supposed to say, like, no. And then if they really want it, they come back the fourth time. Um, so I usually tell people who are thinking of going to publishing all the bad things.
Neil:
Which are?
Amy:
Oh, huge corporate conglomeratization. You know, not necessarily meritocracy. You know, you could argue, like, declining industry.
You know, we're considered, quote, unquote, old media. Not exactly cutting edge.
Neil:
MSM, they call it, mainstream media.
Amy:
Okay. Financially, not, you know, not very well rewarding. All of that.
Neil:
Hence your $13,000.
Amy:
Hence my $13,000.
Neil:
Starting salary. And you point that out because it's not... Starting publishing today is also very low wages.
Amy:
Yes, exactly. All of that said, I think when I go to the few parties I go to, I happen to think I have one of the best jobs in the world. I love what I do.
Neil:
So now give us the other side. You gave us the cons list. The turning away three times.
The huge corporate. The not necessarily meritocracy. The declining.
The financially unrewarding. Now go with the other side of the tiers.
Amy:
And the other thing I should say, and being... It's like being a perpetual grad student because you always have reading to do. So you're never having, you know, you're always doing reading.
Neil:
How many books are you reading a year?
Amy:
You don't finish a lot of books. And so also the other thing is I feel like the worst read person because people say, what should I read? I don't know.
Tell me what you should read because I'm reading bad manuscripts or I'm reading things that aren't going to be published for, you know, two years or something. The good things about publishing. I just think what we do is so incredibly cool that, you know, we get to discover writers.
And it's so neat when you're an editor and you can see where you've helped an author see sort of the forest from the trees. Or no, the trees from the... Which way we forget?
Neil:
Forest from the trees. It is forest from the trees. Okay.
Amy:
So that's incredibly cool. I just think this whole note, I think in some respects, people in publishing are incredibly pessimistic. On the other respect, they're eternal optimists.
And you were saying it's a bit like gambling and it's kind of like playing the, you know, the, what is it?
Neil:
Slots.
Amy:
Slots in Las Vegas.
Because you're always thinking like, I know statistically that I'm going to lose money, right? And that this book isn't going to work.
Neil:
On most books.
Amy:
All right. But maybe the next one will be it.
Neil:
Right.
Amy:
Maybe this one will be it. Maybe I'll actually hit the jackpot.
Neil:
It's like Hollywood too, right? Boom busts, like one big winner pays for all the other failures. But as a result, it allows all those chances to be taken on a lot of books that otherwise would never see the light of day.
Amy:
Yeah.
Neil:
So culture shaping, I think is part of it.
Amy:
You mean that we get to?
Neil:
Yeah, I think so. People talk about the books that they read and then it shapes opinions and people learn through books. It's, I see that as a big pro for what the work you do.
Amy:
Oh yeah, absolutely. But I guess I would never want to, I think one of the criticisms about what we do is that we're sort of gatekeepers. And I think that's a valid criticism.
And that's going back to what you're talking about. It's sort of like the New York, are we in touch with the rest of America? I think a lot of people could argue and say, definitely not.
You know, we take the subway to work. We're not driving. We're in small apartments.
You know, it's not exactly the experience of most of the rest of America. I'm getting totally off.
Neil:
No, we were talking about cons and pros of going into publishing.
Amy:
I just think it's amazing that I get to sit and spend the day talking to colleagues. Not that I should say that's what I do all the time. A, that I get to spend, you know, we were talking about, Neil had been saying, oh, we don't have offices anymore.
I was showing him my cubicle, which is where an assistant used to sit. And he was asking me about it. And I was saying, you know what, like we're not working in a coal mine.
Like I have a very privileged life of what we get to do. The fact that I can sit there and spend all this time saying, you know what, I really think that we shouldn't use the repetition of this word in this sentence. Because it comes up two sentences later.
So it's like totally nerdy word nerdiness, right? But that also, you get to dive into these made up worlds, which is incredibly fun. And then not to sound so sort of, oh my God, Aaron, what we're doing is so great.
But I will give you an example. Lori Frankel published this book called This Is How It Always Is. And it's a family about five boys, the youngest of whom becomes a girl.
Neil:
One of my wife's favorite books, by the way, she loves that book.
Amy:
And what's cool about that is that book started off in paperback. Our first printing was 6,000 copies. And now it's sold over 300,000 in paperback, which is really interesting.
But what was interesting about that is we had a family member, a member of my family came out as trans. And their parent was having a hard time with it. And my mother said to me, well, they should just go read your book because she had read it.
And it allowed her to sort of wrap her head around something, which I think otherwise she wouldn't have been as predisposed to be open to.
Neil:
But finding that book is like, this is word of mouth too, right? Don't you find people have trouble like finding the book that speaks to them? The books that have been formative to you have been like spoke to you.
But when you walk into a bookstore, I mean, this is a challenge that we all face.
Amy:
Well, I think, yeah, because, you know, you're walking into these superstores and then that's what I think the comment you heard from most people aren't in publishing is they don't know what to read.
Neil:
Yeah. And there's different algorithmic vehicles being created, like StoryGraph and places that you can upload your reading taste and it tries to suggest something new to you that will fit. But yeah, I always say it's coming down to finding a trusted bookseller, which I have interviewed for my show, multiple of them, you know, finding someone that you can talk to about your divorce and the child, kid you're having trouble with and then sort of just thinking about all the books that they've read and trying to find something that speaks to you.
Amy:
But it's probably going to be something that wouldn't have come up in the algorithm.
Neil:
Right.
Amy:
Because the algorithm is just giving you stuff that you've read before.
Neil:
Well, exactly. Or something like that. OK, this has been great.
We went deep into this book. I loved it. The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing add it to your TBR. If you're listening to this and you want a wonderful, wonderful read. And let's get to your third and final book now, by the way, which is Mating by Norman Rush, originally published in 1991 by Alfred A. Knopf.
OK, so I've been saying that name wrong for a long time. That covers a painting of two naked people facing each other, standing on their heads across a faded and cracked royal blue background. Here it is right here under this book.
Mating is printed in yellow at the top and a wide current sans serif with Norman Rush at the bottom and a white serif font in a black box. Norman Rush, born 1933 in San Francisco and is still alive. The only of your three authors still alive today.
He's 90. He is 90 years old today. His novels and short stories are mostly set in Botswana in the 1980s, where he and his wife Elsa co-directed the Peace Corps for five years from the late 70s to early 80s.
He won the National Book Award for this book. Mating, what is it about? An unnamed American anthropologist student is at loose ends in the South African Republic of Botswana.
She is a noble and exacting mind, a good waste and a busted thesis. She also has a yen for Nelson Dune, a charismatic intellectual who is rumored to have founded a secretive and unorthodox utopian society in a remote corner of the Kalahari, one in which he is virtually the only man. What ensues is both a quest and an exuberant comedy of manners, a book that explores the deepest canyons of Eros, even as it asks large questions about the good society, the geopolitics of poverty and the baffling mystery of what men and women really want.
File this as with the other two in 813.54 for 20th Century Literature. Amy, tell us about your relationship with Mating by Norman Rush.
Amy:
So it's terrible because I feel like I don't have a relationship with Mating by Norman Rush and I'm reading it now and I'm like, oh yeah, that was really good. But I remember there was one section of the book and I really did want to reread it so I could find it because I've quoted it and I always get it wrong. But there was one, there's one part in the book where they were talking about how he uses some metaphor about people that what's great about literature is that, or that he went, people were like envelopes and that you could open them up and see what's inside of them.
Neil:
And yes, yes.
Amy:
Do you have that line?
Neil:
Yes, I do.
Amy:
Do you really?
Neil:
Yeah. Why can't every mating in the world be on the basis of souls instead of inevitability and fundamentally on the match between physical envelopes?
Amy:
Yeah, I think that might have been it.
Neil:
And I remember, I mean, I mean, because this just has the word envelopes in it, like you said.
Amy:
What page was that on?
Neil:
I have it on the page there.
Amy:
Where? Page, is that, where's, I know, but do you know what page it was on in here? You don't.
Neil:
I don't. I don't have it written down.
Amy:
So I remember reading.
Neil:
Although I was pretty impressed with myself for coming up with the exact quote you're talking about.
Amy:
That's really weird. I remember thinking, oh, isn't that, isn't that sort of mind blowing, right? Isn't that what you wish, like you wish that you could just sort of get past the exterior of everyone and get inside, like what is inside somebody?
And that's what I think always struck me about why I think in a way like novels, because I think in a way, this is going to sound really stupid, but I think novels can speak in some respects more truthfully because people can just say, oh, I made it up. Right. As opposed to if it's a memoir, are you really going to say you're, you know, there's all these other considerations, but I think in a way fiction allows us to get to edit truth in a way that other forms don't.
Neil:
Mm-hmm.
Neil:
Yeah, I do hear that phrase sometimes that there's more truth in fiction than there is a nonfiction, which is a lot more fiction than people think it is. I mean, you know, fiction allows us to get to truth, to get to deeper truth because you can just say you made it up. Yeah, exactly.
I like that. So you wrote this in your 20s, right?
Amy:
I must have, yes. And I remember going to a panel that was Mona Simpson, Norman Rush, oh my God, Michael Cunningham and maybe two other authors. And it was called, oh, that's right.
God, I forgot about this. It was a panel. It was called The Death of the Novel.
It seemed like a New Yorker cartoon. And at the panel, someone got up and asked and said, you know, they ran a shelter for homeless people and could, they asked Norman Rush this. They said, could you recommend any books that I could give to these people that I should tell these people to read?
And he actually said, you know, I don't, I'm not a homeless person. I can't, I don't, I don't want to speak for what he said, but basically he demurred and was like, I don't have any recommendations for you. And at the end of the panel, Michael Cunningham leaned in and said, would the person who asked the homeless shelter question stay after?
Because I have some books to talk to you about. And it was one of those who were like, oh, do you actually ever want to meet the people whose books you really love? Sometimes you don't.
Neil:
Right. The gilding sticks to your finger. You know, never touch the people that you put on pedestals.
Amy:
Yeah.
Neil:
Yeah. Yeah. I've heard that before, but I don't know if that's true.
I mean, I've, I've gotten close to a lot of people I've admired through this podcast and I'm always, for the most part, really touched by the relationship that ensues afterwards. There's a quote from this book. One attractive thing about me is that I'm never bored.
So I thought I'd ask, what are you finding interesting right now in publishing or in books?
Amy:
Oh, I feel like I'm the person who's like, whatever book I just most recently edited, and I'm like, that's so cool.
Neil:
Is it the Anne Boleyn one?
Amy:
No.
Neil:
Because you brought some books with you.
Amy:
I did bring some.
Neil:
So you must want to talk about a couple of these or at least tell, tell people listening what's coming out from the editorial whiz kid here. What do you got coming here?
Amy:
Okay. Well, our next book is coming out actually on Tuesday. Liane Moriarty is here one moment.
Neil:
Okay.
Amy:
And that's how you pronounce her name because I mispronounced her name for around seven years.
Neil:
Moriarty?
Amy:
No, I was saying Leanne with a New Jersey accent and it's Liane.
Neil:
Oh, Liane. Okay.
Amy:
And one day she said to me, she goes, it's so funny how you Americans pronounce my name. And then I got out of the elevator and I told her agent, her publicist, that we'd all been mispronouncing her name for seven years. So that's coming out.
And I actually think it's maybe her best book. I love this book. It's very much about sort of, and that's, she's someone I would say who I think since she has commercial success, people don't give her, I think the due that she deserves as a writer.
Cause I think she makes it look so easy. But to me, she has, is this sort of masterful plotter, but also is asking, you know, this book asks fairly profound questions, which is if you knew when you were going to die, what would you do? Would you do anything differently?
Right. Um, and she also not usually, but she does, she's taken subject matters that now are sort of mainstream, but had put them in, I would say, um, and looks at them in a way that I think hasn't been viewed often. So for instance, if you look at Big Little Lies where she's looking at domestic abuse, or if you look at Nine Perfect Strangers, which is looking at suicide, um, and here one moment, she's looking at OCD.
Um, I think like she does this masterful job of giving it, uh, making it viewed in a way that hasn't been viewed before.
Neil:
Cool. That's coming. What's the book on top?
Amy:
Um, Chris Whitaker, All the Colors of the Dark. That's out now. Um, and, um, it's very hard book to describe, to be honest.
Um, it's a book about obsession. It's a book about first love. Um, it's, um, a mystery.
It's, it's doing incredibly well, but it's, it's, it's not a very easy book to categorize.
Neil:
All the Colors of the Dark.
Amy:
Yes.
Neil:
With a Read with Jenna sticker on the front.
Amy:
Yes.
Neil:
What do you make of all these stickers now?
Amy:
These stickers.
Neil:
Reese, Reese's Book Club is big. Good morning. These are any tool to help with sales?
Amy:
Yeah. You mean, are they good?
Neil:
Well, I don't mean, are they good? I know that they're good for sales, but is this because in an era of endlessness, the value of curation skyrockets, anything that helps a book discriminate itself from the mass of everything else is good.
Amy:
Yes. I think anything that you can, for the same reason, if you're, you know, when an author has a platform or anything, that's just good. Look, I think selling books is hard.
So anything that's for, when you were saying, it's interesting when you were saying you like that Australian novel, I'm curious, why did you end up picking up that Australian novel?
Neil:
Yeah, exactly. Cause I went to Type Bookshop on Queen Street West and I said, I'm about to go away on my three week honeymoon with my, and I want a really good long book to take with me. And I want it to be paper.
And so Kalpana, the bookseller there who I trusted, had me read the first page of like probably 50 books. And this one really grabbed me. And then I read page two, then I read page three.
And I'm like, oh, this is going to be good.
Amy:
But they self-selected those.
Neil:
She kept picking because I said things like fast paced, funny. I like George Saunders. I like David Mitch.
I'd thrown thing, a bunch of things. I was just like, how about this? How about that?
How about this? I've gone back to the store by way more recently and told them that story. And of course it's not on the shelf anymore.
You know, even though it was a Man Booker nominee, I've had Steve Toltz on three books. I've loved the book. I tell everybody I can about it.
I think it's wonderful. But yeah, it's hard to sell books. What helps books sell now?
Amy:
Look, I think it all comes down to, I think it was Tip O'Neill. You're Canadians. You won't know, but he was a politician.
He always said all politics is local. I do think at the end of the day, book selling is about somebody handing you a book and saying you should read this. And I think that starts from the agent giving it to me and saying, this is great.
You should read it. To me buying it and hopefully working with the author and then going to my Salesforce and saying, this book is really good. And keep in mind, so I have a lot of agents coming to me saying, you should read this.
This is good. Multiply me by hundreds to my Salesforce, multiply my Salesforce by thousands of how many books you're going into a place like Amazon or Barnes and Noble and saying, this book is good. Right?
So why are you going to read one of these books over the other? You did that because you liked that bookseller and that bookseller knew you, right? And you trusted that, which we're going back to trust again.
Um, so I think people have just, you know, I think Jenna or Reese have developed trust with their fans where they know, oh, I really like her taste. So Reese is saying to me, you should read this. It's the same version of your bookseller saying here, read this.
Neil:
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Which I try to do with, I have a book club, monthly book club.
I put books in and feature them. The books I've read in the past month, same idea. And so what, but there's another question in here, which is kind of fun for people that are trying to sell books these days, which is what do you need?
And you said a platform. So what do you, when you are looking at a nonfiction book, what do you look for these days from an author?
Amy:
Well, I'm not doing that much nonfiction anymore. I should point out you don't need a platform. I mean, plenty of my authors have zero platform.
It's just helpful.
Neil:
Which is like an email list or a Facebook account or an Instagram account or a way to talk to people and tell them to buy your book, because otherwise you're relying on the salesforce, which is selling in quantities to retailers, but not necessarily selling the book from there.
Amy:
Or a way for my publicity department to get a hook to get somebody interested in writing something about the book. Oh, you know what? This person might not have any following, but you know what?
I think this is a great story. I can pitch this in which case then I'm getting more, I'm getting publicity for the book, which again, is all is it how am I reaching an audience and getting them to say, Oh, that sounds interesting. I want to buy that book.
Neil:
What are the big difference makers these days in sales that you're seeing? Like what are the places you're trying to get books mentioned or listed on or somebody writing about it? We mentioned the big stickers on the covers.
What else? But you know, that will only apply to 10 or 20 books a year.
Amy:
Yes.
Neil:
You know, 50 or 100,000 more books are coming out than that.
Amy:
Yes, this is true.
Neil:
Maybe publishing has a quantity issue. I don't know, but how else are we just like, what else is moving the needle from what you're seeing?
Amy:
You know, it's interesting because some things move the needle sometimes, and then sometimes they don't. Right. So sometimes you get a book on fresh air and in America, Terry Gross, NPR, and that could be a huge mover.
And then other times I've had authors on there. It doesn't do anything. You know, it used to be if you had the front page of the New York Times book review, that was that moved the needle.
Now I would say that doesn't. A New York Times review, sometimes.
Neil:
A big podcast.
Amy:
A big podcast. You know, Obama's reading list is always really great.
Neil:
Bill Gates' reading list.
Amy:
Bill Gates' reading list. You know, if a book has turned into a movie or is going to be turned into a movie, that helps.
Neil:
These are all things, though, for the average author that are very difficult to come by.
Amy:
They're difficult for the non-average author also, I should point out.
Neil:
Yeah, exactly. But that's why when you make it, you know, Nita Prose did want me to ask you, what's one that got away? That was one of her questions she wanted me to ask you because, you know, you're good at acquiring.
But what's a book that you were the underbidder on that, you know, you wish you'd just put a little bit more money behind or you'd got? I've mentioned her because she wrote the book, The Maid, and then it got, it was made into the CBS kind of book of the month. And that drove it to like now I think it's sold three or four million copies.
Amy:
Oh, God, I've missed so many books. But which one did I really want? So funny because I'm thinking of this and this is it's not.
It was funny at one point when the book, what was it? Was it Marley and Me? So Marley and Me came in and I'd had lunch with the agent and they told me about the book and I said, can I see it early?
He said, no, you can't. I'm going to send it out to everyone at the same time.
Neil:
Who wrote Marley and Me?
Amy:
No, I can't remember.
Neil:
That's okay. I don't know either.
Amy:
He was out of Philadelphia. He had been in Miami. It was a male author.
Neil:
And you couldn't see the book early, even though you asked.
Amy:
I couldn't see it early. And then I think the day I got it in or the day after the agent called me and said, actually, I have a preempt offer. And I said, but wait a minute, I just got it.
And she said, well, actually, the author was friends with so-and-so and they wanted us to, she did send it out early. So she sent it out early to this one person. And so I'm getting ready to make an offer.
And then it turns out that I find, I go to my head of whoever it was and I said, you know, you're a dog person. Could you read this? She said, oh, I already read it.
I read it for our sister company, who it turns out was the people who made the preempt offer. So I wasn't allowed to bid because you're not allowed, I wasn't allowed to bid against them. So I had to, I wasn't allowed to bid in the auction.
And I remember after the auction was done, I got this big bouquet of flowers from this agent. Cause she was sorry. Cause she's like, I'm really sorry that I did, you know, I told you I wasn't going to send it out early.
And I did. And I remember my colleague at the time said, ugh, you're never going to hear about that book ever again. And then of course it was, it was Marlee.
Neil:
A gigantic hit. Yes.
Amy:
So yeah.
Neil:
So Jenny Lawson is a mutual friend of ours. She was on three books in chapter 76. You've edited, I think four of her books.
If I have it right. Let's pretend this never happened. Furiously happy, broken in the best way.
Maybe it's three.
Amy:
And you are here.
Neil:
And you are here. And I asked her for a question for you. And she says, you can ask Amy.
I've always wondered if editors edit their own work, or is it like how barbers can't cut their own hair?
Amy:
I think, well, actually my, my, it's funny. People ask me what the editing process is like. And I always tell the story that Jenny says, which Jenny says, so I hand over my baby to my editor and she's like, oh my God, this baby is so incredibly cute.
And then I'm just going to cut off its arms and its legs and hand it back to him. Like, isn't it cuter? And so I, I always think, I think everyone should have an editor.
So I'll routinely send, like, if I'm sending flap copy or any copy, descriptive copy to authors and agents, I'll always say, please edit it. Because I think everyone needs to be edited.
Neil:
So it is like how barbers can't cut their own hair. I wonder, because remember you mentioned how many books you read and how often you read. Do you have anything, any tips on, on speed reading?
Or how do you read so, such a big quantity of books? Are you doing anything? Are you doing anything to read so much, so fast?
Amy:
It sounds like you read more than I do. I just have always read, I am a fast reader. And I do think it's interesting.
I had one assistant who worked for me who was so incredibly fabulous, but they were a very slow reader. And it's hard to do our job if you're a slow reader.
Neil:
Right. You have to speed up or ship out. It sounds like.
Amy:
Yeah.
Neil:
Okay, well, this has been wonderful. I have a whole bunch of fast money questions just to close us off if you're okay with it. Hardcover, paperback, audio, or e?
Amy:
What do I like to read? Hardcover.
Neil:
The real thing.
Amy:
Yeah. But I should point out, I'm happy with people, quote unquote, reading our books, however they read them. So many people will say now that they've read the book and they listened to it on the audio and I'm thinking that's great.
Neil:
Yeah. Okay, great. Do you have a favorite bookstore?
Living or dead?
Amy:
Oh my gosh. I would say Wordsworth, which is where I worked in Cambridge at the bookstore. It no longer exists. It was an independent bookstore.
Cambridge? Cambridge Mass. Oh, you were in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
I was. I stopped out of school one semester and worked in a bookstore.
Neil:
Oh, this is before Stanford.
Amy:
During Stanford.
Neil:
Oh, you left Stanford for a semester.
Amy:
Well, Stanford had this thing called stopping out and there was always.
Neil:
That's what you're saying. I stopped out for a semester and you went to work in a bookstore in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Amy:
Wordsworth. Yeah.
Neil:
Oh, that's interesting. By the way, as you mentioned, audiobooks, that's fine. Do editors have a say in the narrator?
Are you part of that decision?
Amy:
It's interesting. Different companies I've had people, it works differently. So at a previous company I was at, they would run the narrators by us.
I actually am not a big audio person. So I would always defer to the author.
Neil:
Yeah. Yeah. Deferring to the author is a skill you have.
I mean, I think that's a skill. I remember when I was working with you on the first few books, it's like, you let me make more decisions than I think every other sentence has sort of allowed me to make.
Amy:
Really?
Neil:
Yeah.
Amy:
That's not true. I made you take out all the blowing your nose in the shower stuff.
Neil:
I, in retrospect, quickly agreed with you. You were totally right. I mean, you took...
Because I was running a blog that was oriented towards a younger audience and, you know, had like a lot more gross things like that. Picking your nose is one of my first things. Fat baseball players.
You don't want any of that in the Book of Awesome. And we cut it out. One or two...
Do you mark up or annotate books or any certain way? Any specific...
Amy:
You mean for editing?
Neil:
Yeah.
Amy:
Well, it's interesting. I've just changed how I was editing. So, you know, we used to edit on a manuscript and then everything went electronic and we're editing on the computer.
And then a couple of months ago, there was a British editor who came in to visit and they had... Have you seen a Remarkable? Do you know what a Remarkable is?
Neil:
No.
Amy:
So basically, it's just a tablet and...
Neil:
Oh, yeah. I know what you're talking about.
Amy:
And you can't get... Like, I can't read news on it. I can't read email on it.
Neil:
Right.
Amy:
And I can write on it and that I can then send it to myself. And so what I just started, I've just done now two books on it. But what it allows me to do is edit not with my laptop, which I have to say has been pretty great because you can...
You know, I edited a book on the way home the other day in the car and I wouldn't have been able to do that on my computer.
Neil:
Yeah.
Amy:
So it's like next to the dog.
Neil:
And you're using like a stylus.
Amy:
You're doing a stylus. And so in a way, it's going back to how an old school editing, how you used to edit. And now I'm thinking, oh, my God, everyone can see I have handwriting that looks like a four-year-old, which is embarrassing.
Neil:
But it's better to get a manuscript back with handwriting on it than the little like text boxes, I think.
Amy:
Yeah. So I've started doing that. And I actually, it's been...
I've always loved that more. I always also felt like I knew visually where something was in a way that I didn't when I just see it.
Neil:
That's proven. I mean, they say that tactilely, we remember more what we handwrite than what we type. How do you organize your books on your bookshelf?
Like at your house?
Amy:
Oh, it's a disaster. We just unpack the books and just like they're not organized.
Neil:
There's no system?
Amy:
No.
Neil:
Do you have a book lending policy?
Amy:
We just lend books and then half the time you never get them back.
Neil:
OK, you're fine. Do you have a white whale book or any book that you've been chasing?
Amy:
Oh, I don't know if I would say I've been chasing. I mean, I think and also I'm not really doing nonfiction anymore, but I still have always thought Stevie Nicks' memoir would be fascinating.
Neil:
Oh, that's interesting.
Amy:
Yeah.
Neil:
I like that. Well, you know, the audience for this show, it's called 3 Books. Our audience is book lovers, writers, makers, sellers, and librarians.
You are renowned for your editing in this industry. Is there one or two hard fought pieces of wisdom you want to close us off with as we finish up this wonderful conversation? Bits of advice for people that are writing a book or in the publishing ecosystem?
Amy:
I guess I would say. OK, I would say so, for instance, I'm publishing this book. Do I have it here?
No, I don't. Yes, I do. OK, I'm publishing this novel called The Correspondent by a woman named Virginia Evans, and it's an epistolary novel about a woman who's 73 years old, right?
Neil:
Epistolary?
Amy:
Epistolary. So it's all...
Neil:
Epistolary. Now I can't... No, you're right.
I just don't know what it means. I'm the dumb one.
Amy:
It's all letters.
Neil:
Oh, it's all letters.
Amy:
So it's all written as letters either from this woman or to this woman. And it's her first novel. And it's actually it turns out it's Virginia's 10th novel that she's written.
It's her first one to get published. And when she came to New York a couple of months ago with her son, because she told her son, if I ever get a novel published, you get to pick where we go. And he picked New York.
And they came, we had lunch, and then she came back to the office, and we took a picture in front of the Penguin Random House sign. And I do think we get sort of jaded by, you know, oh, it's another author, it's another book. And you realize like this woman, like she's spent her whole life wanting to get published.
She's written 10 books. And, you know, she could have very easily have just said like, you know, I'm gonna. Or for instance, I had an assistant once who had given himself, he'd gone to law school and then decided he didn't want to be a lawyer.
And I think he gave himself, I forget how many years it was to get a job in publishing, and he couldn't get a job. And I think he and his wife had sat down and he had said, here's my deadline. And I, of course, didn't know anything about this, but he ended up getting a job a week before his deadline was due.
So I just sort of feel like, again, going back to the eternal optimist, you know, you just need one person to like your book.
Neil:
Oh, interesting. You just need one person to like your book.
Amy:
Or to hire you or.
Neil:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I love that. Amy Einhorn, thank you so much.
It was worth the six year wait. Thank you so much for coming on 3 Books. It's been a wonderful conversation.
It's just me. It's just Neil again, hanging out in my basement with my pile full of wires. I got back last night from visiting Amy.
Got back around 1030. Couldn't get to bed. Still excited about the conversation.
Also, I think when I get off planes and get home, I'm like, I find it hard to go to sleep. So I was rolling around and this morning I woke up and I was like, time to record this. Let's put it out here.
Let's put it out there next week. So yeah, this is a very, very fresh conversation. And it was a joy kind of seeing Amy.
Her energy is like infectious. She has got such a bubbly and positive persona. And she's demure.
She's self-effacing. She's very humble about her talents and her skill and her ability. I hope you found that a helpful conversation.
So many quotes jump out to me. How about you just need one person? Great for everybody to remember.
For those of you that are wanting to write a book and get one out there, that story of the woman who is there with her grandson. I think she'd written 12 books or whatever it was. It's like, you just need one person.
If you find the one person who loves your books and will represent it and take it forward, great. That's wonderful. And that one person could be you, of course.
It's harder to break through in self-publishing, but it doesn't mean it's impossible. People like David Goggins have proved that it's possible. Michael Bungay-Stanier, our past guest, it's possible.
Fiction allows us to get to deeper truths. How true is that? My job is to help an author write a better book and reach as many people as possible.
You know, it's interesting. I feel like that's a powerful quote for two reasons. One, well, for the big reason, actually, I shouldn't say two reasons, because I think most editors would probably say, my job is to help an author write a better book.
And that is the experience I've had with some other authors as well, or editors as well. But the reach as many people as possible part is huge, right? Amy often says, I gotta sell it internally before I sell it externally.
I gotta tell my head of sales, I need you to read this book. I need you to fall in love with this book. She generates such internal passion that the sales forces and the PR teams get behind her books in a way that I haven't always seen with others.
What is it I want it? In terms of how to write a title, just for those of you that are writers, like what is it I want it? You know, that lean in quality?
What is it I want it? Which is great. My literary authors want more sales and my commercial authors want more respect.
I just thought that was great. And the book delivers something you can't get anywhere else. Three more books to add to our top 1000, including number 592, Goodbye Columbus by Philip Roth, which I read and I love.
It's short too, like 134 pages. Number 591, The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank. And number 590, Mating by Norman Rush.
OK, that was the only of the three I didn't read. But I, of course, now that Amy's so high on it, I want to, I have it on my TBR still. Thank you so much to Amy.
Thank you so much to you. Thank you so much for joining us in Chapter 140 of 3 Books. Are you still here?
Did you make it past the three second pause? If so, I want to welcome you back to the end of the podcast club. It's one of three clubs that we have for Three Books listeners, including the Cover to Cover Club.
Please drop us a line anytime. If you are one of those people that's trying to listen to every single chapter of Three Books, drop us a line. We're starting to add names to our FAQ.
Some people are saying, I don't want to be recognized. That's fine. But we respect the people that are like, OK, 140?
Cool. I'm ready for 141. I'm ready for 140.
There's only 333, right? So we're past the third of the way mark. So that's the Cover to Cover Club.
People are trying to listen to every chapter. And then there's also the Secret Club. I can't tell you more about the Secret Club.
Other than you got to call our phone number for a clue. It is an entirely analog only club that operates through the mail. Three bookers who are in the club, you know what I'm talking about.
And how do you find out more? Call our phone number. It's 1-833-READ-A-LOT.
Yes, it's a real number. 1-833-R-E-A-D-A-L-O-T. And with that, let's kick off the end of the podcast club, as we like to do by going to the phones.
Nadia:
Hi, Neil. I'm Nadia. I'm an educator in the Mojave Desert in California, but originally from green and luscious Minnesota.
So definitely a contrast there. I'm calling because I just finished your podcast with Nancy, the librarian, Nancy Pearl. And the part that really struck me was Nancy talking about her love and appreciation of audiobooks.
So I would like to recommend Elizabeth Acevedo, and particularly her book, The Poet X, as a great intro into audiobooks. Elizabeth Acevedo actually reads the book, The Poet X, herself. And it's a book in verse, a novel in verse.
And so it's just almost meant to be read out loud. And she does a really beautiful job. And the other thing I wanted to mention was my formative book.
I have many, but the one that I'd like to point out is Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, a really beautiful, honest, tragic, yet also hopeful book about a Korean family living in Japan. Both of these women would be incredible guests on the podcast, as they're both beautiful writers that I think would have a lot of thoughtful things to say and add. But I just wanted to thank you for your awesome podcast and share my thoughts on audiobooks, because I have become an audiobook lover, as well as a paper, hardback, really books of any form lover.
So thank you again. Bye-bye.
Neil:
Wow. Thank you so much to Nadia calling from the Mojave Desert in California. I love educators.
I love readers. Loved hearing your voice, Nadia. Thank you so much for calling.
If you are listening to this and you're like, I don't know if I should call. I feel too shy to call. I don't know if I should.
Just call. Just call. Give us a formative book.
Give us a tip off. There's a couple wonderful recommendations in here, neither of which I knew. So now I'm excited to add them and order them.
The Poet X. So it's three words. The Poet X.
X is just, you know, just the last word, just the letter X. By Elizabeth, I think you said Acevedo. It's A-C-E-V-E-D-O.
I like the fact that the audiobook is three hours and 30 minutes. It's got a 4.7 rating too. Don't miss this acclaimed audiobook read by the author winner of the Odyssey Honor Award.
Okay, cool. I'm adding this. I'm going to add this to my Libro FM.
You know, I don't use Audible, no offense to Amazon. I much prefer Libro FM because, you know, you might remember that the Bronx-bound books, Bus, Latanya, and Jerry told us about Libro FM. And basically, yeah, here I am.
So I go to Libro FM. I type in the Poet X. I click get audiobook for one credit.
Do you want to add it? Okay. And guess what?
The profit goes to my local independent bookstore. I can change it. I have changed it a few times because I want to give the money to different bookstores.
But then I press download. And now I've got it. I've got the Poet X on my phone right now.
And I like that. I'm going to start listening to that. Thank you so much.
Also, the formative book, Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. That's L-E-E. In the early 1900s, teenage Sunja, the adored daughter of a crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger.
When she discovers she's pregnant and that her lover is married, she accepts an offer of marriage from a gentle, sickly minister passing through on his way to Japan. But her decision to abandon her home and to reject her son's powerful father, it's off a dramatic saga that will echo down the generations. Well, that sounds wonderful.
2017, Grand Central Publishing, a daunting 496 pages. But I'm adding Pachinko to my cart. Only three left in stock.
Okay, cool. So, you know, I'm not going to add it to the cart. I'm going to call up my used bookstores first.
Sometimes, you know, I could support Doug Miller, Doug Miller Books in Koreatown. You know, it's fun to kind of call them up and have them hunt around or go hunt around and see if it's there. Okay, I'm not going to add it to my cart.
I'm going to hunt around for Pachinko. Thank you so much. And by the way, if I play your voicemail, I owe you a book.
So drop me a line with your address. Drop me a line with your address so that I can mail you a book, Nadia. I'd love to mail you a book.
Okay, cool. Now, let's move on to the letter of the chapter. And this chapter's letter comes from Dan Bonner.
Dan Bonner says, okay, The Sky Was Ours, Neil. Do you know this book? It has some parts that gave me Martin Dean vibes.
Martin Dean, of course, a main character from A Fraction of the Whole with Steve Toltz, who's been a guest on the show. Particularly the Labyrinth era from A Fraction of the Whole. I also want to say thanks for doing three books.
I've read several books from it, including Lonesome Dove and Linchpin, as well as, of course, Fraction of the Whole. Now, also, he says for Dream Guest, take a look at Stella Zawistowski, a recent interview transcript here. More for here.
She's a crossword constructor for the New York Times, which is a cool niche. Also a weightlifter, a competitive crossworder. She's gotten big in crossword circles the last several years, bringing a lot of younger, more diverse, more creativity into crosswords.
I love her cryptics in games magazines, which she started writing. From her last interview, there's a lot of threads to explore and ways to incorporate crossword-like cryptic clues if you're into those. Well, I looked into Stella Zawistowski, by the way, Dan.
Thank you for this letter. And first of all, I'm massively intimidated because I cannot figure out how to do crypt. I know cryptic crosswords are, like, I'm starting to see them in places like the New Yorker and in newspapers and stuff.
They're hard for me. They're really hard. But maybe that's the reason to get into it.
I'm going to check her out a little bit more and see if we can't have her on, or at least add her to our pitch list to check her out more. And thank you so much for the suggestion. The Sky was ours.
I am ordering it, and I will crack it open. I appreciate any book that's kind of like a fraction of the whole, because I don't know many books that are. All right.
Thank you so much to Dan for the letter. And keep the letters coming, by the way. Throw them in on, you know, Apple.
I see it. If you leave a review, it's always great. I see it.
I read it, and I will read it on the air. Or, you know, you can do it on YouTube, comments, anywhere you want. Or you can just email us, as Dan did.
Okay, now it's time for the word of the chapter. And for the word of the chapter, let's go back to Miss Amy Einhorn. Here we go.
Amy:
Be messianic about your book. A cynical buy. Intellectual properties.
It seems like very purple prose. Secular Jewish assimilation. Might use commercial pejoratively.
Publishing in bona fides. An epistolary novel.
Neil:
Oh, yes, definitely. We got to do a word cloud, Ms. Amy Einhorn. So many interesting words.
Messianic was very, very tempting. However, I'm going to go with the very interesting... Bona fides.
Bona fides? Or... Bona fides.
Is it bona fides or is it bona fides? Did you know Merriam-Webster uses both pronunciations? It is the way Amy said it, which I'd never heard before.
Dictionary:
Bona fides.
Neil:
Bona fides. But I also see a lot of conversations online, people talking about how you pronounce this. And the one that I'd heard before, bona fides...
Dictionary:
Bona fides.
Neil:
Is considered non-standard. The definition of Merriam-Webster means good faith, sincerity. The fact of being genuine, often plural.
Evidence of one's good faith or genuineness. Evidence of one's qualifications or achievements. That's the fourth definition, but that's the one I'd heard the most.
But it really just means good faith and sincerity. Did you know bona fides looks like a plural word in English? Like it is.
B-O-N-A space F-I-D-E-S. But in Latin, it's a singular noun that literally just means good faith. When bona fides entered English, it first stayed very close to Latin use, and also kept its singular form.
For example, a claimant whose bona fides is unquestionable. But in the 20th century, the use of bona fides began to widen, and it began to appear with a plural verb in certain contexts, such as the informants bona fides were ascertained. Holy cow, what an interesting word.
It's a word, but it looks like two words. And it's singular, but it looks like a plural. But it could also be a plural.
It is the one and only...
Dictionary:
Bona fides.
Neil:
Bona fides.
B-O-N-A space F-I-D-E-S. A noun. Huh.
That is a real thinker. I love that word. I'm going to...
We're adding it to our Word of the Chapter. It's going to be on 3Books.co. You can head over to 3Books.co anytime. The whole top 1,000 there.
A list of every formative book mentioned. A list of every guest. The blog post.
The show notes. Any single proper noun we mentioned on the show, it's all there. Everything's there.
We are adding to lists and lists and lists and lists. We love lists. We love categorizing.
We love sorting. We're doing our best. We got a 22-year-long project.
We're punctuating the full moons now with new moon re-releases, right? Seth Godin is already out. Judy Blume is dropping soon.
And we're going to hang out with Vish, I think, again. We got to just kind of keep the rhythm and rolling going. But every single full moon, you know, there'll be a new chapter of 3Books for sure for 22 years.
That's the promise and pledge I'm making. Thank you for coming on this ride together. Now, until next time, everybody, remember that you are what you eat and you are what you read.
Keep turning the page, and I'll talk to you soon. Take care. Bye.