Vanessa Diaz is back to talk with Jeff and Rebecca about what magical realism is, where it comes from, and how to talk about it.

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One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriela Garcia Marquez

Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel

The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

Labyrinths or Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges

Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar

The Storyteller’s Death by Ann Dávila Cardinal

The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez

Magical/Realism by Angelica Villareal

The Week of Colors by Elena Garro, Megan McDowell (trans.)

The Queen of Swords by Jazmina Barrera, Christina MacSweeney (trans.)

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Vanessa Diaz sits in for Rebecca this week and talks to Jeff about the challenges of making a best books of the year list before getting into the news of the week.

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Amazon’s best books of the year

David Szalay has won the 2025 Booker Prize for his novel Flesh

B&N’s best book of the Year is Mona’s Eyes

The 2025 Goodreads Choice Awards. 

I’m bookmarking this deep dive into the fashion industry’s recurrent interest in literature for knife-and-fork reading this weekend

Reader’s Digest asked three professional designers to pick the best book covers of the year

Kindle translate

Somebody is Walking On Your Grave by Mariana Enriquez

Stolen Crown by Tracy Borman

Devouring Time by Tod Goddard

One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai

Flashlight by Susan Choi

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This is a bonus preview of our ⁠Patreon-only⁠ episode in which Jeff and Rebecca talk about what they've been doing with their lives recently, outside of the world of books.

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Jeff and Rebecca talk about the books they still want to get to before 2026 gets here.

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Flesh by David Szalay

Maggie by Katie Yee

Kaplan's Plot by Jason Diamond

Who is Government? by Michael Lewis

Some Bright Nowhere by Ann Packer

The Uncool by Cameron Crowe

Joyride by Susan Orlean

A Truce That is Not Peace by Miriam Toews

Trying by Chloe Caldwell

Next of Kin by Gabrielle Hamilton

Girl Warrior by Joy Harjo

The Season by Helen Garner

Does This Make Me Funny? by Zosia Mamet

Palaver by Bryan Washington

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones

Black-Owned by Char Adams

This is for Everyone by Tim Berners-Lee

Every Screen on the Planet by Emily Baker-White

Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite

One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad

Heart the Lover by Lily King

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai

Will There Ever Be Another You by Patricia Lockwood

A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar

The Eleventh Hour by Salman Rushdie

Squirrel by Nancy Castaldo

Isola by Allegra Goodman

We The People by Jill Lepore

The History of Money by David McWilliams

Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane

The Emergency by George Packer

What We Can Know by Ian McEwan

El Dorado Drive by Megan Abbott

Vera, or Faith by Gary Shteyngart

Brigands & Breadknives by Travis Baldree

The Librarians by Sherry Thomas

The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett

The Persian by David McCloskey

Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid

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We're in a lull of current publishing industry news, so Jeff and Rebecca speculate about upcoming book awards, year-end announcements, and the book of the year, as well as touch on the impact of AI on writing.

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New Report Examines Writers’ Attitudes toward AI [Publishers Weekly]

My Students Use AI. So What? [The Atlantic]

The Ten Year Affair by Erin Somers

Erin Somers interview on First Edition

The Running Ground by Nicholas Thompson

Craftland by James Fox

Make your Holiday Book Recommendation requests to podcast [at] bookriot.com

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Jeff and Rebecca talk Zadie Smith's Dead & Alive.

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Jeff talks to Dhonielle Clayton and Caroline Richmond of We Need Diverse Books about censorship, book bannings, and the ongoing drive to diversify books and reading in the U.S.

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We Need Diverse Books

Freewater by Amina Luqman-Dawson

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Jeff and Rebecca consider 10 contenders for the title of It Book of November.

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Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite

Book of Lives by Margaret Atwood

The Look by Michelle Obama

The White Hot by Quiara Alegría Hudes

The Emergency by George Packer

The Eleventh Hour: Stories by Salman Rushdie

Palaver by Bryan Washington

The Pelican Child by Joy Williams

Brimstone by Callie Hart

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Jeff and Rebecca put on their rain gear as the best books of the year storm approaches.

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Barnes & Noble kicks off Best Books of the Year season

Amazon revisits 25 years of #1 Book picks

We might have called it wrong about Frankenstein: the reviews are good

Federal judge finds Texas READER Act unconstitutional

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms by George RR Martin

Replaceable You by Mary Roach

The Unveiling by Quan Barry

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Book Riot's managing editor, Vanessa Diaz, returns to re-examine the strange and influential life of Edgar Allan Poe.

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