Season 1's Greetings!

Some thoughts on the pod, and some peeks into Season 2

O come, all ye faithful listeners and readers, and let us adore the communities we find here on Substack. As Team The Book Maven winds up our first podcast season, we’re thrilled to see so many of you sticking with us. We want to keep making The Book Maven: A Literary Revue as interesting and entertaining as possible.

One thing we may change up is the #FridayReads segment. Instead of reading so many different posts, we’ll choose two or three and dig more deeply into the chosen titles.

Our Six Recs themed book lists might get narrower in focus (although there will always be six books mentioned). That’s not because Season 1’s lists were poorly put together—although I won’t claim that my delivery was always the best—but because there are so many books out there, and we want to help people learn about some of the best books from smaller presses and those that are translated, too.

What won’t change: Our commitment to featuring authors, writers, and literary works old, new, and (sometimes) controversial. In Season 1 we ran interviews with writers including Luis Alberto Urrea, Jessica Hendry Nelson, Louis Bayard, Angie Kim, Tope Folarin, and Dolen Perkins-Valdez. In Season 2 we’ll be speaking to superstar novelist Min Jin Lee, whose novel Pachinko is currently wowing audiences in adaptation; as well as Lauren Francis Sharma for her 2025 novel Casualties of Truth, a thriller that takes its DC high-flyer protagonist Prudence back to 1990s South Africa; and Chris Bohjalian will join us to talk about The Jackal’s Mistress, set during the American Civil War — and those are just a few stellar authors on tap.

Our scripted features, “Canon, or Can It?” and “Pop! Goes the Culture” will carry on, because, well, so many books, so little time to chat about them. During Season 1, I kept some titles as canonical, but I also sent a few to the recycling bin (you’ll have to check out the episodes to discover which ones got. . . canned).

Season 2 of The Book Maven: A Literary Revue will launch in mid-February 2025. In the weeks until then, we’ll be continuing to post here on Substack, and we may even have a few audio treats in store. More on those soon!

Thanks again for joining us during Season 1. May all of your December celebrations be peaceful, and may you receive all of the books on your wish lists.