This Isn't Another In/Out 2025 Post

It's just what I'm into right now: Irish literature, the evolving book media landscape, booksellers, and the role of book reviews

First off, happy 2025! I'm not one for trend predictions, in and out lists, or goals set for the sake of setting them. I believe that we should feel free to experiment with different trends and fads throughout the year whenever we please, without shame, and that the same things that have always translated to success--discipline, creativity, mastery--will continue to lead to positive outcomes, year after year.

However, I am going to take this collective refresh period to share what's exciting me right now. Especially since I've experienced some lapsed discipline myself and have not honored my regular posting commitment!

First up: Irish literature.

I'm in a deep contemporary Irish fiction phase at the moment. It likely started with Paul Murray's The Bee Sting, as it was my favorite book of recent years. It continued with Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These, Megan Nolan’s Ordinary Human Failings, Sally Rooney's Intermezzo (no one is as surprised by that as I am, I am not a fan of her other books), Tana French's The Hunter, Louise Kennedy's Trespasses, and has now been greatly exacerbated by finishing books 1-3 of John Boyne's latest series: Water, Earth, and Fire. Everything seems to exist in contrast and I'm drawn to it--the barren yet somehow lush landscapes, the emotional repression that shows up in dialogue but is nowhere to be found in the depth of character development, and the warmth of the people against the frigid weather. In my opinion, Irish writers are capturing a subtle yet pervasive sentiment that we're all collectively feeling: a general ennui with a sliver of optimism and hope for our future selves. I could wax poetic for ages but I'll leave you with a very strong recommendation for all of the aforementioned books and tell you that next on my list is Evenings and Weekends by Oisín McKenna and The Coast Road by Alan Murrin. Reviews forthcoming!

Next: the evolving media landscape.

If you're subscribed to a lot of publishing newsletters you'll see some chatter about how the marketing and publicity landscape for books is rapidly changing. As you've all probably noticed, traditional book review columns have been cut from many mainstream media outlets and people are increasingly relying on social media algorithms to surface book recommendations. However, we're also seeing an oversaturation of books trying to break into the BookTok world and it feels like everyone is starting a book-related Instagram. I also have firsthand knowledge of how little attention is paid by the publishers themselves to the influencers who could actually move the needle for their books. Influencer lists are thoughtlessly thrown together and books are sent, often at random, to influencers despite their reading preferences and/or audience tastes. It reminds me of the early days of beauty and fashion influencer marketing, when big beauty brands (wrongly) assumed that by getting someone, anyone, with a big following to post about their product they'd sell out of inventory. They missed the nuance that makes the real influencers so influential, which is that influencers know their audience backwards and forwards and they are dedicated to creating value-based content. If an influencer is known for her travel hacks, giving her a book to read on her next flight likely won't convert. Her audience doesn't necessarily "trust" her for book reviews. This ever-growing friction is exciting to me because it means that we haven't actually determined what the future for book marketing looks like--and that, my friends, is an opportunity!

My favorite tastemakers: booksellers.

If I had to pinpoint a specific focus for the beginning of the year, I'd say it would be getting to know bookstore owners and managers. I'm going to start a book review series called "What & How" (title subject to change...) that gives you my honest thoughts on a recent book I read plus how I discovered it. The second part is more interesting than the first because, per the paragraph above, we're still trying to figure out how to market books. One key piece to this puzzle is paying closer attention to who people are listening to and where they're finding out about their next read. I read a statistic a few years ago that I can't remember precisely but really surprised me--something like 70% of people who walk into a bookstore have no idea what they're going to buy. Well over 50% of books are impulse purchases. This is huge! This puts a tremendous amount of power into the hands of the people who merchandise books. From an industry perspective, some of the largest book chains in the US are slashing coop programs (the ability for publishers to pay to get their books on the front tables) and are leaning heavily into bespoke, location-specific curation. And, if I think about it, probably 90% of the books I've purchased recently have come from the staff picks section of a bookstore, after a lengthy conversation with the manager. I'm making it my mission to get to know way more of these people because I find it interesting to hear their perspective on what's selling well, what's surprising them about people's tastes, and what publishers are pushing vs. what readers are asking for.

Lastly: the role of the critic.

A lot of my friends have read All Fours by Miranda July. One just recently finished and asked me what I thought about it. Truthfully, I didn't enjoy it. I can appreciate if it's your first time reading a book that deals with this subject matter, it's interesting and perhaps even bold. However, I've read dozens of books about women in this period of their lives, all of which I found more powerful than All Fours. As I started to relay all of these thoughts to my friend, I became self-conscious. Who am I to criticize this woman's book? It's one of the bestselling books of 2024, it's been widely acclaimed, and it has done better than 99% of other books. It's safe to say that the odds are very low that I could produce a book like that. So do I have a right to criticize? Well, obviously, people give reviews all the time and few of those people are successful writers themselves. And yes, reviews help. But it got me thinking about how, and more importantly why, book critics exist. Secondary to my mission of getting to know more booksellers, I'm going to dive deep into the world of book reviews and reviewers.

Whew, that was a lot! If you're still with me, thank you. I'll leave you with some random musings: aside from everything above, I'm also very interested in exploring the history of magic in different cultures across the world, I am desperate to travel to Japan and Colombia this year, and I'll be cooking every single recipe from this cookbook.

What's going on in your world in 2025?!