Dispatches from the Biggest Week in Books
And all the books I added to my TBR while I was at it
I lived a dream come true this week getting to attend the 75th annual National Book Award ceremony, and it was even more magical than I expected! A huge, ginormous thank you to the National Book Foundation for having me. I still can’t believe my luck!
A big part of the magic was getting to attend with my pals
and . The three of us started 2024 recording a bonus episode of Traci’s podcast The Stacks, spent all year talking about books and literary criticism in our group chat, and then had this sort of culminating literary experience of attending these awards together. It was wonderful and I’m so grateful to have these friends and colleagues to help me navigate cocktail schmoozing, dance floors, and the uncharted territory of being a professional internet book person.Today I want to share about my week in NYC because while the NBA party was the reason for the trip, every day was filled with so much bookish delight and connection. The majority of this post is free. Towards the bottom you’ll hit paywall and behind that I’ll be sharing the old, new, and forthcoming books I added to my to-be-read list based on the abundance of book conversation I had this week.
*This is a long one so if your email cuts off, you can read this in your app or web browser*
Monday
I got into NYC around 4 and immediately rushed up to Traci’s suite to meet her and Cree for the first time in person. It is so wild when internet friends become in real life friends! That night we were invited to the first ever Off-Site party put on by The Black List. It was extremely cool. Gayle King was there as were Roxane Gay, Mateo Askaripour, Dawnie Walton, Deesha Philyaw, and—to Traci’s surprise and delight—Patrick Radden Keefe. I could go on about this mind-boggling guest list, but some highlights for me were talking to Imani Perry about teaching and to Irvin Weathersby about his upcoming book In Open Contempt.
Mostly, it was extremely cool to see a room full of artists and art lovers who support each other and root for each other, and who all came together to support what Franklin Leonard and Randy Winston are doing with the new fiction arm of The Black List. Franklin told the NYT that the goal of this new venture “is to create a new avenue for authors whose work may have gone overlooked because they lack a literary agent or the right industry connections.” And there’s no one who could better help him achieve that goal than Randy—who is quite simply the best and who I’m so glad to have finally met in person after serving on the Aspen Words reading committee together four whole years ago. I’m serving as a judge for The Black List’s new unpublished manuscript novel next year, so you’ll definitely be hearing more about their work from me in coming months.
Tuesday
The next morning Traci, Cree, and I had breakfast with the delightful Lauren Puckett, who is a books and culture writer at Elle. We had so much fun talking about our favorite books of the year and how book coverage has changed over the years. It was fascinating to break down the divide between legacy media book coverage and the book influencer space, and to brainstorm ways we can better support each other and books. Lauren is currently working on a piece I know many of you will be interested in, so I’ll share that here when it’s published.
After breakfast we all went our separate ways and I headed to the Penguin Random House building to meet my friends at Riverhead Books. Riverhead is one of my favorite publishing imprints They have published James McBride, Hernan Diaz, Miranda July, Danzy Senna, Meg Wolitzer, Chang-Rae Lee, and many more of my favorites. Plus they have Grace Han as their Senior Cover Designer and their books are all stunners. Seeing them all together in the office is like walking into your technicolor dream library. I was swooning hard. Michelle and Hannah also showed me some of Riverhead’s past marketing campaigns including a stunning collection of enamel pins for their Fall 2016 catalogue and a Clare Vaye Watkins flipbook. Another highlight was getting to tell Olga Tokarczuk’s editor that The Empusium is one of my favorite books of the year and to learn that Olga is “thrilled” with the U.S. reception of her book. The team was so kind to me and sent me home with a Heaven and Earth Grocery Store tote filled with 2025 releases!
After my Riverhead visit, I stopped by the American Girl store to pick up a present for Louise and visited the McNally Jackson that’s right by it. I didn’t buy anything (see: huge tote bag full of Riverhead books weighing me down) but I always love to see what the folks there are reading and recommending. Later that evening, Traci, Cree, and I decided to forego another book event in favor of dinner and spent several hours over ramen and a bottle of sake talking through each of our ideas for goals, dreams, and future projects. It was much-needed and very generative.
Wednesday
My day started with a tour of the New York Times from one of my favorite people in books, MJ Franklin. MJ is an editor at the NYT Book Review and he hosts their new monthly Book Club podcast series, which you need to check out if you haven’t. Being in the NYT building was a nerdy dream come true. MJ showed me Book Review archives dating back more than 100 years (there was a Joseph Conrad ad in one I flipped through!) and their galley room that has forthcoming books stretching all the way until June of 2025.
I also saw a conference room that had original first pages including the very first edition of The New York Times, Lincoln’s assassination, and the election of Obama. I also got to witness a fire drill which was charming and delightful! Then MJ and I had coffee and talked about Sally Rooney, millennial books, the way BookTok and Bookstagram are changing reading, and how we both want to read more theory this year. He is a gem and I feel so lucky to know him.
From there, I met Traci and our favorite woman in book marketing, Kelsey Manning. Kelsey has been sending me emails and books for going on seven years now. We’ve bonded over having to cut our husbands’ hair during lockdown and having babies about a year apart. She has been a huge advocate for me and other book influencers over the years, working hard to help us get what we need to do the work we love. It was such a treat to get to meet her in person and she was just as kind and cool as I would have expected. After lunch at Eataly, Kelsey took Traci and I to the Harper Collins office, which is gorgeous. The three of us chatted with their publicity director Eliza Rosenberry about author crushes, the sexiest and least sexy sports, and, of course, upcoming William Morrow and Mariner titles. They have some good stuff coming next year that I can’t wait to tell you about!
Then it was time to head back to the hotel to get ready for the National Book Awards…ahhhh! Cree had brought a full lights and camera set up (such a pro!) so we could have a little photoshoot and then it was onto the main event. Here I’m going to refer you Traci’s recent Substack because she has all the details you want to know about the event, the food, the clothes, and the sloppiness of the dance floor.
Since Traci has me covered, I won’t recap the night in detail, but here are my personal highlights from the evening:
Obviously getting to meet and take a picture with NBA winner Percival Everett was THE moment of the evening.
Lauren Groff recognized me before I recognized her! I have interviewed her once and when we were both approaching the bar she noticed me, said hi, and gave me a huge hug. She is so kind and generous, and it was really lovely to see her shine because I know it must of have been a ton of work chairing the fiction judging panel. And here’s a little inside baseball: the judges don’t choose the winner until lunch the day of the event!! Every judge I talked to said that element of the whole process is extremely stressful and I can only imagine!
All of the speeches were excellent but Barbara Kingsolver’s was very much in the spirit of “fiction matters,” and I hung on every word (you can watch a replay here). Afterwards I got to tell her how much her speech meant to me and we agreed that this was a night all of us really needed. It was also a treat to see her cutting it up on the dance floor in her red sequined dress!
Meeting Gilbert Cruz, editor of the NYT Book Review.
Getting to tell ‘Pemi Aguda how much I loved her collection Ghostroots and sharing with her that Lauren Groff had cited her as one of her favorite working writers when I interviewed her this summer.
Meeting Jennifer Croft, who was so kind and definitely seemed to be relieved that the judging process was over. She reiterated how much they loved every book on the translated list and now I want to read them all.
Getting to talk to the editors of some of my favorite books from some of my favorite imprints including Grove Atlantic and FSG. Good editors are crucial to good books and it was special to be able to celebrate them.
And, finally, meeting so many bookstagram friends!! I’ve chatted with them about books for years and it was so fun to meet in person. I also met some new friends who I now get to follow in their online reading journeys. It’s pretty special to get to come together to celebrate The Biggest Night in Books because those of us who champion books on Instagram and Substack and podcasts are a part of these wonderful books finding their readers.
Alright thanks for following along with my magical week and a huge huge thank you to the National Book Foundation for having me. If you are looking for charitable organizations to donate to this holiday season, definitely consider the NBF. They have a new program that is very near to my heart dedicated to helping librarians and teachers in states experiencing the most book bans. You can learn more about everything they do beyond the prize on their website.
And of course, go read more about the ceremony in Traci’s Q&A and Cree’s Retrospective.
Now, let’s get into some of the books I added to my reading list after spending three days with my favorite critics, insiders, authors, and readers.