Switzy by Emma Cline

And I thought this was a bit of fun, Geoff.

Singapore is paying people to read books.

So that headline just grabbed my attention.

And what it is, is that the government's been alarmed by the decline in reading.

And all of the things that go with that, the idea that people are using their phones or turning to their phones instead of reading and perhaps that's dumbing down the culture and they want to make sure people have a habit of reading where possible.

And so they're paying people, it's not a lot of money, so you wouldn't be in it for the money, but I think you log your reading, they're trying to build a habit so that's what I thought was interesting about it is the way they're gamifying it so they've got an app I think it is where you log your reading and they want to see 15 minutes a day then after a certain amount of days you get paid one dollar and then it continues from there so it as I said it's not lucrative but the idea that they're rewarding it's a bit like a streak on Duolingo or some of those apps

where

you become addicted to seeing that tick each day and that you've continued the streak.

And I think there's a lot of neuroscience, isn't there, about how that helps people build habits.

So I thought that was a really fun idea.

And I love how the Singapore government is just so non-nonsense with this sort of thing.

And they just throw some money at the problem and make it something that the government not dictates, but helps nudge people to do that.

So I thought that was fun.

Did you see that article?

I had seen references to it.

It's not really the same, but it reminded me a bit of the days of the MS Readathon when I was young, where you wrote down the names of all the books that you read and you raised money for multiple sclerosis.

Yes, we did.

Yeah, we got sponsors.

Her number of books read was probably about 20 cents back in the day.

But I remember that too.

And running out of room on, you can imagine obviously being a book nerd, running out of room on the A4 piece of paper that we were given to write them all down.

So that was Singapore and the other one that's just come out in the States is the National Book Awards long lists and there's various categories but I just had a quick look at the fiction category and it's been described as heavy overall and quite an interesting long list with books that some commentators or critics or bookstagrammers haven't heard of before which I always think makes it more fun.

But I just noticed, Geoff, there are two that cross over with the Booker long list, and that is The Disappearers by Marlon James and The Renovation by Kenan Oren.

So they're both also on the National Book Awards long list.

And the other names that jumped out at me were Louise Erdrich, whose new collection of short stories, I think it's Python Kiss, is in the list, and Beginning, Middle and End by Valeria Luiselli, who did very well a few years ago with her book that was sort of like a collection of documents.