Unabridged: The Book Trends That Are Annoying Us

[upbeat music] Do you remember the year the National Book Award had, like, all short story collections?

The debuts or short stories?

Yeah, or...

Yes.

Yeah, of course.

It was like short story collections, debuts.

We had an emergency Zoom in the Fiction Matters community.

[laughs]

Well, that's the year it broke.

Okay.

That's the year it broke.

And but also, but also, this year in the lead-up to doing all my predictions, I went back and looked through all the long lists, and I got to that list, and then I had to Google what other books came out this year, and there were, like, real books that came out that year that we all still think and talk about, none of which are the 95 short story collection and debut books.

And then that's the year Tess Gunty won.

Oh, yeah.

Like, I'm just like-

Nobody talks about that book anymore.

I never read it.

I never read it.

I never wanna read it.

I just...

Anyways, okay, we already dived in.

[upbeat music] Do you remember the year the National Book Award had, like, all short story collections?

The debuts or short stories?

Yeah, or...

Yes.

Yeah, of course.

It was like short story collections, debuts.

We had an emergency Zoom in the Fiction Matters community.

[laughs]

Well, that's the year it broke.

Okay.

That's the year it broke.

And but also, but also, this year in the lead-up to doing all my predictions, I went back and looked through all the long lists, and I got to that list, and then I had to Google what other books came out this year, and there were, like, real books that came out that year that we all still think and talk about, none of which are the 95 short story collection and debut books.

And then that's the year Tess Gunty won.

Oh, yeah.

Like, I'm just like-

Nobody talks about that book anymore.

I never read it.

I never read it.

I never wanna read it.

I just...

Anyways, okay, we already dived in.