Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, and to end The Brian Lehrer Show today, we can't quite call it the All Of It pregame show, but we're going to talk about All Of It and books. We tend to focus mostly on nonfiction on this show, but we know you read novels too. Since our friends at All Of It are launching a new newsletter today for book lovers of all stripes, we're taking the opportunity to catch up with All Of It producer Jordan Lauf, who always has such great book recommendations, and hear about the latest from their book club, Get Lit with All Of It. Hey, Jordan.

Jordan Lauf: Hey, Brian. Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: All right, the Get Lit with All Of It newsletter debuts this afternoon to people's inboxes. What can subscribers expect?

Jordan Lauf: That is right. This is a brand new newsletter coming from us here at All Of It. First and foremost, it'll be your best place for updates on our Get Lit book club, which is partnered with the New York Public Library. We will give you updates on our author selections, preview the event upcoming, and some more information about the book that you'll hopefully be spending all month reading. If you are a lover of our Get Lit events, this is a great newsletter for you. It will also feature author interviews that we do on the show. We interview so many authors. Alison has such great conversations with authors throughout the year, and just a little behind the scenes, Allison actually really reads all of the books that we feature on the show. That means that our interviews are really in depth. The authors are particularly engaged, and if you missed it, no worries. We will collect some of the highlights of our author interviews and put that in the newsletter as well. Finally, it's going to be a great place for book recommendations.

We'll have staff recommendations. Alison actually will be our staff recommendation for the one going out later this afternoon, so you can read to find out what she's recommending. It's also going to be a great place to spotlight some books that we just aren't able to feature on All Of It for various reasons. For example, translated fiction. It's often really hard for us because of the language barrier, but translated fiction is something I'm really getting into and passionate about, so I'm looking forward to getting to spotlight that.

It's really author interviews, Get Lit updates, book recommendations for book lovers of all stripes, as you said. If people want to subscribe right now, if you're listening, thinking, "Wow, that sounds so great," you can head to wnyc.org/getlitnewsletter, wnyc.org/getlitnewsletter and you'll have that in your inbox this afternoon.

Brian Lehrer: I'm so glad that you mentioned that Alison actually reads the books. When I first got this job and I told my grandmother that the show is 10:00 AM to noon, she said, "They're going to pay you to work two hours a day?" Obviously, Alison is on two hours a day, but we both have just a little bit of homework to do to be prepared, right?

Jordan Lauf: Just a little bit. I can really tell, again, because I'm a producer, I get to see the authors before and after they have their conversation with Alison, and it truly makes such a difference. So many of them comment on, "Wow, what a great and thorough conversation we just had. You can tell she really engaged with the material." I think that makes our author interviews really-- not to toot our own horn, but I think they stand out from the crowd because you can just tell how engaged Alison is with the material and it just makes the author so happy to get to talk to her.

Brian Lehrer: You want to remind listeners how the Get Lit book club works and what this month's book club selection is?

Jordan Lauf: Absolutely. Get Lit with All Of It is our monthly book club event. It is partnered with the New York Public Library, which means that the NYPL provides unlimited e-copies for New Yorkers of our selection each month, so you don't have to wait in those sometimes very lengthy wait lists for these new releases. Each month we gather in the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library, the SNFL, for an in-person event with our author and a musical guest. There's always music to go along with our Get Lit events. This month we are reading The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy.

This is a novel that came out last year. It's about a friend group of Black millennial women who live in New York here and in Los Angeles, and they're just trying to figure out their paths in life and how they fit into each other's lives. I find it to be one of the most honest books about navigating life in your 20s. It is a group of millennial women. For people who are feeling a little nostalgic about the early 2000s, it's a great read for you.

Angela Flournoy, the author, will be joining us on Monday, February 23rd, at 6:00 PM in the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library, with special musical guest jazz musician Immanuel Wilkins, which is going to be such a great evening. Tickets are free but they do sell out and seats are also first come first serve. To get those, you can head to wnyc.org/getlit that, again, is Monday, February 23rd, at 6:00 PM.

Brian Lehrer: How do you choose the musical guests? Do you somehow say, "Oh, I think you know, Immanuel Wilkins type of jazz matches up with The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy"? How do you pick your musical guests for these Get Lit events?

Jordan Lauf: It's a great question. My colleague, Simon Close, who's also a producer on All Of It, does all the heavy lifting on that front, but we tend to actually ask our authors first who they might have in mind, who they would like to see, or if there was any music that helped inspire them while they were writing. For example, our January Get Lit with All Of It event was Ocean Vuong, and he was really a big fan of this musician from Alaska named Quinn Christopherson, and just couldn't say enough nice things about this musician. Quinn ended up flying all the way from Alaska just to join us for our Get Lit event because Ocean Vuong requested him.

Sometimes it's as simple as this author loves this musician, sometimes it's more of a vibes thing. In this case, Angela Flournoy is really into Immanuel Wilkins and his music, so we were thrilled that he's able to join us.

Brian Lehrer: Getting back to the Get Lit newsletter, which will debut this afternoon, be about books, and come out every other week, I have a source who may have tipped me off as to some of the books that you're going to write about in newsletter edition number one. Does one of them happen to be Wolf Hour by Jo Nesbø?

Jordan Lauf: Well, that is one of the books, yes, that I am most excited about coming out this year. Actually, this one is already out, and yes, the newsletter will feature some of the most anticipated books that I'm most excited for this spring. That's a little preview as to what the newsletter will entail. Wolf Hour is a murder mystery, and Jo Nesbø, if people aren't familiar, he's one of those masters of Nordic crime fiction. He is Norwegian. You might know him from his detective Harry Hole, I think I'm pronouncing the Norwegian correctly, series.

That's a long running detective series with books like The Snowman. This one though is a standalone, so don't worry, you don't need to know anything about the other novels. It's actually set in Minneapolis, which caught my eye from a Norwegian writer. It is about a Norwegian crime writer who shows up in Minneapolis claiming that he's there to write a true crime book about a series of murders that had happened a couple years prior by a man suspected to be a serial killer, but it turns out that this Norwegian author might have a little more to do with the case than originally thought.

I'm really excited that this one is standalone, that it's set in the US. That's unusual for Jo Nesbø, and if you are a fan of this book or of his other works, fun fact, there is a Netflix series coming to Netflix in March which will be an adaptation of some of his Detective Harry novels. I'm really excited for more entries into the Jo Nesbø universe.

Brian Lehrer: Neat. I'm looking at a list of other books that have been anticipated that are about to come out. I don't know if these are in your newsletter. Is Kin by Tayari Jones?

Jordan Lauf: Yes, it is. I am very excited for that one. That one comes out February 24th. If people think her name sounds familiar, that's because her last novel was the smash hit An American Marriage. It has been a long time since she's written a new one, so I'm so excited for this novel. This one follows two women who become friends in childhood after bonding over the fact that both of them don't have mothers in their lives.

Their lives diverge when one of these women goes to Spelman College and becomes part of a sort of movers and shakers in the Black community and has this economic rise, and the other woman spends a lot of her time searching for her absent mother. It's about friendship and motherhood and also how these two friends' lives diverge depending on the choices they make. Kirkus calls it beautifully written and powerfully compelling, and I'm so excited that her follow up to An American Marriage is finally out. That one will be out on February 24th.

Brian Lehrer: I see another book you're recommending is The Red Winter by Cameron Sullivan. Kind of fantasy/historical fiction. You must be really happy that you're going to have this outlet now, this every other week Get Lit with All Of It newsletter because you're so into it, right? You do have opinions and you want to recommend things to our listeners.

Jordan Lauf: I couldn't be more thrilled, Brian. You've hit the nail on the head. I love to give recommendations, and again, because Alison reads the books, actually reads them, we only have so much space on the show each week to feature books because I can't give Alison a stack of six novels and say, "Here, tackle this this week." The Red Winter is one of those books that we might not have time to feature this month, but I'm really excited about. It's actually a debut novel from Cameron Sullivan and it is about a man determined to hunt down a bloodthirsty magical beast that has emerged in the French countryside.

This one is set right on the eve of the French Revolution. I'm a big lover of history and historical fiction, and I love when fantasy is able to meld those things. It is apparently based on a real French folktale and myth that I just know nothing about. I always think that that is cool. Not to quote Kirkus reviews again, but I do love their reviews and they have called this one a delightful genre defying debut. I think for fantasy lovers, that's one to keep your eye on this month.

Brian Lehrer: Here's one on your list that's coming out in March. I can't resist but to bring this one up before we run out of time. With the super bowl over and temperatures going a little bit above freezing, baseball pitchers and catchers start working out today. That's considered the first day of spring training in Florida and Arizona. There's a baseball book on your list called Metropolitans: New York Baseball, Class Struggle, and the People's Team. It sounds like it goes way beyond box scores.

Jordan Lauf: Yes, this is by A. M. Gittlitz, and this is a overarching history of the New York Mets. Their history, their inauspicious beginnings. It really also goes into the fan base, as to who loves to root for this team and why the fan base has continued to be so passionate and love this team through some really tough times. It's an interesting time to talk about the Mets. It seemed like their off season was not going so well, and then, oh, they acquired some big players right before spring training here. I'm curious, Brian, how you're feeling about the Mets season as we head into spring training.

Brian Lehrer: Well, I think it could go either way. Some of the moving parts that they have could really work out, or some people might really underperform. Should be better than last year when they missed the playoffs, especially adding Freddy Peralta as an ace because their starting pitching was probably their weakest link last year. I certainly think it's going to be an interesting year in Queens, and hopefully it's going to have a better ending than last year. Just tell people one more time as we run out of time how they can get the new Get Lit with All Of It newsletter about books written by you.

Jordan Lauf: You can head to wnyc.org/getlitnewsletter, wnyc.org/getlitnewsletter, and the first edition will be coming out later this afternoon.

Brian Lehrer: Jordan Lauf, All Of It producer and now newsletter writer with the Get Lit with All Of It newsletter. Thanks for previewing it with us.

Jordan Lauf: Thanks so much for having me, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: That's The Brian Lehrer Show for today, produced by Mary Croke, Lisa Allison, Amina Srna, Carl Boisrond, and Esperanza Rosenbaum. Also, Sasha Linden Cohen today. Zach Gottehrer-Cohen produces our daily politics podcast. Now, stay tuned for the real All Of It coming up in a few seconds.

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