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The Joy of Leaving Amazon Reviews: Getting Two Feet Inbounds

By Brendan O’Meara

Ok but listen: I don’t like Amazon.

I don’t have a Prime account.

I very, very, very rarely order anything from Amazon. But I realize I’m in the vast minority there.

That said, for authors big and small, Amazon ratings and reviews matter. Many book readers (the few who remain) out there buy their books from Amazon. Or, if they don’t, they look for the validation of a highly rated title. I’m assuming on that last bit of insight.

So I’ve been taking great joy in leaving short Amazon reviews for authors who come on this podcast, something I’ve historically not done.

Episode 472: Melissa Febos and the Art of Personal Exploration with ‘The Dry Season’

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A mostly accurate transcript for Ep. 472¹

“As soon as I heard people refer to writers as actual people, I thought, ‘oh, my god, is that an option? Because I choose that option.’ And I just latched onto it immediately.” — Melissa Febos, from Ep. 472

Episode 470: Megan Baxter is Into Rewilding Her Writing

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A mostly accurate transcript for Ep. 470¹.

“It’s also just confidence and knowing that it’s still there, and knowing that you are a writer when you are not writing.” — Megan Baxter, from Ep. 470

Episode 467: How to Bounce Back from ‘Viscerally Negative’ Feedback with Will Bardenwerper

Friday, May 9, 2025

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Who’s on the docket for the Friday matinee, looks like it’s Will Bardenwerper, author of The Prisoner in His Palace: Saddam Hussein, His American Guards, and What History Leaves Unsaid and most recently, Homestand: Small Town Baseball and the Fight for the Soul of America (Doubleday).

The story takes us to Batavia, New York in the western part of the state not too far from Buffalo. Batavia used to be home to the minor league Muckdogs but was wiped out during Major League Baseball’s consolidation of dozens of minor league teams, teams that were often the beating hearts of so many communities. What took that team’s place was a wood-bat college baseball summer league similar to the Cape Cod League, but not quite as awash in talent.

Episode 466: Katie Goh on Issues of Identity and the Trappings of Mythology

Friday, May 9, 2025

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For Ep. 466 we’ve got Katie Goh (@katie_goh on IG), author of Foreign Fruit: A Personal History of the Orange. It’s published by Tin House. This is a book that blends memoir and biography: biography of a fruit, that is.

I didn’t tell Katie this, but John McPhee’s slim book Oranges was one of the seminal books that made me want to write narrative nonfiction, that and McPhee’s Survival of the Bark Canoe. Katie, who is of southeast Asian and northern Irish descent, the book tackles issues of identity, colonialism, capitalism, xenophobia and racism, still life art and mythology. It’s dense, it’s expansive, it’s a really fine book.

Episode 462: On Podcasting and Gardens with Debbie Millman

Friday, April 11, 2025

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Link to full transcript.¹

“[The early podcasts are] essentially unlistenable, unless you want to get a sense of how bad a person could be in early podcasting.” —Debbie Millman, host of Design Matters and author of Love Letter to a Garden

C’mon, really? Debbie Millman (@debbiemillman on IG) not only appeared here for Ep. 462, but it’s her third trip to CNF Pod HQ (her first and second are here and here). It’s when people return — and by all accounts seem happy to return — that validates the enterprise all the more.

Debbie has a new book out, Love Letter to a Garden (Timber Press), which is a bountiful book with her tight, concise, philosophical voice, much of it in her beautiful hand lettering. The book also has recipes from her wife, Roxane Gay. You may have heard of her.

Episode 460: Pulitzer Prize-Winning Biographer Megan Marshall Takes on Personal Essays in ‘After Lives’

Friday, March 28, 2025

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“You can’t think of anything more pleasing, I guess, to a biographer, than that they would be able to look in the coffin of their subject, but I did,” says Megan Marshall, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2014 for Margaret Fuller: A New American Life. Her latest book, After Lives: On Biography and the Mysteries of the Human Heart (Mariner Books) takes a more personal turn.

She’s also the author of Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast and The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism (a Pulitzer finalist).

Episode 458: Jaydra Johnson Had to Get Weird

Friday, March 14, 2025

Promotional support is brought to you by the Power of Narrative Conference, celebrating its 26th year on the last weekend of March 28 and 29. 300-400 journalists from around the world are coming. Keynote speakers Susan Orlean, Connie Schultz, Dan Zak and Connie Chung will deliver the knowledge. Listeners of this podcast can get 15% off your enrollment fee by using the code CNF15. To learn more visit combeyond.bu.edu … and use that CNF15 code.

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Jaydra Johnson‘s debut essay collection, Low: Notes on Art & Trash, isn’t what you’d expect. At least it wasn’t what I was expecting heading into it.

It was judged by Maggie Nelson and won the Fonograf essay collection contest. Here’s a tidbit of what Maggie had to say about it:

“Jaydra Johnson’s Low is part instruction manual, part genealogy, part art criticism, and part memoir–all of it pushing with urgency and necessity. It’s written in wry, straight-ahead prose that hits no false notes, and feels honest and earned at every juncture … I found myself rooting hard for its narrator – while also realizing that there is no need, as she has clearly found her way, and is now our teacher.”

Episode 456: Neko Case Wrote Her Memoir in Bed

Friday, March 7, 2025

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Neko Case is here! She’s a founding member of The New Pornographers and a Grammy-nominated musical artist. Her debut memoir is The Harder I Fight the More I Love You (Grand Central).

Had a fine time chatting about childhood, empathy, exercises in memory, and writing in your bed.

Episode 455: Will McGrath’s Season on the Sidelines for The Believer

Friday, March 7, 2025

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Will McGrath says, “I’ve heard people describe anthropology as deep hanging out. It’s the the minutia of everyday life. It’s the quotidian stuff that is actually really interesting.”

Will wrote a brilliant reported essay for The Believer Magazine as he followed a cast of young men and their basketball season titled “American Boys.” If you loved Darcy Frey‘s book The Last Shot, you’ll love Will’s piece.