The Bestseller Test • Are bestsellers worth the hype? • Episode #186
About this episode
The episode explores the nature of bestsellers and whether they live up to the hype through discussions of various popular books.
What makes a bestseller? Is it the quality of the writing, or just the right book at the right time? This week Kate is joined by co-host Laura Potter and returning guest Phil Chaffee to find out. Between us we've tackled six of the biggest bestsellers out there – Dan Brown's The Secret of Secrets , Freida McFadden's The Housemaid , Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary , Matt Dinnerman's Dungeon Crawler Carl , SenLinYu's Alchemised , and Sarah Adams' In Your Dreams – and we have some opinions. We're sharing our honest experiences of each one: what worked, what didn't, and whether these books truly earned their place on the bestseller lists. But this isn't just a round of verdicts. We're also pooling our recommendations for the bestsellers we genuinely think are worth your time, like The Correspondant by Virginia Evans – because there are some real gems out there among the hype. And as always, we round off with our current and upcoming reads. Press play to find out which bestsellers passed the test – and which ones didn't. Support the pod on Patreon Explore all the benefits of membership. Kate's weekly reading diary is available to free members…
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