This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library.

Last week, Hachette made an unprecedented move for a Big Five publisher, cancelling the US release of Mia Ballard's Shy Girl and pulling the UK edition over allegations of heavy AI assistance in the creation of the text. The author and publisher, in the midst of what's sure to be an illuminating legal battle, are being cagey about details, but online comments indicate that large portions of the book are "unreadable," "AI slop," and "make no sense."

This case raises some interesting questions: how did a Big Five publisher conduct QC on alleged "slop" and deem it worthy for release? What does this say about the quality of their other titles, and reader preferences? Why on Earth would they admit to this? And, perhaps most importantly--does having a human behind the keyboard really matter all that much?

The Meow Library takes a strong position on all of the above: have a listen.

This podcast is supported by sales of Meow: A Novel, an international bestseller.

Shy Girl by Mia Ballard cannot be purchased anywhere.

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library.

In a recent interview with podcaster David Senra, a16z’s Marc Andreessen claimed not only to do “zero introspection,” but dismisses introspection itself as a 20th-century contrivance. How did he come to such a radical conclusion? The Meow Library speculates it’s because of his exposure to Meow: A Novel, a novelty book containing only repetitions of the word “meow” which has gained traction among the Silicon Valley intelligentsia. In this podcast, we examine the thought process behind this book, which is surprisingly close to Andreessen’s own.
This podcast is sustained by sales of the internationally bestselling Meow: A Novel.

Debate rages across Twitter as professor and novelist ⁠Aaron Gwyn⁠ insists that his college-level fiction writing students ⁠can't name a single novelist⁠, living or dead. Are we in a literacy crisis? Not necessarily: Many have rushed to his students' defense, purporting to be professional authors who "don't read for pleasure," and who see reading fiction as an ablest bourgeois pose.

Do writers really need to be able to read? You know The Meow Library's answer. We invite you to meow along as you listen to this podcast, which is not about literature, and buy our books, which are not books.

The finest literature on the planet is in The Meow Library, where every word is "meow."

Aaron Gwyn's work is available wherever books are sold.