Jacob Shymanski

And all of this is secondary to the fact that you're still telling classic romantic comedies and murder mysteries.

And I'm wondering if this cultural outreach aspect of your work is A, something you actively think about, and B, if it's something your publishers and your agent and your editors consider when you're discussing these books.

In the editing process, not just for Detective Ante, but all your books, did you ever get recommendations to explain things?

Like, what is Biryani?

know i mean that's classic english class contextualization right yeah it's you can you can surmise the meaning of certain words based on the context it's it's actually a critical part of being a good reader is being able to pick up on context clues to make sense of things that you don't understand yeah and we also have smart speakers make use of it

Anyways, you know, I have listened to hundreds of audiobooks in my life.

And more often than not, the reader is an old white guy with a soft voice.

Listening to this audiobook narrated by Deepti Gupta was...

Super different and a perfect casting, naturally, because it's someone with a Southeast Asian accent narrating a book within a Southeast Asian community.

And I think you mentioned that you do listen to audiobooks.

And so like, how important was it for you to get that representation as part of the audiobook experience, not just the print experience?

There's a second book.

Okay, awesome.

Sweet.

Anyways, I do want to move on because there's something we love to do on this show.

And that's the Shelfie.

And it's to give our guests the opportunity to shout out three books that they just want to shout out for any reason.

It can be something that was influential, something they just read that they really liked, or just something they feel deserves more attention.

And you have three that you brought us today.

What's your first Shelfie?