Kai Risdahl

Sarkana BookScan, just like it sounds, it's a publishing market research firm, says sales of nonfiction print titles are down nearly 8% this year.

Books about politics and current affairs in particular are doing even worse.

An existential decline, some publishers say.

It's a group of titles that has come to be called Dad Books, about which Pamela Paul wrote in the Wall Street Journal the other day.

Pamela, good to have you on the program.

What is a dad book?

As both a dad and a reader of serious nonfiction, should I be insulted that these are being called dad books?

I love a dad book.

That is true, he says, speaking from experience.

Okay.

These books, though, you write are in trouble.

What's going on?

There is one word here that keeps coming up throughout this piece that you wrote, podcasts, podcasts, podcasts.

Right.

You yourself have written a book.

It's called 100 Things We Lost to the Internet.

Do you suppose dad books are going that way as well?

Pamela Paul, writer-at-large at The Journal.

Latest article is called Dad Books Are a Dying Breed.

Pamela, thanks a lot.