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.

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library.

In this week’s podcast, we investigate the hype parade leading up to the release of Madeline Cash’s Lost Lambs, easily the most anticipated novel of 2026. This is not so much a review of the book (there are plenty of those) as it is of Cash’s PR team, which is the real work of art here. How does an author rise from obscurity to the upper echelons of English literature—replete with comparisons to Franzen and Pynchon—in the space of one book? And are those comparisons merited? You won’t find out here: we hired Cash’s PR team to funnel you to this podcast, which is a 30-minute recording of a man meowing like a cat. You have already clicked on it. You’ve already heard the first meows. And now you will buy our book.

Lost Lambs is available via Macmillan Publishers.

This podcast is supported by the alarmingly growing sales of Meow: A Novel.

This podcast is a production of The Meow Library.

Jennette McCurdy's new book has us at a loss for words. Some things are simply unspeakable, as this podcast makes plain.

Jennette McCurdy's Half His Age is available through Penguin Random House and wherever books are sold.

For less transgressive fare, we suggest The Meow Library's new translations of Wuthering Heights and Pride & Prejudice.