Print Run Podcast · Erik Hane and Laura Zats

Episode 184—The Hanger Games

·43 min·3 clips

Publishing is pushing politics onto individual action and responsibility.

Eric and Laura open with a bit of housekeeping before the real topic starts. They talk through a fundraiser in Minnesota, tied to volunteer work that is still trying to get culturally appropriate, nutritious food to families sheltering in place as the need keeps growing. The ask feels immediate and practical. After that, the episode moves into nonfiction, with politics and culture books taking center stage. From there, the hosts start working through the political mood of the Biden era and the lingering fear of Trump showing up again. They make the case that fear like that shrank the public imagination and pushed a lot of political talk into defense mode instead of anything more open-ended. The pandemic sits under all of it, and it makes that narrowing feel even sharper. Eric and Laura keep coming back to the question of what political books were actually doing in that moment. They point to the breakout books of the period and note how often they landed because they had a clear practical hook. White Fragility and How to Be an Anti-Racist come up as examples of books that offered easy takeaway energy. They are honest that this is not really the mode they, or their circle, naturally gravitate toward. Still, they do not flatten the point into a simple taste issue. They worry it from a few angles and keep the market logic in view. The conversation stays loose, but not flimsy. It feels like two people thinking out loud with enough background to spot where the pressure points are. They move between politics, publishing, and reader appetite without pretending those things live apart. The tension between clarity and simplification keeps coming up. The episode also keeps the show's usual personable rhythm. Near the end, the tone breaks into a joke about fancy grocery stores and brie. The closing stretches into a funny bit about what someone would do with their last thirty minutes before they get them. The whole thing lands in a place that is a little absurd, a little sincere, and very much on brand for the show.

As heard by us

A publishing conversation that turns political nonfiction into a study of mood.

Print Run spends this episode with nonfiction, politics, and culture books, anchored by Eric Hain and Laura Zatz in the Twin Cities. It also threads in a Minnesota fundraiser and the sense that the Biden-era political mood still sits under the long shadow of Trump.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You want a sharp take on Biden-era politics and culture books, plus the mood behind them.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Print Run Podcast