In the January 13th issue, Rebecca Mead profiles the hugely successful and popular fiction writer Jennifer Weiner, whose books have sold more than four and a half million copies. She's also known for her ongoing campaign against sexism toward female writers in the publishing industry. Here, Mead and the New Yorker editor Daniel Zalewski talk with Sasha Weiss about Weiner's effect on literary media, the porous distinction between commercial and literary fiction, and the pleasures to be had (or not) from comfort reading. Mead also talks about her forthcoming book about reading "Middlemarch" throughout her life. Also on the podcast, you can take Sarah Larson's dialect quiz.