Just three-ish weeks into his term, winter storm Fern proved to be a telling exercise for newly-elected Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Sure, it showed his resolve in a potential crisis—rolling his sleeves up to dig out some cars—as the storm barrelled towards, and then over, the East Coast, dumping stunning amounts of snow and ice up and down the turnpike. But it also proved how attuned the 34-year-old mayor is to the ebbs of pop culture, and, yes, just how much influence he wields in the top seat of city government.
During a press conference held just as the storm started ramping up, Mamdani, as any reasonable mayor might, pleaded with city residents to abstain from heroics and stay inside. “The snow is coming down heavily across our city, and I can think of no better excuse for New Yorkers to stay home, take a long nap, or take advantage of our public library’s offer of free access to Heated Rivalry on e-book or audiobook for anyone with a library card,” Mamdani told the crowd during his address, referencing the source material, written by Rachel Reid, for the hit show that’s been lighting up screens and algorithms for the last few months. And, as it turns out, an endorsement from the New York City mayor, maybe especially this one, can really move the needle.
According to The New York Times, downloads for e-book and audiobook copies of Heated Rivalry, the second book in Reid’s Game Changers series, soared by 529% after Mamdani’s mention, 83% of which happened on Sunday after the mayor name-dropped the title in the presser, a spokeswoman for the New York Public Library confirmed. But it wasn’t just digital downloads that got a considerable bump out of it. NYPL chief librarian Brian Bannon also noted the library received 2,000 new applications for memberships, about double the amount it got this time last year. Both Bannon and the spokeswoman expect those figures to keep growing.
There’s obviously a confluence of factors at work here. Heated Rivalry is, by any set of metrics, one of the most popular literary and TV titles out at the moment—it currently sits at No. 1 for romance novels, and, ever since it was acquired by HBO from Canadian streamer Crave, the show has been nothing short of a runaway smash. And it also wouldn’t be hyperbolic to suggest Mamdani is, for now, the most well-liked NYC mayor in recent memory, so the accompanying bump just makes sense. What we may have stumbled upon, though, is that it might not take much more than a buzzy show about a hushed romance between two hockey stars and the mayor’s stamp of approval to get people reading again. There’s probably a lesson in there somewhere.
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