Episodes
“City on Fire” by Don Winslow launched an ambitious crime fiction trilogy that has transported readers from the gritty streets of Providence to the glittering screens of Hollywood to the golden casinos of Las Vegas as Danny Ryan, forges a dynasty. Winslow’s latest book is “City in Ruins.” It is also his last.
Published 04/09/24
Published 03/26/24
Anna Quindlen puts her trademark wisdom on family, friendship, and the ties that bind us at the center her new novel, “After Annie.” When Annie Brown dies suddenly, her husband, her children, and her closest friend are left to find a way forward without the woman who has been the lynchpin of all of their lives.
Published 03/26/24
“My Beloved Life” by Amitava Kumar is a father-daughter story that widens into an Indian family saga. It tells the story of an ordinary life made exceptional by the fact that father has loved and has been loved in return. His daughter’s story recasts the past in a new light.
Published 03/19/24
Poet Kaveh Akbar joins us to discuss his first novel “Martyr!” which follows Cyrus Shams on a journey of introspection and discovery. Cyrus is a drunk, an addict, and a poet. His obsession with martyrs and dealing with the death of his mother drives him to examine the mysteries of his past.
Published 03/12/24
Novelist Danielle Trussoni is the author of the bestsellers “Angelology” and “Angelopolis.” She gives readers a thrilling ride with her latest, “The Puzzle Master.” Reality and the supernatural collide when an expert puzzle maker is thrust into an ancient mystery - one with explosive consequences for the fate of humanity.
Published 03/05/24
“The Women,” a new novel by Kristin Hannah, is set at a pivotal time in American history: the Vietnam era. It is an intimate portrait of a woman coming of age in a dangerous situation and an epic tale of a nation divided by war and broken by politics.
Published 02/27/24
Ann Napolitano took the literary world by storm with her tear-jerker of a novel “Dear Edward.” Her latest, “Hello Beautiful,” is an homage to Louisa May Alcott’s classic, “Little Women.” “Hello Beautiful” is a portrait of what is possible when we choose to love someone not in spite of who they are, but because of it.
Published 02/20/24
In his new novel, “Cold Victory,” New York Times bestselling author Karl Marlantes delivers a sweeping tale of Cold War intrigue set in post-war Finland in which loyalty, friendship, and love are put to the ultimate test. The book is layered with action, historical detail, and a keen eye for the way totalitarianism and loss of truth and privacy threatens love and friendship.
Published 02/13/24
“Alphabetical Diaries” by Sheila Heti contains a decade’s worth of thoughts, arranged in alphabetical order. The book is a chronicle of the self, of the fundamentals and idiosyncrasies of human experience, that plays out thrillingly in the space that Heti has staked out between life and art, reality and fiction.
Published 02/06/24
“The Bee Sting,” a novel by Paul Murray, is about family, fortune, and the struggle to be a good person at the end of the world.
Published 01/30/24
The winner of the Booker Prize 2023, “Prophet Song” by Paul Lynch,  presents a terrifying and shocking vision of a country sliding into authoritarianism and a deeply human portrait of a mother’s fight to hold her family together.
Published 01/23/24
Best-selling author of “The Things They Carried,” Tim O’Brien, is on The Book Show this week to discuss his first new novel in two decades. “America Fantastica” is a propulsive caper chock full of O’Brien’s commentary on the state of American politics and culture. 
Published 01/16/24
As a prolific novelist of books for adults and kids, Carl Hiaasen has a subject: Florida. It is his beat. In “Wrecker,” Hiaasen’s new novel for Young Readers, Valdez Jones VIII needs to deal with smugglers, grave robbers, and pooping iguanas -- just as soon as he finishes Zoom school.
Published 01/09/24
Ann Patchett is the author of nine novels, including “Bel Canto,” “State of Wonder,” “Commonwealth” and “The Dutch House,” a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her latest, “Tom Lake,” is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born.
Published 01/02/24
Bestselling author Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is the author of the debut novel, "Chain-Gang All-Stars," the story of two top women gladiators fighting for their freedom within a depraved private prison system.
Published 12/26/23
“Day” is the first novel in a decade from Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Cunningham. It’s a family saga set in New York City before and during the COVID-19 pandemic and takes place on three separate days in April, one each in the years 2019-2021.
Published 12/19/23
CNN anchor and chief Washington correspondent and New York Times best-selling author Jake Tapper has written a third thriller. “All the Demons are Here,” brings readers to the 1970s underground world of cults, celebrities, tabloid journalism, serial killers, disco, and UFOs.
Published 12/12/23
“Elegy plus comedy is the only way to express how we live in the world today,” says a character in “The Vulnerables,” the ninth novel by National Book Award winner Sigrid Nunez. “The Vulnerables” offers a meditation on our contemporary era, asking how present reality affects the way a person looks back on their past.
Published 12/05/23
“Absolution,” by National Book Award-winning author Alice McDermott, is the riveting account of women’s lives on the margins of the Vietnam War.  American women and wives have been mostly minor characters in the literature of the Vietnam War, but in “Absolution” they take center stage.
Published 11/28/23
Jane Smiley is the author of numerous novels including “A Thousand Acres,” which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, and the “Last Hundred Years Trilogy.” Her latest, “A Dangerous Business,” tells the remarkable story of the California gold rush and a pair of sex-worker sleuths who track down the culprit behind a series of disappearances.
Published 11/21/23
Jonathan Lethem is the bestselling author of twelve novels, including “The Fortress of Solitude” and “Motherless Brooklyn,” and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. His newest is “Brooklyn Crime Novel,” a sweeping story of community, crime, and gentrification, tracing more than fifty years of life in one Brooklyn neighborhood.
Published 11/14/23
The new novel, “The Unsettled,” by Ayana Mathis is set in the 1980s and follows three generations of a family divided by a painful past. Ava lives in racially and politically turbulent Philadelphia, struggling to care for her son, Toussaint. Her mother, Dutchess, remains in her historically Black hometown of Bonaparte, Alabama, fighting to save her land.
Published 11/07/23
Joe Nesbø is an internationally best-selling author best known for his mystery series featuring his protagonist, Harry Hole. His latest is a twisted, multi-layered, mind-bending spin on the classic horror novel, “The Night House.” By page 8 – a phone has eaten a guy and things get stranger along the way.
Published 10/31/23