The village of Faha in Ireland in 1962 is the setting of the latest novel by Niall Williams, Time of the Child. The protagonist, Dr. Jack Troy, is a quiet, serious man who lives alone with his eldest daughter — and a world of regret. One December day, a baby is left in his care — and will make him re-think every silence and secret he’s ever clung to. Yvette Benavides shares a review of the novel “Time of the Child” by Niall Williams.

Prayers, grace, words of gratitude. Doesn’t it seem like Thanksgiving is the perfect holiday for poetry? Yvette Benavides, the host of 'Book Public,' shares some of her favorite poems about giving thanks.

The Art of Jacques Pépin celebrates the master chef and 99 of his all-time favorite recipes, paired with his signature artwork spanning the last 60 years.

Ada Limón served as the 24th Poet Laureate of the United States. Her latest book, Startlement: New and Selected Poems, is a retrospective spanning two decades and also includes 21 new poems. The book is the poet's invitation to meet the world with an open mind — but also an open heart. She encourages us to embrace our "strangeness" and our tenderness, and to bear witness to the arc of all we know with hope and compassion.

Marisa Silver joins Yvette Benavides on Book Public to discuss her latest novel, At Last. Helene and Evelyn are two women who are bound together because they happen to be the mothers of two people who marry. We learn about the lives of these women and what it means for them to be in this season of life eager for their grandchild’s love and wanting to figure out the complex relationships one has with the other.

Megha Majumdar's novel, A Guardian and a Thief, is set in the near future in Kolkata amid a climate crisis. There are two families from very different stations in life struggling to survive. But whose story of survival matters more? Who is the guardian and who is the thief?

In Girl Warrior, Joy Harjo shares stories about her own coming of age to bring to light pivotal moments of becoming—among them, forgiveness, failure, falling, rising up, honoring those who came before and making space for those who will come after us.

Paula Saunders discusses her novel Starting from Here. It's a coming-of-age story about 15-year-old René. She leaves a home that is tense and difficult in order to pursue a career in ballet. But the challenges of this displacement are as fraught—and even dangerous.

In Jason Diamond's novel, Kaplan's Plot, Elijah’s mother is dying, and she is sharing some family secrets he never knew before— including that the family owns a cemetery and his grandfather was a gangster in Chicago. In this family, the relationships across generations have always been fraught, but now they must find a way to a reckoning and walk together toward acceptance of exactly who they are. Jason Diamond is the guest on this episode of Book Public.

Sasha Bonét’s intergenerational memoir, The Waterbearers, offers us the idea that the journey of Black American motherhood is like a complex, powerful river. As you read, you travel through generations—from a Louisiana cotton plantation to modern-day New York. She explores triumphs and trials—and shares the stories of legacies of maternal love borne of triumphs and tribulation.