On this week’s episode, No. 1 New York Times bestselling author Chris Bohjalian joins us to discuss his new novel, The Amateur (Doubleday, Aug. 4). “An accident at the golf course cuts short one life and totally upends another,” Kirkus writes in a starred review. “It’s hard to think of any reason not to call this a perfect novel—our critic writes—a hole in one.” 

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• This Never Happened by Kent Heckenlively
• Lifers by Keith G. McWalter
• Chemstories by Maya Mourshed

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On this week’s episode,  novelist Julie Buntin joins us to discuss Famous Men (Random House, July 14). “A personal and professional entanglement with an acclaimed writer shapes a young woman’s life,” kirkus writes in a starred review. Buntin’s stellar sophomore offering is “a searing, brilliant novel about power, and stories, and who gets to tell them.”

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• The Book of Don by T.B. Calder
• Dear Laura, A Lost Chapter of WWII by Laura Elliott
• Blood Lasts Forever by Jeff Gunhus

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On this week’s episode, No. 1 New York Times bestselling author Colson Whitehead joins us to discuss Cool Machine (Doubleday, July 21). “Whitehead’s justly celebrated Harlem Trilogy comes to a triumphant, satisfying conclusion,” Kirkus writes in a starred review of Cool Machine, calling Whitehead “a master novelist in full command of his powers as a storyteller, prose stylist, and social observer.”

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• Finding Our Voice by Adam Castillo

• American Gyro by Jim Zervanos

• The Needs of the Heart by Phillip Anderson

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On this week’s episode, internationally bestselling author Robinne Lee joins us to discuss her new novel, Crash Into Me (St. Martin’s, July 7). “After moving to Los Angeles, a biracial photographer navigates the complexities of celebrity, wealth, race, and her own past,” Kirkus writes in an admiring review of Crash Into Me, calling this “sharp and often slyly funny” novel “thoughtful social commentary meets sensual queer awakening among the Beautiful People.”

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• Carrie’s Children by Clarence T. Jones
• A Slaughter of Iguanas by Anne Loiselle

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On this week’s episode, New York Times bestselling author Jessica Knoll joins us to discuss her latest novel, Helpless (Scribner, July 7). “A Hollywood writer returns to her college town for a funeral only to get pulled back into the complicated relationships she left behind,” Kirkus writes in an admiring review of a scintillating novel that “puts the ‘erotic’ back in ‘erotic thriller.’”

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• A Collection of Brevities by Patrick Summers
• Surviving Life by Tom Schneider
• An Endless Knot by Joe Elefante
• Albrecht Drue, Ghostpuncher. by Paul D. Miller

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On this week’s episode, New York Times bestselling novelist Jenny Jackson joins us to discuss The Shampoo Effect (Pamela Dorman Books, June 30). Kirkus: “A beginning author gets in over her head, personally and professionally” in a winning novel that “combines a literary rom-com with an acute portrait of midlife among millennials.”

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• A Name Unbroken by Donald Proffit
• Alternate Sources by Lamar Brantley

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On this week’s episode, Eva zu Beck joins us to discuss The Wilder Way: A Memoir of Adventure, Freedom, and an Uncharted Life (Gallery Books, June 2). In a starred review, Kirkus calls this bold debut by the YouTube adventurer and National Geographic TV host “an inspiring, action-packed journey to find one’s self through perilous adventures in exotic, far-flung destinations.” 

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• Sebastian and the Belgian Koala by Jill Charlotte Thomas, illus. by Parks Sadler
• Death and All That Follows by Javier Piñol Serra
• The Lodge Women, Their Men and Their Times by Emily Lodge

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On this week’s episode, sponsored by Cambridge University Press, Deb Olin Unferth joins us to discuss her latest novel, Earth 7 (Graywolf, June 9), which Kirkus calls “a quirky, bold, and endearing masterpiece of climate fiction” (starred review).

THANKS TO OUR SPONSOR: 

The Elephants in the Room by Seth Masket (Cambridge University Press)

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On this week’s episode, comedian and former SNL writer Rosebud Baker joins us to discuss Fully Baked: A Messy Memoir (Gallery Books, June 9. Kirkus: “A scathingly funny memoir about a late-bloomer’s wild ride from debauched youth to motherhood and comedy success.”

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• Queen of the Styx by Buell Hollister
• Diamonds and Roses, Vipers and Toads by Clark Thomas Carlton

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On this week’s episode, No. 1 New York Times bestselling novelist Christina Baker Kline joins us to discuss The Foursome (Mariner Books, May 12). “Famous conjoined twins Chang and Eng Bunker were married to Sarah and Adelaide Yates, a pair of sisters in the Civil War–era South, where they produced 21 children between them,” Kirkus writes, in a starred review. “A profound and moving treatment of what could have been a tabloid topic.”

THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS:

• The Man on the Bench by Hy Conrad
• An Adventure Log by Jim Doti

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