This week's Woman Episode is sponsored by Penguin Young Readers Group. Meet Laurie Halse Anderson (Speak), Stacey Lee, and Joy McCullough, three YA authors who look to the past to tend a feminist future, in our Woman Issue and online at Kirkus.com. Enter to win the Woman Issue Prize Pack, which includes an Away Luggage carry-on, IPad, Airpods and 4 feminist reads, here: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/contest/feminist-reads-prize-pack/.

In our lead interview, meet Namwali Serpell, whose brilliant debut novel could be *the* big book of 2019. She joins us on this week's episode to discuss The Old Drift, the genre-bending tale of three generations of three Zambian families whose histories entwine in mysterious and magical ways. Then our editors join with their top picks in books this week.

This week’s episode is sponsored by Scholastic. Check out the details in this week’s episode about the giveaway contest Kirkus and Scholastic are doing for young adult writer Bill Konigsberg’s latest novel, The Music of What Happens, plus our intriguing interview with Bill in this episode. And in our lead interview, we talk to Jacob Tobia. Life as a gender nonconforming person hasn’t always been easy for Jacob Tobia, but it has come with a fair heap of fabulousness. On this week’s podcast, the Los Angeles-based writer, producer, and performer joins us to discuss Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story, an incisive, sometimes fraught, often funny account of interrogating their identity and confronting gender-based trauma. Then our editors join with their top picks in books this week.

The incomparable Isaac Mizrahi - fashion designer, performer, talk show host, crossword puzzle aficionado, visionary - joins us on this week’s episode to discuss his generous and funny new memoir, I.M. Then our editors join with their top picks in books this week.

Acclaimed journalist Dave Cullen changed the way we think and talk about mass shootings with a definitive account of the 1999 Columbine massacre and its aftermath. On this week’s Fully Booked, he joins us to discuss Parkland: Birth of a Movement, a heartbreaking and hopeful chronicle of the student-led revolution launched just hours after the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Our editors join later in the episode with their top picks in books this week.

You may have heard of Hedy Lamarr … but what you don’t know about the glamorous movie star might shock you. On this week’s Fully Booked, historical novelist Marie Benedict joins us to discuss The Only Woman in the Room, a New York Times bestseller based on the incredible true story of Lamarr’s escape from Austria, journey to Hollywood, and invention of a secret weapon against Nazi Germany that made her a pioneer in wireless communications. Then our editors join with their top picks in books this week.

In Elizabeth McCracken’s latest novel, a woman seemingly drops from the sky (she’s discovered in a cemetery, with a bowling ball, a candlepin, and fifteen pounds of gold nearby). On this week’s episode, McCracken drops by the recording studio to discuss Bowlaway, the story of three generations of alley owners in a small Massachusetts town, and touches on genealogy, the Great Molasses Flood of 1919, and nearly life-sized, fully articulated wooden women, in fiction and the home. And our editors join with their top picks in books this week.

With the money she made from her first book, Cowboys Are My Weakness, 31-year-old Pam Houston bought a 120-acre ranch near the headwaters of the Rio Grande. She joins us on this week’s episode—25 years later—to discuss Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country, a profound new essay collection expressing a deep appreciation for the lessons she learned from the land.

Kristen Roupenian proved short stories can go viral. Soon after publication in the New Yorker, “Cat Person” became a full-fledged cultural phenomenon—the magazine’s second “most popular” piece of 2017, right behind Ronan Farrow’s Harvey Weinstein exposé—forever altering Roupenian’s life. She joins us on this week’s podcast to discuss that experience, power dynamics in a patriarchy, and her debut short story collection, You Know You Want This; and our editors offer their top picks in books this week.

Self-proclaimed skeptic Victoria Loustalot’s first encounter with a real-life psychic left her with more questions than answers. But when some of the seer’s predictions came true, Loustalot began an earnest investigation into the “modern mystical complex.” She joins us on this week’s episode to discuss her witty, wondrous third memoir, Future Perfect: A Skeptic’s Search for an Honest Mystic, and our editors share their top picks in book this week.

Ultrabestselling novelist Brad Meltzer is back with a thrilling new nonfiction based on little-known fact, The First Conspiracy: The Secret Plot Against George Washington and the Birth of American Counterintelligence. On this episode, Meltzer speaks candidly with Clay and Megan about the plot against the General, plot (in general), and working with longtime collaborator Josh Mensch. And our editors join with their top picks in books this week.