Host Jason Blitman talks with Megha Majumdar about her acclaimed second novel, A Guardian and a Thief—recently nominated for the Kirkus Prize and shortlisted for the National Book Award.

Conversation highlights include:
🐢 fables and folktales
🦬 interpretations of cave art
🤔 moral quandaries
🎶 concerts and music taste

Jason is then joined by Guest Gay Reader™️ Brandon Taylor about tennis, what might tempt him to read fiction, his newest book Minor Black Figures, and of course, what he's been reading. 

Megha Majumdar’s debut novel, the New York Times bestseller A Burning, was nominated for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize, and the American Library Association’s Andrew Carnegie Medal. It was a TODAY show Read With Jenna Book Club Pick and a Barnes & Noble Discover Pick. In India, it won a Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar. A Burning was named one of the best books of 2020 by media including The Washington Post, The New York Times, NPR, The Atlantic, Vogue, and TIME. Majumdar is the recipient of a Whiting Award, as well as of fellowships from the Civitella Ranieri and Hawthornden foundations. Born and raised in Kolkata, India, and educated at Harvard and Johns Hopkins, she now lives in New York.

Brandon Taylor is the author of the novels The Late Americans and Real Life, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, and named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and a Science + Literature Selected Title by the National Book Foundation. His collection Filthy Animals, a national bestseller, was awarded The Story Prize and shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. He lives in New York City.

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