The Book Show

Helen Phillips is one of the most interesting and original writers working today. In her latest novel, “Hum,” she turns her eye to marriage, motherhood, and selfhood in a world compromised by global warming and artificial intelligence.

“All Fours,” a new novel by Miranda July, tells the story of a semi-famous artist who announces her plan to drive cross-country on a one woman quest for a new kind of freedom. The book is part absurd entertainment and part tender reinvention of the sexual, romantic, and domestic life of a forty-five-year-old female artist.

Celebrated cartoonist and “Fun Home” author Alison Bechdel returns with “Spent: A Comic Novel,” a sharp, funny, and self-aware look at art, aging, and the absurdity of success. Set on a goat farm in Vermont, Bechdel (both author and character) grapples with writer’s block, late-stage capitalism, and the unintended consequences of cultural fame.

In 2004, Historian Russell Shorto published “The Island at the Center of the World,” a book about Manhattan and the role of the Dutch in making New York (and America) what it is today. His new book, “Taking Manhattan: The Extraordinary Events That Created New York and Shaped America,” continues the story.

Adrian McKinty’s latest novel, “Hang on St. Christopher,” brings readers to July 1992 when The Troubles in Northern Ireland are still grinding on after twenty-five years. McKinty’s character, Sean Duffy, is assigned to his most violent and dangerous case yet, and the future of the burgeoning “peace process” may depend on it.

Poet Joy Harjo’s poems are described as musical, intimate, political and wise, intertwining ancestral memory and tribal histories with resilience and love. Her latest book, “Washing My Mother’s Body: A Ceremony for Grief,” explores the complexity of a daughter’s grief as she reflects on the joys and sorrows of her mother’s life.

Chris Hayes is the Emmy Award-winning host of MSNBC’s “All In with Chris Hayes.” In his new book, “The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource,” he writes about attention as a resource – one that is being drawn away from citizens in ways they don’t even realize. This episode of The Book Show was recorded at The Bardavon in Poughkeepsie, New York in an event presented by Oblong Books.

When Chloe Dalton, a city-dwelling professional with a high-pressure job, finds a newly born hare - endangered, alone and no bigger than her palm - she is compelled to give it a chance at survival. The new book, “Raising Hare,” is the story of their journey together.

Karen Russell's latest, “The Antidote,” is a dust bowl novel and a reckoning with a nation’s forgetting that enacts the settler amnesia and omissions passed down from generation to generation.

Colum McCann is the New York Times bestselling author of “Let the Great World Spin.” His new novel, “Twist,” tells a propulsive story of rupture and repair in the digital age, delving into a hidden world deep under the ocean.