Today I talked to Aaron Hamburger about his new novel Hotel Cuba (Harper Perennial, 2023).
Two sisters fleeing the horror of the Soviet Revolution and aftermath of WW1 are disappointed when American policy prevents them from joining their older sister in New York. Older, practical sister Pearl knows they must leave the old world to survive and buys tickets t ... Show More
Yesterday
Why Did Langston Hughes's "Troubled Lands" Go Unpublished for Nearly a Century?: A Conversation with Ricardo Wilson
Why did Langston Hughes's translations of Mexican and Cuban stories go unpublished for nearly a century? A landmark book—the first complete publication of Langston Hughes’s translations of thirty-three stories by eighteen Mexican and Cuban writers In late 1934, Langston Hughes, a ... Show More
48m 42s
Mar 26
10.2 Beautiful Sentences Matter. Billy-Ray Belcourt and Matt Hooley (SW)
Can a novel with a singular voice also be a chorus? Can it reject the conventions of the novel and still be a novel? Poet, essayist, and novelist Billy-Ray Belcourt tells critic Matt Hooley how his desire to write a novel that “would sound like something else,” led him to produce ... Show More
43m 57s
Mar 24
Daniel Poppick, "The Copywriter" (Scribner, 2026)
Daniel Poppick is a poet and novelist. He is the author of the poetry collections Fear of Description, selected for the National Poetry Series, and The Police. His work appears in The New Yorker, The Paris Review Daily, The Drift, Harper's, BOMB, The New Republic, Chicago Review, ... Show More
41m 31s
Jun 2021
Interview with Kristen Arnett
In this week’s episode, Kendra talks with Kristen Arnett about her most recent novel, With Teeth, which out now from Riverhead.
Check out our Patreon page to learn more about our book club and other Patreon-exclusive goodies. Follow along over on Instagram, join the discussion in ... Show More
47m 33s
May 2022
LAILA LALAMI | The Other American & The Moor's Account | Conversations
<p>Laila Lalami talked about her award-winning books, The Other American, The Moor’s Account, Secret Son, Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits & Conditional Citizens.</p><p><strong>Laila Lalami</strong> was born in Rabat and educated in Morocco, Great Britain, and the United States. ... Show More
56m 16s
May 2022
NAOMI SHIHAB NYE | The Turtle of Oman & Michigan | Book Club
<p>Naomi Shihab Nye talked about her books ‘The Turtle of Oman’ and ‘The Turtle of Michigan<strong>.</strong> The books are about Aref as he travels from Muscat, Oman, to Ann Arbor, Michigan.</p><p>Naomi Shihab Nye was born in St. Louis, Missouri. Her father was a Palestinian ref ... Show More
57m 42s
Dec 2021
Simon Van Booy, "Night Came With Many Stars" (Godine, 2021)
Night Came With Many Stars (Godine 2021) ebbs and flows with people who only take or destroy, balanced by those who give or heal. And everything centers on a family. A Kentucky father treats Carol, his thirteen-year-old motherless daughter like a servant up to the moment he loses ... Show More
26m 41s
Mar 2023
Juliana Lamy, "You Were Watching from the Sand" (Red Hen Press, 2023)
Playful, kinetic, and devastating in turn, You Were Watching from the Sand (Red Hen Press, 2023) is a collection in which Haitian men, women, and children who find their lives cleaved by the interminably strange bite back at the bizarre with their own oddities. In "belly," a youn ... Show More
34m 41s