Contemplative, tense, and tinged with poignancy, Hieroglyphics, Jill McCorkle’s latest novel – in which past traumas and bleak circumstances inform and compel her richly drawn characters – has been lauded as a “powerful narrative web” by Publishers Weekly. Joining her is Margot Livesey, whose latest novel is The Boy in the Field. It’s a story of how a single […]
Sue Miller’s Monogamy tells the story of Graham, a gregarious bookseller, and Annie, a shy photographer, who have been married nearly 30 years. When Graham suddenly dies, Annie wonders what, exactly, is the point of going on without him. But when she discovers a ruinous secret he kept, she’s forced her to question whether she […]
Adequate Yearly Progress, author and veteran educator Roxanna Elden’s first novel, draws us into life at Brae Hill Valley, a struggling high school in one the biggest cities in Texas. Hailed by the Washington Post as “a funny but insightful look at teachers in the workplace,” Adequate Yearly Progress is an exuberantly comic takedown of […]
Lee Child's The Nicotine Chronicles features 16 short stories in which cigarettes and smoking play roles both starring and supporting act, by contributors including Joyce Carol Oates, Jonathan Ames, Ariel Gore, Eric Bogosian, and Achy Obejas. He’s joined by actor Michael Imperioli, another contributor to Child’s collection and the author of the novel The Perfume […]
In Genevieve Hudson's Boys of Alabama, a sensitive teen, newly arrived in the state, learns about football, falls in love, questions his faith, and navigates a strange power that could be seen as God-given, or the work of the devil. Hudson is speaking about her satisfying twist on Southern gothic with Kristen Arnett, whose Mostly […]
Presented in partnership with CasaCuba at Florida International University. Award-winning journalist, editor, and author Armando Lucas Correa's The Daughter’s Tale chronicles one of the most harrowing atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis during the war, and a family's saga of love, survival, and redemption. He discusses the novel, based on true events, with author and journalist […]
In James McBride's Deacon King Kong, an old church deacon known as Sportcoat shuffles into the crowded courtyard of a Brooklyn project and shoots the local drug dealer, a violent act that causes the lives of those impacted to overlap in unexpected ways. McBride is speaking with Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. author of […]
In Marisel Vera's The Taste of Sugar, a young Puerto Rican couple, their farm struggling in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War and the San Ciriaco Hurricane of 1899, is lured to the sugar plantations of Hawaii, only to discover the hollowness of America's promises. Praised by Kirkus as “a sprawling family epic that stretches […]
Walter Mosley is the recipient of the 2020 National Book Awards Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters (DCAL). Walter Mosley’s The Awkward Black Man is a collection of 17 short stories in which the heroes are awkward, nerdy, self-defeating, self-involved, and, on the whole, odd. They include a man who keeps a pet fly, […]
In international bestselling author Dean Koontz' Elsewhere, a father and his young daughter lead a quiet life in a small town, until they’re entrusted with a mysterious object that happens to have extraordinary power, a power that figures lurking in the shadows are desperate to possess. The result is a mixture of wonder, mystery, and […]
The cast of characters in Nelson George's The Darkest Hearts includes a former bodyguard turned talent manager, a rapper, his wife and his mistress, an unsavory CEO, a retired hit man, and a female vigilante. Yes, being a Black businessman these days is especially challenging. He’s discussing those and other challenges with Touré, host of […]
Take a tour of the dark and uncomfortable corners of criminal minds! In Ed Brubaker’s Cruel Summer, sons follow fathers down the same hopeless criminal paths. Julia Gfrorer’s Vision: Book 1 introduces readers to a Victorian spinster on the path to blindness, as she navigates her mysterious and demanding family while finding sexual solace in […]