We're finally able to tell you our grand opening date! (Spoiler alert: It's October 25. Come visit!) Press play to hear what we've been doing to get everything ready for you. We talk, too, about the upcoming movies and shows based on books that we're excited about, and we play a game where we each come up with the weirdest possible book pairings and then challenge the other person to figure out how to connect them. Is this game worth playing ever again? Let us know! Learn more about your ad choi...
Oct 01, 2025•20 min
The store is almost ready! We're just waiting (and waiting and waiting) on a new entrance before we can start putting books on the shelves. Find out our latest news, victories, and frustrations and hear about what we're reading now and what we're excited to read next. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sep 08, 2025•27 min
We (authors Eve Yohalem and Julie Sternberg) are opening a bookstore called Books & Cake in Hillsdale, New York! Renovations are underway--take a listen to hear how they're going; how we decided to take this step together; what's surprised us along the way; our unusual plan for organizing the books in the store; a few book recommendations; and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Aug 28, 2025•26 min
Julie and Eve have big news! Find us on Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast) , or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com . We encourage you to visit our website for information about our episodes, guests, and more. Book Dreams is a part of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate network , a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy . Since you’re listening to Book Dreams, we’d like...
Aug 28, 2025•5 min•Season 1Ep. 143
Why, oh why, does Eve make Julie take on questions that no person on the planet wants to be forced to think through out loud on air? (Three guesses who wrote this description.) The question this time: Is there free will? Julie's answer: .... Never mind. Skip Julie's answer and go straight to Eve's discussion of what professor of biology and neuroscience Robert Sapolsky has to say on the topic in his latest book, Determined, A Life of Science Without Free Will. Then stay for talk of additional bo...
Apr 26, 2024•20 min•Season 1Ep. 142
Our theme for this episode is book connections—times when one book leads us to thoughts of another or inspires us to read further. It’s one of our very favorite aspects of reading: escaping into the world of one book, then tying it together with the world of another. Eve talks about two pairs of books—one of her all-time favorites, one a new discovery, and two that are “absolutely delicious”—all connected by a common theme, and, despite being in a terrible reading slump, Julie’s found a veritabl...
Jan 18, 2024•17 min•Season 1Ep. 141
It's been a long time since you've seen an author interview here on Book Dreams, but we were recently given the chance to interview Roz Chast, and who could possibly say no to that?! Roz is a beloved New Yorker cartoonist with a style all her own, and Eve and Julie have both been big fans of her work for decades. She is as funny, insightful, and distinctive in person as she is in her drawings, and it was a joy to get to speak with her. Take a listen to hear about everything from her latest book,...
Dec 21, 2023•33 min•Season 1Ep. 140
“This is so bad that I feel like I'm in a Stephen King novel where there's just one thing off about my familiar world, but that one thing is a living nightmare.” In a Book Dreams first, Eve and Julie disagree wildly about a book. Can they resolve their differences? Find out in this episode where they talk about books they’ve both read, with the exception of one novella that Julie says is “definitely going to be one of my favorite books that I've read this year, and might make it onto my all-time...
Oct 12, 2023•14 min•Season 1Ep. 139
Eve read so much during the weeks since our last episode, she gave herself a repetitive reading injury. But it was worth it! In this episode she shares thoughts about books with mesmerizing voice, memorable characters, sweeping scope, and poetic brilliance. Meanwhile, Julie--who has managed thus far to avoid reading-related injury--talks about a critically acclaimed novel set in Berlin around the time of the fall of the wall, and a buzzy satire of the publishing industry. Find us on Twitter (@bo...
Aug 11, 2023•18 min•Season 1Ep. 138
What have Julie and Eve been reading lately? Find out in this new bonus episode, in which Eve talks about the legacy of her dad, a constant reader, the brilliance of Helen Dewitt (again), the searing poetry of Louise Glück, and a light and highly readable beach read. Meanwhile, Julie’s been pursuing a reading vision, discovering the propulsive, mind-expanding books—and book recommendations—of S. A. Cosby. Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at cont...
Jul 06, 2023•14 min•Season 1Ep. 137
What have Julie and Eve been reading lately? Find out in this new bonus episode where we talk about loving old favorites even more the second time around, lessons Julie gleaned from a book about life in a picturesque German village during the Nazi regime, discovering an author whose novel is “dazzling,” and the joy and abundant rewards of overcoming a fear of poetry . Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast) , or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com . We encour...
May 25, 2023•21 min•Season 1Ep. 136
We’ve all been there: one of those tough times in life when it’s hard to get your mind to settle enough to escape into a good book. Yet that’s when we need books more than ever. Eve and Julie have both been going through rough patches recently. Here are the books that have been helping. Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast) , or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com . We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about o...
Apr 06, 2023•19 min•Season 1Ep. 135
Welcome to our last regularly scheduled episode of Book Dreams. We started the podcast because books, more than just about anything, bring us joy. So we thought, what better way to end the podcast than to spread that joy and talk about how to make great book recommendations for other people? Our guest, James Gilbert, is a bookseller at the Heywood Hill bookstore in London, which runs, in its words, “the most personalized book subscription service in the world.” James makes personalized book reco...
Feb 23, 2023•31 min•Season 1Ep. 134
In this episode, Book Dreams producer and guest host Gianfranco Lentini takes us on a journey to a real-life literary paradise—a thin barrier island just 50 miles east of New York City—that has been a haven for authors, especially queer authors, for more than a century. Author and scholar Jack Parlett joins Gianfranco to discuss the subject of Jack’s latest book, Fire Island: A Century in the Life of an American Paradise. They talk about the significance of creating and maintaining queer spaces ...
Feb 09, 2023•31 min•Season 1Ep. 133
In this episode, we talk to author Angie Cruz, whose latest novel is the widely acclaimed How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water. This irresistible book inspired a conversation about a myriad of topics: how the unconscious mind influences the creative process, the lengths women will go to escape a dangerous situation, invisible labor as it pertains to women–especially immigrant women. Friendship, partnership, motherhood, and more. Take a listen! Angie Cruz is the author of four novels. Her book Do...
Jan 26, 2023•24 min•Season 1Ep. 132
What do family secrets show us about the times we live in, and how do they impact the people who safeguard them? These are questions that sociologist Margaret K. Nelson explores in her most recent book, Keeping Family Secrets , a study of more than 150 memoirs involving families hiding something of consequence during the 1950s. In this episode of Book Dreams, we talk to Margaret about a host of fascinating topics, everything from how misguided—and even damaging—prevailing expert advice can be; t...
Jan 12, 2023•23 min•Season 1Ep. 131
Welcome to our 2022 end-of-year holiday extravaganza! In the spirit of holiday giving, we have a present for you, which, if we’re being honest, is also a present for us: BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS. Two dozen of them, in fact! At the end of almost all the interviews we conducted this year, we asked our guests, “What’s one book you love and why do you love it?” We held back the recordings of their answers so we could share them with you now, with our gratitude for another year of book dreaming. Find us ...
Dec 29, 2022•44 min•Season 1Ep. 130
Why, exactly, do we feel so shattered when someone we love leaves us? What is the science behind the physical changes we experience during heartbreak, such as weight loss and anxiety, and why do so many of us stop behaving rationally? In this episode of Book Dreams, we talk with acclaimed science writer Florence Williams about her latest book, Heartbreak: A Personal and Scientific Journey , in which she explores questions like these within the framework of a heartbreak of her own and its afterma...
Dec 15, 2022•31 min•Season 1Ep. 129
What is it like to create a modern, feminist retelling of an ancient, foundational text? Vaishnavi Patel–author of the instant New York Times bestselling novel Kaikeyi , a reimagining of the Hindu epic the Ramayana–paints a vivid picture in this episode of Book Dreams. Vaishnavi’s novel “tells the story of the evil stepmother character [Kaikeyi], who sets off the whole epic by exiling Rama, and then just sort of disappears. [The novel] asks, What if she had reasons for doing what she did? What i...
Dec 01, 2022•30 min•Season 1Ep. 128
What are the raw materials of our lives? Who are the authors, the singers and songwriters, the actors and artists whose work resonates with each of us and makes us who we are? It’s a question that is brilliantly and masterfully explored by arts critic Margo Jefferson in her new memoir, Constructing a Nervous System , in which she weaves her personal history with those of the artists who are part of her “nervous system,” setting it all within a wider cultural context . In this spirited and wide-r...
Nov 17, 2022•34 min•Season 1Ep. 127
How can reading a novel become an act of political rebellion? This is one of the important questions we take up with Azar Nafisi, author of the memoir Reading Lolita in Tehran. Azar’s latest book is Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times . In it, she focuses on the parallels and connections between the totalitarian mindset in Iran and totalitarian tendencies in the United States. Azar notes that tyrants and writers in both countries seek to recreate reality, tyran...
Nov 03, 2022•28 min•Season 1Ep. 126
If we want to understand America today, we must first understand the South. This is both a central premise of Imani Perry’s latest book, South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation , which is a finalist for the 2022 National Book Award for Nonfiction, and a proposition she explores in depth in this episode of Book Dreams. During her conversation with Eve and Julie, Imani illuminates the connections between Southern history and pivotal aspects of contempor...
Oct 20, 2022•30 min•Season 1Ep. 125
“I think the narratives about capital are an even more fundamental myth in America than those about the frontier.” Pulitzer Prize-nominated author Hernan Diaz takes on nothing less than American capitalism in his latest novel, Trust . In this episode of Book Dreams, he speaks with Eve and Julie about why he chose Trust ’s innovative and surprising structure, and how that structure first reinforces and then deconstructs misconceptions about money. In a surprise move, he deliberately designed one ...
Oct 06, 2022•26 min•Season 1Ep. 124
“A monk asked, ‘What is meditation?’ The Master said, ‘It is not meditation.’ The monk said, ‘Why is it “not meditation”?’ The Master said, ‘It’s alive, it’s alive!’” –Chao-Chou, 8th century Buddhist master How can traditional psychotherapy, with its emphasis on the self, work with Zen practices like meditation, with their de-emphasizing of the ego, to make us feel better? In this episode of Book Dreams, Dr. Mark Epstein–psychiatrist, Zen practitioner, and author of The Zen of Buddhism: Uncoveri...
Sep 22, 2022•30 min•Season 1Ep. 123
An exciting announcement from Eve and Julie about the past, present, and future of humanity! (And also a small schedule change.) Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast) , or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com . We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and more. Book Dreams is a part of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate network , a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcas...
Sep 15, 2022•2 min
“I get so upset during conversations about politics with certain family members, I feel like my body’s on the verge of explosion, with body parts flying off and blood splattering all over walls.” Do you ever feel like Julie does when you’re trying to have a meaningful discussion with someone with whom you vehemently disagree? Then you’re going to love this episode with journalist Mónica Guzmán, author of the book I Never Thought Of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dan...
Sep 08, 2022•32 min•Season 1Ep. 122
We Own This City– written by Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist Justin Fenton and the basis for David Simon’s HBO miniseries–tells the shocking, true story of a massive police corruption scandal. Baltimore had been struggling with high rates of violent crime for decades when, in 2007, the police department established the Gun Trace Task Force, a unit of plain-clothed police officers whose mandate was to go after gun traffickers by conducting sophisticated investigations. Instead, the officers m...
Sep 01, 2022•30 min•Season 1Ep. 121
“It’s a testament to [Jo Ann] Beard, a towering talent, that she ... deliver[s] a book as forceful as it is fine, leaving us both awed and unsettled.” -- New York Times review of Festival Days (RE-RELEASE) In this week’s episode, Eve and Julie talk to Jo Ann Beard about Festival Days, her extraordinary new collection of essays, some of which took decades to write. Jo Ann describes her deeply reflective, painstaking process and shares why so many of the pieces in Festival Days involve life and de...
Aug 25, 2022•35 min•Season 1Ep. 120
Today, we’d like to introduce you to the new podcast from The Podglomerate, Missing Pages. Missing Pages is an all-new investigative podcast hosted by world-renowned literary critic and publishing insider Bethanne Patrick. In its first season, Missing Pages uncovers the power struggles, mistaken identities, and unfathomably bad behavior within the secretive world of book publishing. Learn about the untold story behind alleged Harvard plagiarist Kaavya Viswanathan and the web of lies told by the ...
Aug 22, 2022•8 min
Welcome back to another installment of our favorite bibliophilic game, You Want Me to Read WHAT? The rules are simple: Julie, Eve, and a guest assign each other off-the-beaten path books and then gather to talk about them! This time around, Julie picked the Japanese thriller Seventeen by author Hideo Yokoyama for guest Marc Acito; Marc picked Colette’s feminist novella Gigi (which Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe turned into an anti-feminist musical–remember the 1958 movie that starred Leslie...
Aug 18, 2022•40 min•Season 1Ep. 119
