Rich Cohen is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Tough Jews, The Avengers, Monsters, and (with Jerry Weintraub) When I Stop Talking, You’ll Know I’m Dead. He is a co-creator of the HBO series Vinyl and a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone and has written for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Harper’s Magazine, among others. Cohen has won the Great Lakes Book Award, the Chicago Public Library’s 21st Century Award, and the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for outstanding covera...
Aug 22, 2019•50 min•Season 3Ep. 3
Brenda Wineapple is the author of the award-winning Hawthorne: A Life, Genêt: A Biography of Janet Flanner, and Sister Brother: Gertrude and Leo Stein. Her essays, articles, and reviews have appeared in many publications, among them The American Scholar, The New York Times Book Review, Parnassus, Poetry, and The Nation. A Guggenheim fellow, a fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies, and twice of the National Endowment for the Humanities, she teaches in the MFA programs at Columbia Un...
Aug 15, 2019•52 min•Season 3Ep. 3
Lisa Taddeo has contributed to New York magazine, Esquire, Elle, Glamour, and many other publications. Her nonfiction has been included in the Best American Sports Writing and Best American Political Writing anthologies, and her short stories have won two Pushcart Prizes. Lisa Taddeo's debut nonfiction book, Three Women, poignantly, provocatively, and perceptively describes the emotional landscape that she studied for eight years, resulting in a book that Refinery29 descries as "a book that pays...
Aug 08, 2019•37 min•Season 3Ep. 2
First-time author Alex Michaelides' novel which landed #1 on The New York Times best-seller list in its first week is the debut book for Celadon, a new imprint of Macmillan. Says Roxanne "I knew it was going to be a wild and riveting ride from the opening sentence, 'Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband.'"
Apr 10, 2019•37 min•Season 2Ep. 47
Political commentator, and college professor Robert Reich joined Roxanne to talk about his latest book The Common Good. Roxanne and Professor Reich had a far-ranging conversation that included the intersection between capitalism and progressivism, the possibility that if we didn't have Trump we would have someone just like him, and what the 2020 election might look like.
Mar 14, 2019•46 min•Season 2Ep. 46
Roxanne hit the Big Apple last week to sit down with Gwen Glazer and Frank Collerius, the hosts of the New York Public Library's popular podcast The Librarian Is In, a show all about books, culture, and what to read next.
Mar 01, 2019•38 min•Season 2Ep. 44
Roxanne recently sat down with technology law expert and professor Tim Wu at his Columbia University office in New York City to discuss his latest book The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age which examines the history of antitrust actions in the 20th century, making the argument that breaking up today's largest high-tech titans would be good for business as well as our democracy.
Feb 22, 2019•42 min•Season 2Ep. 43
In this special bonus episode, we take you inside the Q&A session of RJ Julia's recent live event with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright at the Yale School of Management. Listen to Roxanne's exclusive interview with Madeleine Albright here!
Feb 18, 2019•19 min
RJ Julia recently hosted the former Secretary of State to a sold-out crowd at the Yale School of Management. Albright sat down for an exclusive interview with Roxanne to discuss her latest book Fascism: A Warning where she draws on her experiences as a child in war-torn Europe and her distinguished career as a United States diplomat to guide us through the lessons we must understand and the questions we must answer if we are to save ourselves from repeating the tragic errors of the past.
Feb 14, 2019•45 min•Season 2Ep. 43
Roxanne says first-time author Erin Hosier “assuredly can tell her story and does so with the kind of wit, energy, warmth, and honesty that rivets you to the page.” The New York City native and literary agent kicked off publicity for her memoir "Don’t Let Me Down" at the JTRB studios for her podcast debut conversation!
Feb 07, 2019•54 min•Season 2Ep. 42
Is your smart speaker listening to your conversations? Is Google reading your emails? Jaron Lanier, the author of the international bestsellers “You Are Not a Gadget” and “Who Owns the Future?” touches on these topics and more when he recently joined Roxanne to discuss his latest book, Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now.
Jan 31, 2019•54 min•Season 2Ep. 41
During a recent sold-out event at RJ Julia, Dani sat down with Roxanne to discuss her fifth memoir, Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love, how a commercial DNA kit revealed her hidden lineage, and her emotional connection to her family and faith. Roxanne says “it reflects the Zeitgeist of our times, issues of identity, family secrets, and how we tell our stories.”
Jan 23, 2019•42 min•Season 2Ep. 40
As a co-founder of the foundation with her husband, Steve, Jean Case has discovered and embraced the role of being fearless as a key ingredient for everyone and anyone to realize their potential and purpose. The entrepreneurial powerhouse joined us to discuss her inspiring first book, Be Fearless: 5 Principles for a Life of Breakthroughs and Purpose where she outlines her guide to living fearlessly and why embracing your failures can lead to success.
Jan 17, 2019•43 min•Season 2Ep. 39
3.4 million copies sold last year made Becoming by Michelle Obama the best-selling book of 2018! We are thrilled to share an excerpt of the memoir read by the former first lady herself.
Jan 11, 2019•5 min
Say goodbye to 2018 in style with a marvelous meal curated exclusively for Just the Right Book listeners by culinary guru Dorie Greenspan! The James Beard Award winner recently stopped by RJ Julia to talk about her thirteenth book Everyday Dorie: The Way I Cook, entertaining for the holidays and why she put her doctorate on hold to bake cookies!
Dec 26, 2018•46 min•Season 2Ep. 36
Hosting holiday house guests and need some tips on what to serve? Culinary guru Dorie Greenspan recently sat down with Roxanne at RJ Julia to chat about her new book Everyday Dorie and give us the scoop on making a holiday-worthy cheese platter! Make sure you tune in later this week to hear Roxanne's full conversation with Dorie Greenspan!
Dec 23, 2018•6 min
Says Roxanne, “Professor Ellis has earned a Pulitzer, a national book award, and has brilliantly navigated the tricky balance of producing books of scholarly standards with widespread, enthusiastic, appreciative readership. He now brings these considerable skills to his new book, American Dialogue: The Founders and Us, which for the first time Mr. Ellis supplies our founding history to the present time, addressing critical issues like race, equality, the law, and global reach.”
Dec 12, 2018•54 min•Season 2Ep. 33
Bestselling author Diana Gabaldon recently joined Roxanne to talk about her wildly popular Outlander book series which holds the #2 spot on the list of America’s best-loved works of fiction by PBS’ Great American Read. The eight-book series has sold over 35 million copies and has been adapted into a hit TV show now in its fourth season.
Nov 28, 2018•49 min•Season 2Ep. 31
Tana French's latest novel, The Witch Elm is her first departure from her bestselling Dublin Murder Squad series, of which there are six. The former theatrical actress who has been called “incandescent” by Stephen King and “absolutely mesmerizing” by Gillian Flynn recently joined Roxanne to talk about her latest mystery, her love of unreliable narrators, archaeology, luck, and whether she ever considers going back to acting.
Nov 22, 2018•50 min•Season 2Ep. 30
If you haven't read Lisa Brennan-Job’s memoir “Small Fry” yet, you will likely hear about it because Lisa's father was Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple. But this is not a biography of Steve Jobs. Rather, it is a portrait of growing up in California in the eighties and one woman's quest to understand her family, her place in that family and her place in the world.
Nov 15, 2018•54 min•Season 2Ep. 28
2018 marks 200 years since the birth of Frederick Douglass, and we now have the first major biography of Douglass in a quarter century. Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom by prize-winning historian and Yale Professor David Blight is based on nearly a lifetime of research as well as letters and private documentation to which no biographer has previously had access. It’s this revealing collection that helped shed new light on Douglass, particularly in the latter third of his life.
Nov 08, 2018•1 hr 20 min•Season 2Ep. 27
In John Jay Osborne Jr.'s new novel, "Listen to the Marriage" we are introduced to a couple who seemed to be destined for divorce. Told through the therapist's eyes, we see the couple both confront and skirt issues that have torn them apart. The former screenwriter and legal professor joined Roxanne to talk about his first novel in 37 years, his decade of experience writing in Hollywood, and how his own marriage counseling 35 years ago helped him "understand my wife for the first time".
Oct 11, 2018•34 min•Season 2Ep. 23
Bestselling National Book Award finalist Kate Walbert stopped by the Just the Right Book studios for an in depth interview on her latest book which Roxanne calls "gorgeous, restrained, and powerful." The 149 page novel is a timely story about a 15 year old girl, a charming and manipulative English teacher, a dark secret and how the protagonist Jo confronts a trauma many years later.
Oct 04, 2018•50 min•Season 2Ep. 21
Alan Lightman is a physicist, novelist, and essayist who believes we are losing ourselves in the digital network and builds a case that the overload of Information and distraction from technology is making us less productive. The MIT professor joined Roxanne to discuss his latest book In Praise of Wasting Time. Lightman believes we need a mental attitude that values and protects stillness, privacy, solitude, and personal reflection, or at the very least, a half an hour a day to "waste time".
Sep 26, 2018•28 min•Season 2Ep. 20
We were delighted to welcome Dan Sheehan, the Bookmark's editor at Literary Hub to discuss what books are hot right now, and his debut novel, Restless Souls. Also in this episode, we welcome back the creator of the popular blog Modern Mrs. Darcy and the podcast What Should I Read Next?, Anne Bogel. Anne spoke to Roxanne about her latest book I'd Rather Be Reading, her experience as a bookseller...for a day, and what books she is currently loving!
Sep 20, 2018•1 hr 12 min•Season 2Ep. 19
Senator John McCain recorded the last chapter of his book, The Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights and Other Appreciations earlier this year and all of us at Just the Right Book thought the finest tribute would be to honor the true American patriot in his own words.
Aug 31, 2018•26 min
Sarah Jessica Parker who is best known for her iconic role as Carrie Bradshaw is also a producer, designer, and now a publisher, recently launching her own imprint, SJP for Hogarth. In a rare and revealing interview, the Sex and the City star opens up to Roxanne on several hot topics. They discuss not only the imprint, but the series’ impact on the role of women in society, the importance of pay equality for working mothers, and recent movements #MeToo and #TimesUp.
Aug 29, 2018•42 min•Season 2Ep. 16
In part two of Roxanne’s powerful sit-down with Mark Salter, the two dive further into "The Restless Wave", the latest collaboration between Senator John McCain and his longtime aide, speechwriter and friend, Mark. Salter shares his first-hand story of McCain's 2008 run for president, including his VP choice, and we hear Senator McCain himself read the last chapter of the memoir.
Aug 23, 2018•1 hr 11 min•Season 2Ep. 14
Mark Salter is the author, with John McCain, of several books, including Faith of My Fathers and their latest, The Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights and Other Appreciations. Salter recently joined Roxanne for an intimate conversation in the historic town of Castine, Maine to discuss his thoughts on the Trump presidency, foreign policy, his latest collaborative memoir with the Arizona Republican, and more.
Aug 22, 2018•34 min•Season 2Ep. 14
Reese Witherspoon has a reputation for celebrating women's stories through "Reese's Book Club x Hello Sunshine" so its no surprise that the Legally Blonde actress has optioned Gail Honeyman's novel for the big screen. The first-time author opens up to Roxanne about how a milestone birthday inspired her to pursue her dream which led to her multi-award winning book "Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine" about loneliness and the importance of human connection.
Jul 26, 2018•30 min•Season 2Ep. 10
