“And fiction is all about obstacles. It's all about misapprehension, misunderstanding, lack of information, lack of connection, and the problems that come up, arise out of those things.” Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Chang-rae Lee’s most recent novel, My Year Abroad , is now out in paperback and it's unlike anything he’s written before. Chang-rae joins us on the show to talk about homecomings and hunger, the limitless imagination of a new generation of immigrants, his 20-year-old narrator and ...
Feb 05, 2022•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast “But I do feel like I was on a quest as a writer, for my work to get bigger. I just wanted it to contain a larger portion of the world than it started off with… I tried to make it large in its emotional scope, as well as in the amount of action that happens in it.” Lan Samantha Chang did, in fact, have as much fun writing our February 2022 B&N Book Club pick, The Family Chao, as we had reading it. She joins us on the show to talk about her post-immigrant novel, the brothers Chao themselves and t...
Feb 03, 2022•41 min•Transcript available on Metacast “It's about people following their passions, and it's about falling in love for the first time whether that love is romantic, or with a professional industry.” Anatomy: A Love Story is everything Noble Blood’s creator and host Dana Schwartz loves in a story: spooky and fast-paced with a dash of romance, a perfect mix for the BN YA Book Club, and our pick for February ‘22. Dana joins us on the show to talk about her love of story and her creative process, finding her voice, the books that inspire...
Feb 01, 2022•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast “If you aren't writing your story in America, your story is being written for you. And if you're not telling your story, your story is being told to you….I was able to create my own superhero origin story when I was 10 years old.” Left-handed, lactose intolerant, wisecracking Wajahat Ali joins us on the show to talk about his first book, Go Back to Where You Came From , growing up brown and Muslim in the Bay Area, his parents’ time in jail, trading his law degree for the writer’s life, becoming ...
Jan 29, 2022•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast “I want my readers to be entertained. And if possible, to take a look at that period of that century that was so fascinating, a time of violence, and change, and great steps forward for humanity…” Isabel Allende’s epic new novel, Violeta, is out now, and she joins us on the show to talk about memory and history and justice, love and freedom and family, her creative process (and what the date January 8 th means to her) and much more. Featured books: Violeta , A Long Petal of the Sea , The Soul of...
Jan 27, 2022•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast "…I read every day. Reading feels like part of my identity…[it] feels essential as a writer to be reading always.” Imani Perry is the acclaimed author of Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry and Breathe: A Letter to My Sons among other books; her latest, South to America , is an extraordinary blend of personal memoir and American history, and she joins us on the show to talk about her travels around the American South, the people she spoke with and the friends...
Jan 25, 2022•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast “…Try reading it out loud. That's what I do. I read the whole book out loud, seven or eight times…four or five times… before it ever goes to edit. I believe that writing was made to be heard.” From the age of five, John Darnielle knew he was going to be a storyteller, and he joins us on the show to talk about the structure and the shifting perspectives of his new novel, Devil House, who has standing to tell a story, the difference between touring and performing as an author instead of a musician...
Jan 22, 2022•43 min•Transcript available on Metacast “…So much of American media is, A s long as we have each other , it doesn't matter what happens, we're going to be fine. I don't always think that's true. Circumstances can really tear families apart. But, you know, I'm not going to write S uccession .” Weike Wang follows up her acclaimed debut novel, Chemistry , with the deadpan, darkly comic Joan is Okay . She joins us on the show to talk about how (and why) work becomes home for Joan, family and grief and William Faulkner, the horror of Micke...
Jan 20, 2022•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast “Well, this is the thing about being an overnight success after forty years.” Bernardine Evaristo made history when Girl, Woman, Other won the 2019 Booker Prize, for she is the first Black woman and the first Black British person to have won the coveted prize in its more than fifty-year history. Bernardine joins us on the show to talk about her fabulous memoir, Manifesto: On Never Giving Up , “overnight fame” (after decades of work in literature and the theater), her creative process, the writer...
Jan 18, 2022•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast “I think bookstores are really magical places, and not to be too idealistic about it, I really think that they're so important, they're cornerstones to communities, and they are treasures and we need to keep them alive.” Jami Attenberg, author of St. Mazie and The Middlesteins , among other novels, joins us on the show to talk about her first memoir, I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing My Way Home, as well as the difference between loneliness and solitude, managing anxiety, her life as a wr...
Jan 15, 2022•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast “This is not just for us to say, ‘ How interesting’ now we know three more people, it's for us to say, ‘ What can we do now that we know their stories? ’" Anna Malaika Tubbs delves into the stories of Alberta King, Louise Little and Berdis Baldwin in our January Nonfiction Pick, The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation. Anna joins us on the show to talk about the importance of reclaiming Black women’s stories, motherhood and the ...
Jan 13, 2022•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast “And when you are lucky enough as a writer to have your book be found, and then have it be a source of someone's passion, someone who is not normally spoken to by the book publishing industry, who then with generosity and real passion, finds a way to tell other people about it, you cannot get luckier than that.” Hanya Yanagihara’s second novel, A Little Life was already a word-of-mouth must read, a finalist for the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Award and winner of the Kirkus Prize when ...
Jan 11, 2022•40 min•Transcript available on Metacast “You know, there's something that we don't talk about, which I think is like the underside of success and ambition, which is that for every step that we take towards something, it's a step away from something. And the more that we have these rarefied experiences, the more isolating they can be…” Olga Dies Dreaming is one of 2022’s most anticipated debuts and our January Discover pick; Xochitl Gonzales joins us on the show to talk about her fabulous new novel and unforgettable protagonist, what i...
Jan 08, 2022•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast “One thing that I was interested in doing is making literal the surveillance that parents feel every day, because there is the sense that you're being watched and judged and shamed all the time.” Jessamine Chan joins us on the show to talk about her debut novel, The School for Good Mothers (think The Handmaid’s Tale meets Klara and the Sun ), writing a Chinese American main character that she wanted to read, making sure her satire is laced with humor, how a self-proclaimed Luddite came to write ...
Jan 06, 2022•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast “I describe it as a fantasy novel about the real world we live in, or a realistic novel about the fantasy world we live in.” Anthem is Noah Hawley’s terrific, page-turning sixth novel, and his first after his Edgar Award-winning bestseller, Before The Fall —it’s also our January 2022 Barnes & Noble Book Club pick. Noah joins us on the show for a wide-ranging, spoiler-free conversation about breaking the fourth wall, the death of satire, how we can use fiction to help us make sense of a nonsensic...
Jan 04, 2022•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast “And so we wouldn't be here without Natalie Portman, which isn't a sentence I was expecting to say this evening. But if you ever watched this, Natalie, thank you. Really thank you.” That’s novelist and screenwriter David Mitchell explaining the genesis of his friendships and working relationships with Lana Wachowski and Aleksandar Hemon—which includes screenplay credits on Sense8 and now, The Matrix Resurrections . David and Aleksandar join us on the show to talk about creativity and collaborati...
Dec 16, 2021•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast “And imagine what did it feel like to think this was new? Their life, all kinds of different images as time goes on, and people in the Renaissance and later want to recreate for themselves, particularly in painting, but not always in painting….what it is to create a likeness of someone who's been dead for a millennium or more?” Historian and bestselling author Mary Beard ( SPQR, Women & Power, Confronting the Classics ) joins us on the show to talk about her new book, Twelve Caesars , what it me...
Dec 14, 2021•43 min•Transcript available on Metacast “I went running in Fort Tryon Park in the northern reaches of Manhattan. And it was snowing. And during that run, I had this vision of a hunter lost in the snow…” Beasts of a Little Land is a remarkable debut novel about love and redemption, covering five tumultuous decades of Korean history. Juhea Kim joins us on the show to talk about writing and rewriting an epic novel with a large cast of characters, caring for her antagonists, Anna Karenina and more. Featured books: Beasts of a Little Land ...
Dec 09, 2021•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast “But at the end of the day, so many people have lost a loved one. This story is about mothers and daughters. It's about parents and children. It's about a different culture and relating to it. It's about food. It's about grief. It's about loss. It's about family.” Two-time GRAMMY nominee Michelle Zauner joins us on the show to talk about her bestselling memoir Crying in H-Mart , one of the finalists for our B&N Book of the Year, as well as her literary influences, what she leaned about her mom (...
Dec 07, 2021•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast “Making connections with people has often been quite difficult for me, you know, this can be really isolating, but it's so incredible to make this book that so many people are interested in reading and enjoying, and they look at it, and they're like, Oh, this feels really relatable .” More than 5.4 million people follow Rachel Smythe’s Lore Olympus on Webtoons, and now she’s adapted the first 25 chapters of her retelling of the myth of Persephone into a fabulous book. Rachel joins us on the show...
Dec 02, 2021•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast "We're going to have to learn to be cartographers in our own lives." Brené Brown is the author of five number one New York Times bestsellers, including Dare to Lead , Daring Greatly , and Rising Strong ; co-editor with Tarana Burke of You Are Your Best Thing ; The host of two podcasts, Unlocking Us and Dare to Lead. Her Netflix documentary, The Call to Courage , is a huge hit—and her 2010 TED talk, The Power of Vulnerability , the one that launched her career as we know it, it is one of the top ...
Nov 30, 2021•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast “I'm constantly surprised by the books. Because I think about books a lot before I start writing them, I don't write structure and a formal outline. But I carry a notebook around with me for about a year before I start writing and I write down quotes and thoughts and ideas and snippets of overheard conversations and things from the newspaper…some of them are used later and some just are never used, but eventually a pattern forms and that becomes then the idea for the book…” Who hasn’t thought of...
Nov 23, 2021•21 min•Transcript available on Metacast “…And I had arrived at McDowell, with about 200 pages in the summer of 2018…And the great thing about these writing retreats is that they give you a chance to do nothing but just think about your work. And that was a real gift to me, because it was both time and peace and quiet, to just think about this book. And to be really honest with myself about what was doing well and what it wasn't doing well at all….” Jung Yun had our attention from the very first page of her debut novel, Shelter , and w...
Nov 20, 2021•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast “I love bookstores, with all of my heart for everything that they've done for me and my stories, but it is the booksellers that are at the front putting these books into the hands of readers, so they do absolutely deserve a majority, if not all of the credit.” Our booksellers will be the first to tell you that T.J. Klune writes charming, heartfelt must-reads— The House on the Cerulean Sea was one of our favorite Monthly Picks this year—and his newest book, Under the Whispering Door is our Specul...
Nov 18, 2021•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast “But we all want to see ourselves in a story of our country. And we call this a new origin story, not the origin story for reason. There are many origin stories; every person wants to feel a part of the narrative of our country.” Nikole Hannah-Jones is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist, a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship (a.k.a. The Genius Grant), the Knight Chair in Race and Journalism at Howard University, and the driving force behind the revelatory, necessary 1619 Project. ...
Nov 16, 2021•41 min•Transcript available on Metacast “I don't remember my dreams a lot. But when I remember them, I stand up and pay attention.” Both of Natashia Deon’s novels, NAACP Image Award nominee Grace , and her latest, The Perishing , started with dreams she couldn’t forget. Natashia joins us on the show to talk about her new novel—think N.K. Jemisin and Octavia Butler—1930s Los Angeles, love and justice, life and death, what it means to truly live in the present moment and more. Featured books: The Perishing and Grace by Natashia Deon. Pr...
Nov 11, 2021•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast “I'd always wanted to write a ghost story. And I always wanted to write about what it was like to be haunted, because I feel that so many of us are.” Louise Erdrich’s new novel, The Sentence —her first after The Night Watchman , winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction—is a funny, big-hearted and profound story of second chances and ghosts, books and bookselling, and the messy love between spouses and parents and children. Louise joins us on the show to talk about hauntings, perfect short novels...
Nov 09, 2021•40 min•Transcript available on Metacast “One of the comments that I've often gotten from parents who say, my son read Scythe , or my daughter read, Unwind , and made me read it, because they wanted to talk to me about it. And then we discussed it. And then the parent would say, I never knew my kid thought that deeply. You know, I think when we write things that ask the reader to rise to the level of the writing, and the level of the ideas behind the writing, they will do it, and they will appreciate not being talked down to.” Acclaime...
Nov 06, 2021•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast “I wanted to tell my story in a way that made you feel like you were having a beer with me. And…even though I delve into things like identity and politics and family history and things that things that I'm really excited to share with everybody, I want it to be accessible to people who might disagree with me or might not have experience with the things that I have experiences with.” From the Hollywood to the White House, Kal Penn’s careers have been anything but boring; he’s just published a ver...
Nov 04, 2021•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast “I'm here to have a dialogue with a person. And if I'm just gonna sit there and look down at my lap, well, speaking profoundly into my lap. That's not enough for me, I need to speak out--and entertain.” Gary Shteyngart’s new novel, Our Country Friends , is our November B&N Book Club pick, and it’s a charming (and provocative) story of friendship and the family we make. Gary joins us on the show to talk about how friendships evolve (or don’t), societal scorecards and lost paradises, why he wrote ...
Nov 02, 2021•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
