Podcast Episodes

For Jeanette Winterson, stories are essential to survival

Season 2 Episode 28

If you had to tell a story to stay alive … what story would you tell? Jeanette Winterson’s new book, One Aladdin Two Lamps, is a nonfiction explorati…

3 months, 3 weeks ago

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What is boyhood to a Palestinian teen?

Season 2 Episode 27

What does it mean to come of age in a place where violence is a daily fact of life? Ashraf Zaghal’s debut novel, Seven Heavens Away, is about a Pales…

4 months ago

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Strip club … or culture hub?

Season 2 Episode 27

What happens behind the closed doors of a strip club? Pole dancing, booming basslines … and in Nic Stone’s new novel, the chilling mystery of a missi…

4 months ago

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Rage and love at the end of apartheid

Season 2 Episode 26

Can you inherit fury? Kagiso Lesego Molope’s new novel, We Inherit The Fire, follows a mother and daughter at the end of apartheid in South Africa. K…

4 months, 1 week ago

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The beauty and despair of Appalachia

Season 2 Episode 26

What do you know about Appalachia? Fancy Gap is the debut novel by Zak Jones, and it challenges the preconceptions we might have about the region. Th…

4 months, 1 week ago

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Meth and murder in rural America

Season 2 Episode 25

When Chris Kraus became fixated on a murder case in a Minnesotan town, she decided to try her hand at a true crime novel ... but the project soon evo…

4 months, 2 weeks ago

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Meet hockey’s greatest (fictional) goon

Season 2 Episode 25

Did the Olympics get you in the hockey spirit? If not, here’s a book that certainly will. Searching for Terry Punchout by Tyler Hellard is a novel ab…

4 months, 2 weeks ago

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What does “worldly” mean to a Jehovah’s Witness?

Season 2 Episode 24

Tamara Jong grew up going door-to-door for the Jehovah’s Witnesses … and her new memoir, Worldly Girls, is all about breaking away from the faith. Fo…

4 months, 3 weeks ago

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Justice for Murder Bimbo!

Season 2 Episode 23

Murder Bimbo is a new book about a sex worker-turned assassin … and it’s the debut novel by Rebecca Novack, a former priest-in-training. The story fo…

5 months ago

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Need cash fast? Become a corpse bride today

Season 2 Episode 23

If you’re worried about being lonely in the afterlife, don’t worry. Just hire a corpse bride to keep you company in the coffin! In Lindsay Wong’s new…

5 months ago

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