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Book Public
Hosted by Yvette Benavides

Book Public is a Texas Public Radio podcast about books. At Book Public we believe books have the power to enlighten and entertain us. Listen in as we talk to authors about their books and why and how they wrote them. At Book Public we’re committed to connecting listeners to books that help us understand today’s world—and each other—a little bit better.

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Latest Episodes
  • Book Public: 'Homework' by Geoff Dyer
    Readers of Geoff Dyer’s books have come to expect his trademark humor and incisive cultural commentary. His new book, Homework, shows us that the more success he had in school, the further he diverged from his parents. But his telling of this story brings us up close to share in his profound appreciation of his past.
  • Book Public: 'Endling' by Maria Reva
    In the novel Endling, by Maria Reva, protagonist Yeva joins guided romance tours in Ukraine to help pay for her research as a snail conservationist. Somehow, she becomes part of a kidnapping caper. Then Russia invades Ukraine. And the book shifts to a work of nonfiction with the author herself telling her story. Fiction and reality collide—beautifully.
  • Book Public: 'The Fate of Others' by Richard Bausch
    Richard Bausch discusses his latest story collection, The Fate of Others. This may be the author’s 24th book, but it is a fresh, powerful collection of stories for today’s world with all its resonances of loss and isolation—but also of hope.
  • Book Public: 'Have Mercy on Us' by Lisa Cupolo
    The flaws and follies of Cupolo’s characters teach us something about what it means to be human when we make mistakes or when we allow each other mercy. Lisa Cupolo discusses her award-winning story collection.
  • Book Public: 'The Bright Years' by Sarah Damoff
    The Bright Years by Sarah Damoff is a multigenerational family saga that underscores the ways that a family tries to navigate and survive addiction, grief, shame and the losses that loving deeply can bring to our lives. Secrets and regrets, forgiveness and grace—all figure in this tender story about love in its many forms.
  • Book Public: 'Four Red Sweaters' by Lucy Adlington
    Jock Heidenstein. Anita Lasker. Chana Zumerkorn, Regina Feldman. These young women did not know each other. They never met—not before or after their respective experiences during the Holocaust. What connects their incredible stories? A red sweater. Lucy Adlington discusses her book Four Red Sweaters.
  • Book Public: 'The Imagined Life' by Andrew Porter
    The Imagined Life is a novel about memory, music and longing—and about the bonds between a father and a son. Andrew Porter discusses his latest novel on the latest episode of Book Public.
  • Book Public: ‘Book of Potions’ by Lauren K. Watel
    For author Lauren K. Watel, “potions” are part poem and part fiction. There are 75 prose-like vignettes with the density and intensity of poems in her "Book of Potions."
  • Book Public: 'Brother Brontë' by Fernando A. Flores
    The novel is set in 2038 in Three Rivers, Texas. A corrupt industrialist is the mayor. Women are indentured laborers in a fish cannery. Reading books is against the law. Protagonist Neftalí is the last literate citizen of the town. What can she do to reclaim and help her city?
  • Book Public: ‘Our Beautiful Boys’ by Sameer Pandya
    The novel is about race and class and about parents trying to raise their sons in our fraught times.