Books

Sonya Sotinsky recorded herself talking and reading books to preserve a critical element of her personality: her voice. After surgery for oral cancer, AI used those recordings to re-create her voice.

Wright Morris' characters can be odd, and they do unusual things. But there is something real and recognizable about these people and their situations. Yvette Benavides and Peter Orner discuss two stories from Collected Stories: 1948-1986 by Wright Morris.

Fanny Howe passed away on July 9 at the age of 85. Yvette Benavides pays tribute to the author and shares Howe's poem, "Loneliness."

The Slip by Lucas Schaefer is an epic novel, but it tells a very intimate story about the basic human need to belong. Spanning over a dozen years and weaving the intersecting tales of a varied cast of characters, it's a story for right now—about all of us.

Yvette Benavides reflects on the power of short fiction to convey what we might not have the words for. "Birdsong from the Radio" is from the collection The Souvenir Museum by Elizabeth McCracken.

The Scrapbook is a novel that is a modern-day love story in the shadow of German history—a Germany of artists, philosophers, virtuosos—and World War II. Heather Clark is the guest on this episode of Book Public to discuss her novel, The Scrapbook.

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.

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.

Texas' Senate Bill 13 empowers school boards to decide which books are permitted in their school libraries. It also allows parents to submit a list of books their children are prohibited from checking out.

In the story “Clara” by Roberto Bolaño, a man tells the story of a woman he knew in his youth. Over three decades later, he hasn’t forgotten her. The story is riddled with tells that reveal that he’s carried the memory of her around with him for all that time. What is the hold she has on him all about?