Books

The book tells the story of a library assistant who goes viral online by accident.

Nicholas Regiacorte joins Peter Orner and Yvette Benavides to discuss two poems by Zbigniew Herbert.

Marisa Silver joins Yvette Benavides on Book Public to discuss her latest novel, At Last. Helene and Evelyn are two women who are bound together because they happen to be the mothers of two people who marry. We learn about the lives of these women and what it means for them to be in this season of life eager for their grandchild’s love and wanting to figure out the complex relationships one has with the other.

Peter Orner and Yvette Benavides discuss two stories by the German author, Heinrich Böll who is known as a master of the short story. He wrote about World War II and postwar concerns, centered social and political issues, and endowed his characters with decency and hope.

Megha Majumdar's novel, A Guardian and a Thief, is set in the near future in Kolkata amid a climate crisis. There are two families from very different stations in life struggling to survive. But whose story of survival matters more? Who is the guardian and who is the thief?

In Girl Warrior, Joy Harjo shares stories about her own coming of age to bring to light pivotal moments of becoming—among them, forgiveness, failure, falling, rising up, honoring those who came before and making space for those who will come after us.

Paula Saunders discusses her novel Starting from Here. It's a coming-of-age story about 15-year-old René. She leaves a home that is tense and difficult in order to pursue a career in ballet. But the challenges of this displacement are as fraught—and even dangerous.

Mychal Threets, a social media star librarian, is hosting the new iteration of the series. It's back for four episodes starting on Saturday.

In Jason Diamond's novel, Kaplan's Plot, Elijah’s mother is dying, and she is sharing some family secrets he never knew before— including that the family owns a cemetery and his grandfather was a gangster in Chicago. In this family, the relationships across generations have always been fraught, but now they must find a way to a reckoning and walk together toward acceptance of exactly who they are. Jason Diamond is the guest on this episode of Book Public.

Since 2020, many new bookstores have opened across the state.