The Avid Reader Show

The Avid Reader Interviews Sue Monk Kidd best selling author of "The Invention of Wings" From the celebrated author of The Secret Life of Bees, a magnificent novel about two unforgettable American women Writing at the height of her narrative and imaginative gifts, Sue Monk Kidd presents a masterpiece of hope, daring, the quest for freedom, and the desire to have a voice in the world—and it is now...

The Avid Reader interviews Gary Shteyngart author of Little Failure NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER After three acclaimed novels, Gary Shteyngart turns to memoir in a candid, witty, deeply poignant account of his life so far. Shteyngart shares his American immigrant experience, moving back and forth through time and memory with self-deprecating humor, moving insights, and literary bravado. The result is...

The Avid Reader interviews best selling author Wil S. Hylton author of "Vanished - A Sixty-Year Search for the Missing Men of World War II" "A powerful story, masterfully told."—GQ "[A] deeply textured, propulsive new book...a phenomenal writer."—TIME.com "Marries an almost cinematically well-paced narrative with a deep sensitivity to the people whose lives it tells."—The Boston Globe "Superb... P...

The Avid Reader interviews Michael Lennon author of Norman Mailer: A Double Life Norman Mailer was one of the giants of American letters and one of the most celebrated public figures of his time. He was a novelist, journalist, biographer, and filmmaker; a provocateur and passionate observer of his times; and a husband, father, and serial philanderer. Perhaps nothing characterized Mailer more than...

The Avid Reader, Sam Hankin, interviews best selling author Rob Cadigan author of Phoenixville Rising "PHOENIXVILLE RISING is a beautifully written love letter to the American industrial town. In a novel spanning centuries, and centering on three hard-luck kids, Sketch and Tara and the unforgettable Boo--clear-eyed and reckless and insanely-loyal Boo--Robb Cadigan gives us a timeless story of the...

The Avid Reader, Sam Hankin, interviews best selling author Daniel Menaker. A wry, witty, often tender memoir by a former New Yorker editor, magazine writer, and book publisher who offers great tales of a life in words Daniel Menaker started as a fact checker at The New Yorker in 1969. With luck, hard work, and the support of William Maxwell, he was eventually promoted to editor. Never beloved by...

The Avid Reader interviews National Best Selling Author Ezekiel J. Emanuel For years, people have been asking Ezekiel “Zeke” Emanuel, the brash, outspoken, and fiercely loyal eldest brother in the Emanuel clan, the same question: What did your mom put in the cereal? Middle brother Rahm is the mayor of Chicago, erstwhile White House chief of staff, and one of the most colorful figures in American p...

In her brutally honest, highly original memoir, Kristina Morgan takes us inside her head to experience the chaos, fragmented thinking, and the startling creativity of the schizophrenic mind.

Welcome to the world of infomercial diet plans, wedding dance lessons, embarrassing run-ins with the cutest guy Ann’s ever seen—-and some surprises about her NOT-so-perfect mother. And there’s one more thing. It’s all about feeling comfortable in your own skin-—no matter how you add it up!

An imaginative story of a woman caught in an alternate world—where she will need to learn the skills of magic to survive.

A story of the transcendent power of love in wartime, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena is a work of sweeping breadth, profound compassion, and lasting significance.

New York City, the near future: Mitchell Zukor, a gifted young mathematician, is hired by a mysterious new financial consulting firm, FutureWorld.

In the fields and forests of western New York State in the late 1960s, several dozen idealists set out to live off the land, founding what becomes a famous commune centered on the grounds of a decaying mansion called Arcadia House.

Take a trip in a stranger’s head. Travel rain-shot streets with a gang of hip malcontents, hooked on the most powerful drug you can imagine.

The irresistible, ever-curious, and always best-selling Mary Roach returns with a new adventure to the invisible realm we carry around inside.

The first Wool story was released as a standalone short in July of 2011. Due to reviewer demand, the rest of the story was released over the next six months.

The rural town of Stockton, New York, is famous for nothing: no one was born there, no one died there, nothing of any historical import at all has ever happened there, which is why Solomon Kugel, like other urbanites fleeing their pasts and histories, decided to move his wife and young son there.

A new story collection, the first in six years, from one of our greatest living writers, MacArthur "genius grant" recipient and New Yorker contributor George Saunders.

A beguiling, imaginative, inspiring story about the bigness of being alive as an individual, as a member of a tribe, and as a participant in history, No One Is Here Except All Of Us explores how we use storytelling to survive and shape our own truths.

A sparkling debut collection from one of the hottest writers in science fiction: her stories have received the Nebula Award the last two years running.

The Flamethrowers is an intensely engaging exploration of the mystique of the feminine, the fake, the terrorist.

In each of these ten unforgettable stories, Claire Vaye Watkins writes her way fearlessly into the mythology of the American West, utterly reimagining it.

“Where did the universe come from? What was there before it? What will the future bring? And finally, why is there something rather than nothing?” Lawrence Krauss’s provocative answers to these and other timeless questions in a wildly popular lecture now on YouTube have attracted almost a million viewers.

On March 18, 1990, thirteen works of art today worth over $500 million were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. It remains the largest unsolved art heist in history, and Claire Roth, a struggling young artist, is about to discover that there’s more to this crime than meets the eye.

At some point in nearly every marriage, a wife finds herself asking, What the @#!% is wrong with my husband?! In David Finch’s case, this turns out to be an apt question. Five years after he married Kristen, the love of his life, they learn that he has Asperger syndrome.