Always Bring a Book

Today I sit down with Sara van Os ( https://www.instagram.com/saramcclarinet/ ), author of the debut horror novel Decomposition Book , an emotional, electrifying, and darkly hilarious debut about a woman who finds a dead body and can’t give up its ghost, for fans of Mona Awad, Yellowjackets, and weird girl fiction. Get Decomposition Book: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/decomposition-book-s...

Today I sit down with Allie Rowbottom , author of the memoir Jell-O Girls, the novel Aesthetica, and the new novel Lovers XXX. Set against the backdrop of the Los Angeles adult film industry in the 1980s, Lovers XXX follows two young women whose friendship, ambitions, and lives become intertwined over the course of decades. Photo credit © Matthew Weinberger ( https://www.instagram.com/mweinbergerr...

Today I sit down with author Yah Yah Schofield , whose debut novel On Sundays She Picked Flowers began as a project on Tumblr before being self-published and later rereleased by Saga Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. We talk about the novel’s long journey to publication and writing honestly about trauma and identity. Our conversation covers weird girl fiction and microgenres, horror as a...

Today I sit down with Isaac Fitzgerald , bestselling author of Dirtbag Massachusetts, Pen & Ink, How to Be a Pirate, and the forthcoming book American Rambler: Walking the Roads of Johnny Appleseed. In the new book, Isaac retraces the path of Johnny Appleseed from Massachusetts to Indiana while exploring family history, storytelling, faith, loneliness, and the generosity of strangers across Am...

Today I sit down with Eleanor Anstruther and Alisa Kennedy Jones , author and publisher behind Fallout , a punk-hearted coming-of-age novel set against the backdrop of the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp. Our conversation dives into the radical history that inspired Fallout, the power of protest and community, and why stories about women’s lives—especially in midlife—are often overlooked by tra...

Today I sit down with Eric LaRocca who is a Bram Stoker Award finalist and the author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, We Are Always Tender with Our Dead, and many other works of transgressive, boundary-pushing horror. His latest novel, Wretch, explores grief, loss, and the terrifying lengths we might go to reconnect with those we’ve lost. Our conversation dives into Eric’s approac...

Michael Finkel is the author of The Art Thief , The Stranger in the Woods , and True Story ; all nonfiction books that read like thrillers and dive deep into the minds of people living far outside the bounds of normal life. (Photo Credit: © Doug Loneman) We talk about how Mike became fascinated with people living on the fringes of society, from a Frenchman who stole over $2 billion worth of art ju...

About the episode In this episode of Always Bring a Book, I sit down with bestselling author Megha Majumdar to talk about her new novel, A Guardian and a Thief, an Oprah’s Book Club pick and finalist for the National Book Award. Megha shares why she structured the novel over seven tense days, how an earlier ten-day draft had to be abandoned, and what it really means to “listen” when a book tells y...

In this episode of Always Bring a Book, I sit down with TJ Klune , bestselling author of The House in the Cerulean Sea, Under the Whispering Door, and In the Lives of Puppets. TJ and I reconnect after a few years to talk about everything that’s happened since Cerulean Sea became a massive success. TJ shares the story behind The Stars Look Like Home , his newly announced novel told from the point o...

In this episode of Always Bring a Book, I sit down with Lucy Zhao, co-founder of Pagebound , a fast-growing social reading app built as an alternative to Goodreads. Lucy shares how Pagebound grew from an idea between two lifelong readers into a self-funded platform with over 100,000 users in just one year, all without ads or venture capital. She reflects on leaving the tech world, betting on the r...

Set in the fictional Azalea Dynasty, The Poet Empress follows a young woman living in a world where women are forbidden to read, famine is rampant, and survival demands impossible choices. In this conversation, Shen reflects on writing eight novels before her debut, unlearning the urge to write for the market, and why poetry, rooted in truth and emotion, became the heart of her book’s magic system...

On today's episode I sit down with Welsh author and artist Anthony Shapland, whose debut novel A Room Above a Shop was released earlier this year. Set in a small Welsh town in the late 1980s, A Room Above a Shop tells the story of a secret love affair between two men during the height of the AIDS crisis and the era of Section 28. In this conversation, Anthony reflects on writing queer love with re...

Today we sit down with bestselling Canadian author Emily Austin , known for Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead, Interesting Facts About Space, We Could Be Rats, and her upcoming 2026 novel Is This a Cry for Help? Emily’s work blends dark humor with tenderness, exploring lesbian identity, mental health, neurodivergence, and the contradictions of being human. In this conversation, she digs i...

Welcome to the very first episode of Always Bring a Book. Craig sits down with award-winning author Paul Tremblay ; the mind behind A Head Full of Ghosts, The Cabin at the End of the World, Horror Movie, and his middle-grade debut Another. Fresh off announcing his upcoming 2026 novel Dead but Dreaming of Electric Sheep , Paul talks about blending tech dread with dark humor, how the book became his...