Book Public

'Tomboy': Lisa Selin Davis Explores the Complex Evolution of Tomboyism and Gender Nonconformity

A review of Marie-Helene Bertino’s novel Parakeet.

"Missionares": Phil Klay's Novel Shows The Far-Reaching Effects Of Modern Wars

“The Lonely Voice” #1 features acclaimed author Peter Orner and Yvette Benavides discussing The Overcoat by Gina Berriault ,

"How to Fly (In Ten Thousand Easy Lessons)": Barbara Kingsolver's Passion for Poetry Shines in Latest Collection

Bill Hayes is the author of "How We Live Now: Scenes from the Pandemic."

This week on "Book Public," the mid-pandemic release of the paperback edition of "Maggie Brown & Others" by Peter Orner.

In two of his previous books, Randall Kenan created the town of Tims Creek, North Carolina. His stories of the goings-on of Tims Creek continue in his latest collection "If I Had Two Wings."

In Sue Miller’s latest novel, "Monogamy," Annie is a happy wife. Her husband, Graham, is a man with a magnetic personality and big appetites. One day, he seems preoccupied and distant, but her anxiety dissolves when he presents her with flowers.

Likes is the latest short story collection by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum, featuring nine stories.

Joshua Bennett’s latest poetry collection is Owed. That’s O-W-E-D. The book is a series of odes — lyric poetry in the form of an address to a particular subject — but it is also about what is owed to Black Americans during this time of racial reckoning.

Fifteen stories make up the debut collection by Jenny Bhatt, and each story is as different from the next as it can be, featuring diverse settings, characters, and conflicts. Points of view vary as well. Flash fiction pieces are interspersed here among the much longer stories, but you’ll luxuriate for as long in a story that spans a couple of pages and be haunted by its lingering lessons.

When Sarah Menkedick was a new mother, she openly shared the expected details of her life about sleepless nights or day-care waiting lists. The only taboo topic was the fear that consumed her waking life.

The first thing you notice when you pick up this slim volume is the image on the cover featuring a young girl facing one way, standing on a shore by the water’s edge. In the foreground, a man wearing a mask walks in the other direction.

In Callan Wink’s novel, August, we follow the title character, August, from ages 12 to 19. His parents divorce. He observes the many ways their union was illogical. He is quiet and unassuming like his father, but he has a natural curiosity and hunger to learn like his mother. He lives with one parent in Michigan and then the other in Montana. Eventually, a dramatic and violent situation makes him...

The Heart and Other Monsters is a grief memoir, one that also intersects with a murder mystery. The first thing we learn when we read the first page of the book is that Rose Andersen’s sister has been murdered, but Andersen has no proof. She admits this up front before guiding us through a plausible series of events that implicate a number of people in bringing Sarah’s short life to a sad end.

In Matthew Salesses’ Disappear Doppelgänger Disappear, protagonist Matt Kim is battling himself in a world that would rather have his double if it suits their expectations of what makes the model minority Asian American. When Matt Kim discovers his double has vanished, he fears he will be next. He sets off on to find out what happened to the other Matt and discover himself.

This week’s Pop-Up Book! is Gangs of the El Paso-Juárez Borderland: A History by Mike Tapia. The book offers a 100-year history of the subcultures of the El Paso-Juárez Borderland.

When Alice King is murdered in her home in the South Side of Chicago, her daughter, Ruby, despairs at the thought of being left to live with her father in a house that holds a silenced history of dysfunction and abuse. Her goal is to flee and start fresh in new place. But the path will not be an easy one.

In "Someone's Listening" by Seraphina Nova Glass, protagonist Faith Finley seems to have everything going for her. She’s a psychologist with a thriving practice, a bestselling author, and the host of a popular radio program. Her handsome husband, Liam is a successful food critic.

In Sameer Pandya’s Members Only, Raj Bhatt is an immigrant now well immersed in his life in California. He has a wonderful wife and children, a good job as a professor at a large university and membership at an exclusive tennis club. Raj appears to have it all, but we quickly learn that while he might outwardly seem to live a charmed life, he’s plagued by instances of racism and discrimination and...

Deborah Paredez’s new poetry collection is a haunting collage of photographs and poems that carry us from 1970 to the present. This daughter of the Vietnam War focuses on the ways that women’s voices are at the center of the elegiac tradition, decrying violence and the trauma of oppressive systems.

Jacob Soboroff was working as a correspondent for NBC and MSNBC at the end of 2015, covering immigration on the US-Mexico border. On the occasion of a press tour inside a detention facility in Brownsville where 1500 young boys were being held and where reporters were not allowed to bring in recording equipment, Jacob Soboroff put pen to paper, writing notes and filling the pages of a small noteboo...

Jivan is a young Muslim woman who posts a message on Facebook that criticizes the Indian government. She shares the post, seeking affirmation from her online friends, but things snowball and Jivan is thrown in jail. On this week’s episode of Book Public, we’ll talk to novelist Megha Majumdar about her debut novel, A Burning. Heralded by major media outlets as the book of the summer, the book illus...

Texas Public Radio is launching a new podcast hosted by Yvette Benavides that introduces listeners to authors of influential books, from bestsellers to emerging authors.