Booked Up with Jen Taub

Dr. Linda Charnes ––  Professor of English, European Studies and Gender Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington where she has taught since 1989–– joined Jen to talk about Hamlet, Talionic Law (aka retributive eye-for-an-eye justice), and America’s revenge fantasies.  She is the author of several books about Shakespeare, contemporary politics, and political psychology. Her first book was Notorio...

Lauren Hough is the author of the New York Times bestseller, LEAVING ISN’T THE HARDEST THING, a collection of essays about growing up in the abusive Children of God cult, coming out in the military, and piecing a life together, as Roxane Gay put it, “on the margins as a working class woman and what it’s like to grow into the person you are might to be.” Jen caught up with Lauren before she headed...

Nearly a year into Russia’s Febuary 2022 invasion of Ukraine, journalist and author Luke Harding reflects on the people he met in the war zone while researching for his new book INVASION: THE INSIDE STORY OF RUSSIA’S BLOODY WAR AND UKRAINE’S FIGHT FOR SURVIVAL. Some of these brave sources are survivors of the Bucha massacre, who shared with him the trauma of losing loved ones and direct experience...

A.M Homes is an award-winning nonfiction author, novelist, short-storry writer, playwright, and librettist. This is the first time she and Jen speak together, having been introduced virtually by a mutual friend.  In this conversation, AMH lives her axiom  that, “People should pay more attention. Everyone wants attention, but no one wants to give attention.” In fact, she even commandeers the interv...

We kvetched, we laughed, we cried. Never-Trumper George Conway and advice columnist E. Jean Carroll puzzled over Jen’s selection for this month’s book, but were quickly won over by THE LIGHT WE CARRY after just a few pages. In fact, George now plans to read BECOMING. Ivan Lett encouraged us all to share the light we carry and appreciated the message about being yourself. In the words of First Lady...

Journalist and author of several books including indentured and All the Devils are Here, Joe Nocera talks with Jen about the crooked psychiatrist Isaac (“Ike”) Herschkopf and his guileless patients behind the Wondery Podcast he created with Bloomberg called “The Shrink Next Door.” They recorded the conversation a few days before the arrest and indictment of Sam Bankman-Fried (“SBF”), majority owne...

Michael Cohen was the personal lawyer and fixer for Donald J. Trump for more than a decade. He is now a top-selling author and host of the popular Mea Culpa podcast which, as of our Booked Up interview, had 65 million downloads. His new book, REVENGE, a New York Times bestseller, published in October 2022, reveals the high price Cohen paid for telling the truth about Trump.  In early 2019, Cohen t...

Dahlia Lithwick ––  senior editor at Slate and author of the instant New York Times bestseller, LADY JUSTICE –– joined Jen for the inaugural episode of Booked Up. Fresh off her book tour, Dahlia shared her writing secrets, tough love for the Supreme Court, and how she met (and almost scared away) her future husband.  Dahlia is the host of Amicus, Slate’s award-winning biweekly podcast about the la...

Jen’s guests include writers of current bestsellers and beloved backlist books. Conversations cover love, money, politics, early dreams, writing habits, reading tastes, procrastination techniques, self-doubt, and news of the day. Creator and host, Jen Taub is a law professor, advocate, and author. Her nonfiction books include BIG DIRTY MONEY (Viking 2020) and OTHER PEOPLE’S HOUSES (Yale Press 2014...