Bookin’

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Dan Hawkins for a conversation about Cormac McCarthy's  Outer Dark , the second episode in an ongoing series that will feature a read through of McCarthy's works.  Topics of conversation include second novels, imagery, hell, the most American religion, brothers and sisters, how you know when a book is a western, and much more.  Copies of  Outer Dark  ca...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by bestselling author Charles Bock, who discusses his new book  I Will Do Better,  which is published by our friends at Abrams Books.  Topics of conversation include New York, James Frey's A Million Little Pieces, the nature of memoirs vs. fiction, raising a child after a spouse's death, the physical laws of reality and Haruki Murakami, the male's capacity...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Georgann Eubanks and Debra Kaufman, editor and contributors to  Paul Green: North Carolina Writers on the Legacy of the State's Most Celebrated Playwright , which is published by our friends at Blair.  Topics of conversation include the Paul Green Foundation, Blair, Playwrights in North Carolina, political activism, how Paul Green's activism translates...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Chris Koslowski, author of  Kayfabe , which is published by our friends at McSweeney's.  Topics of conversation include the University of South Carolina Gamecocks, amateur professional wrestling, the physical demands of professional wrestling, sleazy showmen of the southeast, Becky Lynch, Gunther, Jimi Hendrix and Hulk Hogan, Rock Hill, SC and much more...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by New York Times bestselling author Kwame Mbalia, who discusses his new book  Jax Freeman and the Phantom Shriek , a Freedom Fire title.  Topics of discussion include Freedom Fire, young adult literature vs. middle grade literature, Freeman as a name, North Carolina in literature, the significance of Chicago, trains, Moses, the Chicago Bulls vs. the Milwa...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by New York Times bestselling author Scott Reintgen, who discusses his new book  The Last Dragon On Mars , which is published by our friends at Aladdin, a division of Simon and Schuster.  Topics of conversation include the intersection of sci-fi and fantasy, young adult novels versus middle grade novels, Mad Max and Fallout, school visits, relocation clini...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Bookin' favorite Dan Hawkins in a discussion about  The Orchard Keeper  by Cormac McCarthy, the first in a Bookin' read-through of McCarthy's works.  Topics of discussion include William Faulkner, the Tennessee Valley Authority, bootleggers and blockaders, first novels, nature vs. technology, and much more.  Copies of The Orchard Keeper  can be purchase...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities fellow Nora Lange, who discusses her new novel  Us Fools , which is published by our friends at Two Dollar Radio.  Topics of conversation include Two Dollar Radio, the future as a capitalist scam, unreliable narrators, house projects meant to temper drinking, portraits, confusing liberalism/socialism/capitalism,...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by award-winning journalist and 2024 North Carolina Piedmont Laureate Steven Petrow, who discusses his new book The Joy You Make , which is published by The Open Field and Penguin Life, and imprint of Penguin Random House.  Topics of discussion include The Open Field, crowdsourcing, half-empty glasses vs. half-full glasses, life as a Piedmont Laureate, bei...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by award-winning author Marguerite Sheffer, who discusses her new collection  The Man in the Banana Trees , which is published by our friends at University of Iowa Press. Topics of discussion include writing groups, the Iowa Short Fiction Award, student behavior, sequencing, the difference between workshopping a story and talking about one in an interview,...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by award-winning author Nathan Ballingrud, who discusses his new novella  Crypt of the Moon Spider , which is published by our friends at TOR Nightfire.  Topics of discussion include Asheville, Dale Bailey, treatment for the melancholy, the dark side of the moon, dead gods, the relationship between the moon and madness, spousal behaviors, the 1920s, Franke...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Jon Sealy, who discusses his new novel  The King Street Affair , which is published by our friends at Haywire Books.  Topics of conversation include South Carolina, Graham Greene, Charleston, Wuthering Heights, signals in the noise, gangsters, popular media, newspapers, AI, ChatGPT and more!  Copies of  The King Street Affair  can be ordered here from P...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by award winning author Paolo Bacigalupi, who discusses his new novel  Navola , which is published by our friends at Alfred A. Knopf Publishers.  Topics of conversation include the intersection of The Godfather and Game of Thrones, items with mythological powers, dragon eyes, Renaissance Italy, doubting one's parents, reliable narrators, servants, and much...

This week is Bookin's 300th Episode!  Host Jason Jefferies is joined by Suzanne Lucey and Dave Lucey--owners of Page 158 Books in Wake Forest, NC--in a discussion of  The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians , a collection they contributed to, which is edited by James Patterson, Matt Eversmann and Chris Mooney, and which is published by our friends at Little, Brown and Company.  Topics of co...

This week, I am joined by T. Shawn Long, host of the Horror Book Club at Page 158 Books in a discussion about all things Stephen King!  Topics of discussion include  The Dark Tower , the Holly novels,  11/22/63 , automobile accidents and more!  Stephen King's books can be purchased here from Page 158 Books in Wake Forest, NC.  

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by music journalist Corey du Browa, who discusses his new book An Ideal for Living: A Celebration of the EP-Extended Play , which is published by our friends at HoZac Books.  Topics of conversation include EPs vs LPs, vinyl vs. CDs vs. streaming, Britt Daniel from Spoon, Frances the Mute by the Mars Volta, double EPs, genres, lists, how history colors the...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by the busiest reader on the planet, Dan Hawkins!  Topics of discussion include Homer's  The Iliad  and  The Odyssey , Madeline Miller's  The Song of Achilles  and  Circe , James Joyce's  Ulysses , C.S. Lewis's  Till We Have Faces , Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?, and much more.  Copies of all of these books and more can be purchased at Page 158 Books in Wake...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by award-winning author Ari Honarvar, who discusses her novel A Girl Called Rumi , which is published by our friends at Forest Avenue Press.  Topics of discussion include refugee advocacy, Colorado, growing up in a war-torn region, the conflict between Israel and Palestine, mothership in Iran, ants, how to hide a horse, the concept of Home, the Iran/Iraq w...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by writer, activist, pastor and storyteller John Pavlovitz, who discusses his book Worth Fighting For: Finding Courage and Compassion When Cruelty is Trending , which is published by our friends at WJK Books.  Topics of conversation include the dual roles of activist and pastor, bad news, the default mode of existence in a capitalist society as antithetica...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Jordan Elgrably, editor of  Stories from the Center of the World: New Middle East Fiction , which is published by our friends at City Lights Books.  Topics of conversation include The Markaz Review, City Lights Books, the Middle East as the center of the world, the partitioning of land, Israel vs. Palestine, cats, "No terrorist ever found inspiration in...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Professor of Sociology at Boston College and noted public intellectual Charles Derber, who discusses his new book  Dying for Capitalism: How Big Money Fuels Extinction and What We Can Do About It , which is co-written with Siren Moodlier and published by our friends at Routledge.  Topics of discussion include the abolition of fossil fuel emissions, focu...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by award-winning author and Bookin' favorite Mesha Maren, who discusses her new book Shae , which is published by our friends at Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.  Topics of discussion include teaching athletes, the nature of memory, moments that change our lives, Tool as a Christian rock band, relationships with parents, diving when you don't know how to sw...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Amanda Bellows, who discusses her new book  Explorers: A New History of America in Ten Expeditions , which is published by our friends at William Morrow.  Topics of conversation include UNC-Chapel Hill, Kentucky, westward expansion in the United States of America, Sacagawea, James Beckwourth, reconciling amazing deeds with the terrible people responsibl...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by baseball writer Eric Vickrey, who discusses his new book  Season of Shattered Dreams: Postwar Baseball, the Spokane Indians and a Tragic Bus Crash that Changed Everything , which is published by our friends at Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.  Topics of discussion include post-World War II conditions in the United States of America, PCLs, formatting...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by North Carolina Music Hall of Famer and former Squirrel Nut Zipper Tom Maxwell, who discusses his new book  A Really Strange and Wonderful Time: The Chapel Hill Music Scene 1989-1999 , which is published by our friends at Hachette Books.  Topics of conversation include North Carolina musical history, the Cat's Cradle, the temptation to label something as...