Bookin’

For this special Christmas week episode, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Benjamin M. Friedman, the William Joseph Maier Professor of Political Economy and former chair of the Department of Economics at Harvard University, who discusses his new book  Religion and the Rise of Capitalism , which is published by our friends at Alfred A. Knopf.  Topics of discussion include the perception that any ch...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Jeremy B. Jones, author of  Bearwallow , which is published by our friends at Blair.  Topics of discussion include planning literary festivals during a pandemic, the life of a place, how ancestors can be like leprechauns, how entering a teacher's lounge is like being backstage at a concert, normal teacher behavior, bears, "the pull", the Civil War, and...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Makiia Lucier, author of  Year of the Reaper , which is published by our friends at Clarion Books.  Topics of discussion include plagues, ghosts, librarians, arranged marriages, religion (or lack thereof) during trying times, traveling by horse, lynx, Guam, and much more.  Copies of  Year of the Reaper can be purchased here with FREE SHIPPING.  

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Farah Ali, who discusses her new book  People Want to Live , which is published by our friends at McSweeney's.  Topics of discussion include shootings in the media, desensitization, whether parents can ever truly know their children, whether corporate news organizations are alarmist by nature, the evil eye, tourism, Dubliners and much more.  Copies of ...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Ed Southern, Executive Director of the North Carolina Writers' Network and author of  Fight Songs: A Story of Love and Sports in a Complicated South , which is published by our friends at Blair.  Topics of conversation include the North Carolina Writers' Network, the ACC tournament, Mark Cuban and the cancellation of an NBA season due to COVID-19, chang...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Jeffrey E. Garten, Dean Emeritus of the Yale School of Management, former Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade in the Clinton administration, and a managing director of the Blackstone Group.  His new book is  Three Days at Camp David: How a Secret Meeting in 1971 Transformed the Global Economy , which is published by our friends at Harper....

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Sean Avery Medlin, author of  808s & Otherworlds , which is published by our friends at Two Dollar Radio.  Topics of conversation include Hades, the 808 drum machine, Erykah Badu, Arizona, the Trickster, BET, Kanye West and Donald Trump, and much more.  Copies of  808s & Otherworlds  can be ordered here with FREE SHIPPING.  

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Daniel Levin Becker, Senior Editor at McSweeney's and editor of  Dear McSweeney's: Two Decades of Letters to the Editor from Writers, Readers and the Occasional Bewildered Consumer , which is published, of course, by our friends at McSweeney's.  Topics of conversation include the reasons why people write and read, shoring oneself against oblivion, a his...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Reid Forgrave, author of  Love, Zac: Small-Town Football and the Life and Death of an American Boy , which is published by our friends at Algonquin Books.  Topics of conversation include what football means to America, guns, when football passed baseball as the most popular sport in America, CTE and concussions, whether professional football is sustaina...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Amy Koppelman, author of  A Mouthful of Air , which is published by our friends at Two Dollar Radio.  Topics of discussion include adapting a novel into a screenplay, Indie bookstores, Barnes & Noble and Amazon, postpartum depression, Kurt Cobain and David Foster Wallace, anti-depressants, Roe vs. Wade, breastfeeding, organic cookies, and much more.  Co...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Mike DeCapite, author of  Jacket Weather , which is published by our friends at Soft Skull Press.  Topics of conversation include Lou Reed, Spotify Playlists, the Manhattan Bridge, Ray Barretto, acid, Lez Zeppelin, "Don't Stop Believin'" and The Sopranos, solitude, Hot Tuna, The Rolling Stones, and more.  Copies of  Jacket Weather can be ordered here wi...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Wiley Cash, New York Times-bestselling author of  When Ghosts Come Home , which is published by our friends at William Morrow.  Topics of conversation include independent bookstores, ghost stories, The Andy Griffith Show, writing about technology, the confederate flag, racism, the Pterodactyl Club, the New York Times Book Review, and much more.  Copies...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by New York Times-bestselling author Joe Posnanski, who discusses his new book  The Baseball 100 , which is published by our friends at Avid Reader Press.  Topics of discussion include falling in love with baseball, Ichiro Suzuki and Shohei Ohtani, statistics that are not recorded, Ozzie Smith, Bullet Rogan, Mad Max Scherzer and the Los Angeles Dodgers, wh...

For our 150th episode, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Pulitzer Prize-winning, National Book Award-winning, and New York Times bestselling author Richard Powers, who discusses his new novel  Bewilderment , which is published by our friends at W.W. Norton & Company.  Topics of discussion include medicating children, Physics vs. English, the search for life in outer space, video games, William T....

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Eric Powell and Harold Schecter, authors of  Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done? , which is published by our friends at Albatross Funny Books.  Topics of conversation include David Fincher and Mike Mignola, the Milwaukee Bucks, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, how a pirate story is different from a bible story, religious fanaticism, at what age kids may realiz...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by award winning author Cadwell Turnbull, who discusses his fantastic new novel  No Gods, No Monsters , which is published by our friends at Blackstone Publishing.  Topics of discussion include books set in Raleigh,  The Unbearable Lightness of Being , bookstores, eternal return, werewolves, police shootings, comic books, and much more.  Copies of  No Gods...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by New York Times bestselling author John Grisham, who discusses his newest book  Sooley , which is published by our friends at Doubleday Books.  Topics of discussion include the ongoing crisis in Sudan, basketball novels, offense vs. defense, Manute Bol, ethnic conflict, technology and the lack thereof, and much more.  Copies of  Sooley  can be ordered he...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Alex Pheby, winner of the Republic of Consciousness Prize and author of  Lucia , which is published by our friends at Biblioasis.  Topics of conversation include Lucia and James Joyce, Finnegans Wake, Egyptology, Harry Potter, fan fiction, the likelihood that current authors will be studied in one hundred years, and much more.  Copies of  Lucia can be p...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Bela Koe-Krompecher, founder of Anyway Records and author of love, death & photosynthesis, which is published by our friends at Don Giovanni Records.  Topics of conversation include Columbus, Ohio, punk rock, Mudhoney, time shifts, vinyl, the shifting retail landscape as it relates to record stores and bookstores, the Dead Milkmen, and so much more.  Co...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Tom Lin, author of  The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu , which is published by our friends at Little, Brown and Company.  Topics of discussion include writing a novel as a college student, the outlaw western persona, living a traceless life, railroads, dangerous memories, Cormac McCarthy, magical realism, and much more.  Copies of  The Thousand Crimes of M...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by New York Times bestselling author and Hugo and Nebula award winner Martha Wells, author of the Murderbot Diaries , which is published by our friends at TOR dot com.  Topics of discussion include binging television series, how Murderbot doesn't actually do that much murdering, learned behaviors relative to television and other media, machine rights, vide...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by New York Times bestselling author Jason Mott, who discusses his newest novel  Hell of a Book , which is published by our friends at Dutton Books.  Topics of conversation include Nicolas Cage, invisibility, bullying, meta-narratives, call center culture, naturalism, the militarization of police, and much more.  Copies of  Hell of a Book  can be purchased...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by New York Times bestselling author Andy Weir, who discusses his newest novel  Project Hail Mary , which is published by our friends at Random House.  Topics of discussion include rum old-fashioneds, isolation in outer space (and during COVID-19), whether or not humanity would band together to help one another during a planetary catastrophe, why aliens mi...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by John Freeman, editor of The Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story , which is published by our friends at Penguin Press.  Topics of discussion include what "Modern" means, genre fiction, academia, The Lesson by Toni Cade Bambara, Alice Walker and Kamala Harris, Emergency by Denis Johnson, and much more.  Copies of The  Penguin Book of the Moder...

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by legendary guitar player and singer Richard Thompson, author of  Beeswing , which is published by our friends at Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.  Topics of discussion include cover songs, a disregard for school, Les Paul, Lady Chatterley's Lover, the author as celebrity, spirituality, Jimi Hendrix, when you know a song needs to be retired, and much more....