Slate Books

This month, hosts Christina Cauterucci, Jules Gill-Peterson, and Bryan Lowder discuss Amazon Prime’s adaptation of Casey McQuiston’s best-selling queer rom-com Red, White & Royal Blue. They also speak with intersex activist and educator Pidgeon Pagonis about their memoir Nobody Needs to Know and the campaign to end nonconsensual surgeries on intersex kids. The hosts end the show, as always, with s...

On this episode: Zak Rosen talks with Phillip Maciak, TV critic with The New Republic, teacher at Washington University in St. Louis, and author of the book, Avidly Reads Screen Time. He explains where the concept of screen time started and how it became this marker of good (or bad) parenting.  Recommendations:  Zak: If You Give a Mouse a Cookie + The “Mouse Game” Jamilah: The Barbie movie Join us...

In Amicus’ summer series of conversations about books that expanded our thinking about justice and the courts, beyond the churn of headlines, Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Joshua Prager to discuss his book The Family Roe: An American Story, about the unknown lives at the heart of Roe v Wade.  Sign up for Slate Plus now to support our show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoi...

On this episode: Zak and Jamilah go over their week in triumphs, fails, solo parenting, and solo travel. Then we talk youth sports before hearing an interview between Elizabeth and Kirsten Jones, nationally recognized performance coach, former athlete, and author of Raising Empowered Athletes. Then, on Slate Plus: what if friendship, not marriage, was the center of our adult social lives? Join us...

As the massive Caldor fire blazed towards South Lake Tahoe in 2021, Joyce knew she had to get out. “The sky was red. It was like hell on earth,” she remembers. Her family got to safety and her house was miraculously spared. But, even now, it can be jarring to remember the fire. Climate-related extreme weather events are on the rise and another disaster is seemingly right around the corner. Especia...

On this week’s episode of The Waves, we’re talking the Hollywood strikes. Slate senior supervising producer Daisy Rosario is joined by longtime journalist and author of Burn It Down, Maureen Ryan to unpack the systematic oppression that has taken place behind the scenes of your favorite movies and television shows for decades. They dig into the structures in place to keep women and marginalized vo...

On this month’s episode of Future Tense Fiction, host Maddie Stone talks to Andrew Silverman about his short story “Furgen.” Tucker, the story’s canine protagonist, is the center of his owner Caro’s world. When Caro buys an A.I.-enabled dog trainer that promises to help both her and Tucker live their best lives, everything starts to fall into place—the A.I. takes care of Tucker when he’s sick, tra...

In Amicus’ summer series of conversations about books that expanded our thinking about justice and the courts, beyond the churn of headlines, Dahlia Lithwick is joined by death penalty lawyer, professor and author Stephen Bright to discuss his new book, The Fear of Too Much Justice: Race, Poverty, and the Persistence of Inequality in the Criminal Courts.  Sign up for Slate Plus now to support our...

For some, the election of Barack Obama signified hope. For others, it intensified hate. But what role did mainstream political rhetoric play in fueling subsequent violent racially charged incidents? On today’s episode of A Word, guest host Ahyiana Angel is joined by Wesley Lowery, journalist and author of American Whitelash: A Changing Nation and the Cost of Progress. Lowery details how he used fi...

Felix Salmon, Emily Peck, and Elizabeth Spiers are joined by author Jason Del Rey to talk physical retail’s woes. They discuss Jason’s new book, Winner Sells All: Amazon, Walmart and the Battle for Our Wallets. Then they dig into what is going on with physical retail space and how looting can help Amazon and other resalers. And finally, why the IRS is investigating crypto bros in Puerto Rico.    I...

David Plotz talks with author David Grann about his new book, The Wager. The non-fiction book tells the harrowing story of a shipwreck off the coast of Patagonia in 1742. They discuss how the British Empire twisted fact and fiction, the process of digging through 280-year-old documents, and why you should always have citrus at sea. Tweet us your questions @SlateGabfest or email us at gabfest@slate...

On this week’s episode of The Waves, it’s all about Barbie. Slate senior producer Cheyna Roth sits down with M.G. Lord, author of Forever Barbie and co-host of “LA Made: The Barbie Tapes” from LAist and So Cal Public Radio. They discuss the history of the Barbie doll and how she’s managed to endure, how Barbie might actually be feminist, and what the new Greta Gerwig movie gets right about Barbie....

This month, taking a cue from the sultry, sensual heat of summer, Outward examines the venerable queer practice of cruising—for sex and sex work—in public space. First, hosts Christina Cauterucci, Jules Gill-Peterson, and Bryan Lowder make eyes at Park Cruising, a new essay collection on cruising in parks, which explores the pleasures, politics, and complexities of that gay pastime. Author Marcus...

This week, host June Thomas talks to journalist Maureen Ryan, author of the book Burn It Down: Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood. In recent years, Ryan has pivoted from TV criticism to writing stories focused on abuses of power in the TV industry. Her new book touches on troubling situations on shows like Lost, Saturday Night Live, The Goldbergs, Sleepy Hollow, and more. In the...

Pedestrian deaths in America have been rising for the last decade, while dropping in Europe and Japan. What makes the U.S. so dangerous for pedestrians? Guest: Jessie Singer, author of There Are No Accidents: The Deadly Rise of Injury and Disaster―Who Profits and Who Pays the Price.  If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on...

When Gwen applied for unemployment during the early days of the pandemic, she never thought she’d still be waiting for her benefits years later. Despite hours on the phone, countless emails and even a court appearance, Gwen is haunted by her inability to get the money she was approved for. On this episode of How To!, co-host Amanda Ripley brings in Marina Nitze, author of Hack Your Bureaucracy. No...

The last few years have been overwhelming for Tracy. Her career was demanding and she experienced multiple deaths in her family. Recently, she changed jobs and is in a better place with her mental health, but something is still missing from her life. She’s just not sure what. On this episode of How To!, co-host Carvell Wallace brings on Samantha Clarke, happiness consultant, speaker, and author of...

Sleep is objectively worse when splitting a bed. Yet that’s the default for most couples. But that doesn’t mean sharing the covers is easy. Especially when one person is having trouble falling or staying asleep. On this episode of How To!, the second in a two-part series, co-host Carvell Wallace continues the conversation with Dr. Wendy Troxel, author of Sharing the Covers: Every Couple’s Guide to...

The 4th of July was the hottest day yet—not just of the summer but of recorded human history. Between waves of Canadian wildfire smoke, malaria reappearing in the United States, and deaths from heat, this might be the year that we’re forced to reckon with what life will be like on our newly hotter planet. Guest: Jeff Goodell, contributing writer at Rolling Stone and the author of the upcoming book...

This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz are on vacation, but Emily taped an extra episode of Gabfest Reads for everyone. She sits down with author Monica Potts to talk about her new memoir The Forgotten Girls. They discuss growing up in rural Arkansas, Monica’s childhood best friend Darci, and more. For this week’s Slate Plus bonus segment, David, Emily, and John chatter about wh...

On this week’s episode of The Waves, we’re diving into fairy tales. Slate book critic Laura Miller talks with author Kelly Link about her collection of fairy tale inspired short stories, White Cat, Black Dog. They discuss how fairy tales have influenced Kelly’s work, the allure of the “searching for a beloved” story, finding a community of female writers.  In Slate Plus: Cheyna Roth and Luke Winki...

On this month’s episode of Future Tense Fiction, host Maddie Stone talks to Matt Bell about his short story “Empathy Hour.” In the story’s climate-change-ravaged future, society’s wealthiest are whisked away to luxurious, self-contained cities. Once there, they entertain themselves with a carefully crafted reality show meant to assuage their guilt about the climate refugees they’ve left behind. Bu...

During this LGBTQ Pride month, many members of the community are reflecting on a year of unprecedented political and legal attacks. One of the biggest battlefields has been in public schools and libraries, where books featuring LGBTQ stories have been the targets of censors. On today’s episode of A Word, guest host journalist Aisha Mills is joined by George M. Johnson, author of one of the most ba...

Emily Bazelon talks with author Peter Singer about his updated and re-released book, Animal Liberation Now. The classic text has been an integral part of the animal rights movement since its publication in 1975. They discuss what we’ve learned about animals in the last several decades, including the intelligence of animals, why people should become vegan to help with climate change, and a passage...

Police killings of Black men have their own grim, but established, rituals in American society. But what happens to those who survive police violence? On today’s episode of A Word, Jason Johnson is joined by Leon Ford, who survived being shot multiple times by Pittsburgh police more than a decade ago. In his new memoir An Unspeakable Hope, Ford candidly describes his legal, physical, and mental he...