Speaking of Writers

This week on The Speaking of Writers Podcast we remember a few of the authors that we lost this year. The #1 New York Times bestselling author Mary Higgins Clark wrote forty suspense novels, four collections of short stories, a his­torical novel, a memoir, and two children’s books. With bestselling author Alafair Burke she wrote the Under Suspicion series including The Cinderella Murder , All Dres...

This week on The Speaking of Writers Podcast we remember a few of the authors that we lost this year. Jim Lehrer  was the author of twenty-one novels, three nonfiction books, and four plays. His work in journalism began as a newspaper reporter in Texas. He then worked for more than forty years in public television. He co-founded “The PBS NewsHour,” which he anchored for 36 years, he also mode...

This week on The Speaking of Writers Podcast we remember a few of the authors that we lost this year. Today it's The Quintessential New York journalist Pete Hamill.  Pete died on August 5, 2020. As the great columnist Mike Lupica said about Pete, "In the history of newspapers, there was never anyone whose use of the language was more elegant than his was. That voice could be full of anger, of...

In Macho Time: The Meteoric Rise and Tragic Fall of Hector Camacho , Christian Giudice brings us from Camacho’s childhood in Puerto Rico (which his mother had to flee), to his coming of age in Spanish Harlem, to his training in various hardscrabble gyms throughout New York City, to his place atop the world stage of his chosen sport (which was, of course, the toughest sport), to the nightclub parki...

It’s historical fiction at its finest—and deadliest—in bestselling author  Joy Jordan-Lake’s  Under a Gilded Moon  (Lake Union Publishing) out this holiday season. Depicting the clash of classes and cultures around the famed Vanderbilt-owned  Biltmore House in Asheville, North Carolina,  Under a Gilded Moon  highlights the aspirations that drive not only those with po...

The Corona Virus pandemic has turned vacation travel plans upside down for many this year. With events cancelled and concern over health risks associated with air, rail and cruise travel, many are opting for road trips as a vacation alternative. If you’re hitting the road, take a reliable companion. For more than a century National Geographic has been the first stop for savvy travelers in search o...

In FIRST PRINCIPLES: What America’s Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country (Harper),Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and #1 New York Times bestselling author Thomas E. Ricks offers a revelatory new look at the founding fathers. Examining their educations—in particular, their devotion to the ancient Greek and Roman classics—Ricks demonstrates how that influence...

In 2019, Jeff Lindsay introduced readers to Riley Wolfe, a master thief that targets the wealthiest 0.1 percent. Fans were ready to cheer for the newest anti-hero on the scene—and Publishers Weekly agreed, saying in a starred review, “Fans of the Ocean’s Eleven film franchise will be eager for more.” After stealing a piece of the Crown Jewels of Iran, infiltrating a top-of-its-class security syste...

Anyone who knows Jay Horwitz knows he loves stories, and has a wealth of them to share. As the beloved, longtime PR director for the New York Mets, he has witnessed and quietly shaped some of the most memorable moments in team history, becoming a trusted friend and mentor to generations of players, from Darryl Strawberry to Jacob deGrom. In this fascinating memoir, Horwitz tells the unlikely story...

Broadway, one of New York’s—and the world’s—most recognizable industries, is at a standstill. With its doors closed, fans across the globe are looking for a chance to reconnect with some of their favorite stars and shows. Luckily, New York Post theater columnist Michael Riedel’s second book, SINGULAR SENSATION: The Triumph of Broadway (Avid Reader Press) offers an insider’s look at some of the bus...

New York Times, USA Today, and internationally bestselling author Lori Nelson Spielman takes readers on a journey across Italy alongside a cast of strong women out to change their own destinies—and find themselves in the process—in her glowing new novel. Lori Nelson Spielman is a New York Times, USA Today, and internationally bestselling author whose novels have hit #1 in six different countries....

More than thirty years after Grant’s death, biographer Scott Eyman sheds new light on the life of the Hollywood icon in CARY GRANT: A Brilliant Disguise ( Simon & Schuster), drawing on Grant’s own papers, extensive archival research, and interviews with family and friends. About the author Scott Eyman was     formerly the literary critic at The     Palm...

About WHERE I COME FROM: From the best-selling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of  All Over but the Shoutin'  and  The Best Cook in the World,  a collection of his irresistible columns from  Southern Living  and  Garden & Gun A collection of wide-ranging and endearingly personal columns by the celebrated author, newspaper columnist, and Pulitzer Prize winner R...

Stonewall Book Award-winning author Bill Konigsberg explores mental health and suicidal ideation in his latest groundbreaking novel in which he draws from his own experience as a young person battling mental health struggles. In THE BRIDGE, Aaron and Tillie don't know each other, but they are both struggling with thoughts of suicide, and arrive at the George Washington Bridge at the same time, int...

With great buzz and universal acclaim, The Blondes made an indelible impression on readers and literary critics alike. To the delight of fans everywhere, Schultz is back with a riveting new novel, LITTLE THREATS, a plot-twisting whodunit with a powerful message about what time gives us and what it takes away. Emily Schultz is the co-founder of the influential Joyland magazine and author of The Blo...

Andrew Bone takes fans back to the start and behind the scenes, showing that the path to Bryant–Denny Stadium is not always a straight and narrow one The University of Alabama boasts one of the nation's most storied football programs, and the recruiting acumen of coaches like Bear Bryant and Nick Saban plays a major role in that. The Road to Bama is a wild ride into the competitive world of colleg...

The first full-length biography of John Steinbeck to appear in a quarter century, MAD AT THE WORLD: A Life of John Steinbeck [W. W. Norton & Company] illuminates what has made the work of the Nobel laureate an enduring part of the literary canon: his capacity for empathy. Pulitzer Prize finalist William Souder explores Steinbeck’s long apprenticeship as a writer struggling through the depths o...

When Kirby Smart returned to his alma mater in 2016, hopes were high that he could take Georgia football to that elusive next level. Smart wasted no time putting his mark on the Bulldogs, however, making an immediate impact on recruiting and in 2017, reaching the College Football Playoff and coming within moments of a national championship. Biding his time and crafting his philosophy as a def...

In THE COLD MILLIONS (Harper)—his eagerly-awaited first novel since the #1 New York Times bestseller Beautiful Ruins—master storyteller Jess Walter turns his brilliant, chameleon-like talents to a work of historical fiction whose themes echo many of the social and political concerns we once again face in this country. A “writer who has planted himself firmly in the first rank of American authors”...

A rare, behind the scenes look at the Saints over more than 14 seasons As the city was rebuilding following Hurricane Katrina, Sean Payton arrived in 2006 as a relative unknown, a first-time NFL head coach tasked with resurrecting a New Orleans Saints team that had just finished 3-13. Two months after Payton was hired, the Saints signed a free agent quarterback who was cast aside by the San Diego...

From New York Times chief White House correspondent Peter Baker and New Yorker staff writer Susan Glasser come the highly anticipated THE MAN WHO RAN WASHINGTON: The Life and Times of James A. Baker III (Doubleday) — an unmatched case study in the acquisition, exercise, and preservation of power told through an account of one of the most significant and influential leaders in modern American gover...

In his 2012 bestseller, The General vs. the President , two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist H. W. Brands provided a thrilling, personality-driven narrative of two figures whose destinies collided at an epic turning point in American history: President Truman, General MacArthur, and the emerging Cold War. Now, the New York Times bestselling historian turns his attention to the epic struggle over slave...

Harvey Araton is one of New York’s—and the nation’s—best-known sports journalists, having covered thousands of Knicks games over the course of a long and distinguished career. But the person at the heart of OUR LAST SEASON: A Writer, a Fan, a Friendship , is Michelle Musler, a fan who was largely anonymous—except, that is, to the players,coaches, and writers who passed through Madison Square Garde...

With the release of 2018’s The Bromance Book Club, Lyssa Kay Adams established herself as an auto-buy author for romance fans. Her incisive take on toxic masculinity and how reading romance novels can emotionally educate them also garnered attention from major national media including the New York Times Book Review, NBC’s TODAY Show, Entertainment Weekly, Men’s Health, NPR and more. CRAZY STUPID B...

About HIS VERY BEST Jonathan Alter tells the epic story of an enigmatic man of faith and his improbable journey from barefoot boy to global icon. Alter paints an intimate and surprising portrait of the only president since Thomas Jefferson who can fairly be called a Renaissance Man, a complex figure—ridiculed and later revered—with a piercing intelligence, prickly intensity, and biting wit beneath...