The Book Show

A mystery set in a rural village in the West of Ireland, “The Hunter” is the second novel by best-selling author Tana French novel set in mythical Ardnakelty. It’s a blazing summer when two men arrive. One of them is coming home. Both of them are coming to get rich. One of them is coming to die.

Doris Kearns Goodwin is one of America’s most beloved historians. She joins us to discuss her new book “An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s,” where she artfully weaves together biography, memoir, and history.

American historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s latest book is “An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s.” The book shares the emotional journey she and her husband, Richard (Dick) Goodwin embarked on in the last years of his life, as the couple examined a tumultuous decade in American history through the lens of their own personal involvement in public service.

“The Friday Afternoon Club” by actor Griffin Dunne is a memoir of growing up among larger-than-life characters in Hollywood and Manhattan. The book finds wicked humor and glimmers of light in even the most painful of circumstances.

CNN anchor and chief Washington correspondent and New York Times best-selling author Jake Tapper’s third thriller, “All the Demons Are Here,” brings readers to the 1970s underground world of cults, celebrities, tabloid journalism, serial killers, disco, and UFOs.

Lorrie Moore is one of the most celebrated living writers in the United States. Her new novel, “I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home,” is her first in 14 years and is an exploration of love and death, passion and grief where a man takes a road trip with the corpse of his dead ex-lover. The book is now available in paperback.

Garrard Conley is the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir, “Boy Erased.” His debut novel, “All the World Beside,” is the story of two men in love caught between the demands of their families and societal pressures. Conley has coined it “The Queer Scarlet Letter.”

"Days of Wonder" by Caroline Leavitt centers a young mother who, incarcerated as a teenager, now forges a redemptive path forward. It features whirlwind romances old and new, and is a mother-daughter story, a striking testament to the resilience of their love. 

New York Times bestselling author Colm Tóibín has written a novel of secrecy, misunderstanding, and love featuring Eilis Lacey, the complex and enigmatic heroine of his 2009 novel “Brooklyn,” Tóibín’s most popular work. The new novel is “Long Island.”

“All Fours,” a new novel by Miranda July, tells the story of a semi-famous artist who announces her plan to drive cross-country on a one woman quest for a new kind of freedom. The book is part absurd entertainment and part tender reinvention of the sexual, romantic, and domestic life of a forty-five-year-old female artist.

In "The Princess of Las Vegas," by best-selling author Chris Bohjalian, a Princess Diana impersonator and her estranged sister find themselves drawn into a dangerous game of money and murder in a twisting tale of organized crime, cryptocurrency, and family secrets on the Las Vegas strip.

Julia Alvarez, bestselling author of “In the Time of the Butterflies” and “How the García Girls Lost Their Accents,” returns with “The Cemetery of Untold Stories” - a novel about storytelling that reminds us that the events of our lives are never truly finished, even at the end.

Anne Lamott’s new book “Somehow: Thoughts on Love” is her 20th book and published on her 70th birthday. In each chapter, Lamott refracts all the colors of the spectrum. She explores love and the power it has in our lives. The lessons she underscores are that love enlightens as it educates, comforts as it energizes, sustains as it surprises.

“City on Fire” by Don Winslow launched an ambitious crime fiction trilogy that has transported readers from the gritty streets of Providence to the glittering screens of Hollywood to the golden casinos of Las Vegas as Danny Ryan, forges a dynasty. Winslow’s latest book is “City in Ruins.” It is also his last.

The new novel by Tommy Orange, “Wandering Stars,” traces the legacies of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School through to the shattering aftermath of Orvil Redfeather’s shooting depicted in Orange’s best-selling debut, “There There.”

“My Beloved Life” by Amitava Kumar is a father-daughter story that widens into an Indian family saga. It tells the story of an ordinary life made exceptional by the fact that father has loved and has been loved in return. His daughter’s story recasts the past in a new light.

Poet Kaveh Akbar joins us to discuss his first novel “Martyr!” which follows Cyrus Shams on a journey of introspection and discovery. Cyrus is a drunk, an addict, and a poet. His obsession with martyrs and dealing with the death of his mother drives him to examine the mysteries of his past.

Anna Quindlen puts her trademark wisdom on family, friendship, and the ties that bind us at the center her new novel, “After Annie.” When Annie Brown dies suddenly, her husband, her children, and her closest friend are left to find a way forward without the woman who has been the lynchpin of all of their lives.

Novelist Danielle Trussoni is the author of the bestsellers “Angelology” and “Angelopolis.” She gives readers a thrilling ride with her latest, “The Puzzle Master.” Reality and the supernatural collide when an expert puzzle maker is thrust into an ancient mystery - one with explosive consequences for the fate of humanity.

Ann Napolitano took the literary world by storm with her tear-jerker of a novel “Dear Edward.” Her latest, “Hello Beautiful,” is an homage to Louisa May Alcott’s classic, “Little Women.” “Hello Beautiful” is a portrait of what is possible when we choose to love someone not in spite of who they are, but because of it.

In his new novel, “Cold Victory,” New York Times bestselling author Karl Marlantes delivers a sweeping tale of Cold War intrigue set in post-war Finland in which loyalty, friendship, and love are put to the ultimate test. The book is layered with action, historical detail, and a keen eye for the way totalitarianism and loss of truth and privacy threatens love and friendship.

“The Women,” a new novel by Kristin Hannah, is set at a pivotal time in American history: the Vietnam era. It is an intimate portrait of a woman coming of age in a dangerous situation and an epic tale of a nation divided by war and broken by politics.

“Alphabetical Diaries” by Sheila Heti contains a decade’s worth of thoughts, arranged in alphabetical order. The book is a chronicle of the self, of the fundamentals and idiosyncrasies of human experience, that plays out thrillingly in the space that Heti has staked out between life and art, reality and fiction.

The winner of the Booker Prize 2023, “Prophet Song” by Paul Lynch,  presents a terrifying and shocking vision of a country sliding into authoritarianism and a deeply human portrait of a mother’s fight to hold her family together.

“The Bee Sting,” a novel by Paul Murray, is about family, fortune, and the struggle to be a good person at the end of the world.