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★★★★★

4.6

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Each week on The Book Show, host Joe Donahue interviews authors about their books, their lives and their craft. It is a celebration of both reading and writers. Joe holds interesting conversations with a variety of authors including Malcolm Gladwell, Lawrence Wright, and Emily St. John Mandel.As the son of a librarian, Joe has been part of the book world since childhood. His first job was as a library assistant, during college he was a clerk at an independent book store and for the past 25 years he has been interviewing authors about their books on the radio.He is also the host of The Roundtable on WAMC Northeast Public Radio, a 3-hour general interest talk show. Notable authors he has interviewed include: Kurt Vonnegut, John Irving, John Updike, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Arthur Miller, Stephen King, Amy Tan, Anne Rice, Philip Roth, E.L Doctorow, Richard Russo, David Sedaris and Maya Angelou.Joe has won several awards for his interviews, including honors from the Associated Press, the Edward R. Murrow Awards, the New York State Association of Broadcasters, The Headliners, The National Press Club and the Scripps-Howard Foundation.

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Check latest episodes from The Book Show podcast

Bonnie Garmus - Peck & Peck

2026/10/13

Bonnie Garmus has followed up the blockbuster success of her 'Lessons in Chemistry ' with 'Peck & Peck,' a funny, big-hearted novel set inside an eccentric 1980s New York poetry journal. It’s a story about ambition, art, difficult colleagues and discovering where you belong.

Edwidge Danticat - Dèy

2026/09/22

Edwidge Danticat has long explored Haiti, family, memory, and the meaning of home. Her new novel,'Dèy,' follows a Haitian American woman who survives a mass shooting and keeps it secret, confronting trauma, grief, motherhood, and survival.Edwidge Danticat on this week’s Book Show.

Emily St. John Mandel - Exit Party

2026/09/15

Emily St. John Mandel, bestselling author of 'Station Eleven,' returns with 'Exit Party.' Set in a fractured America in 2031, the novel follows an ex-prisoner into a mysterious celebration—and a story of surveillance, freedom, love, and shifting realities.

Marlon James - The Disappearers

2026/09/08

Booker Prize-winning novelist Marlon James returns to Jamaica with 'The Disappearers.' Set in Kingston in 1988, the novel follows eight gay men whose lives are forever changed by a brutal attack.James joins us to talk about friendship, violence, identity, survival and a story that asks what it means to disappear.

Chang-Rae lee - A Tender Age

2026/09/01

Chang-Rae Lee joins us to discuss 'A Tender Age,' a coming-of-age story set in the summer of 1976 that explores family, identity, memory, and the moments that shape a life. From the award-winning author of Native Speaker comes a deeply moving new novel.

Richard Russo - Under the Falls

2026/08/25

Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Richard Russo has made a career exploring the complicated relationships of small-town America. His latest, 'Under the Falls,' follows a famous musician returning to the Adirondack town he fled years ago, where old friends, an old love and old secrets are waiting.

Sigrid Nunez - It Will Come Back to You

2026/08/18

Sigrid Nunez has long been one of America's most thoughtful literary voices. Now, after more than three decades as a novelist, she's published her first collection of short fiction, 'It Will Come Back to You.' The stories span much of her career, bringing together characters wrestling with memory, loneliness, desire, aging, and the strange turns of everyday life.

Paul Yoon - Etna

2026/08/11

Novelist Paul Yoon has earned acclaim for fiction that examines lives shaped by war, exile, and resilience. His new novel, 'Etna,' tells an unforgettable story through the eyes of a combat-trained dog who leaves the soldiers he served alongside to undertake an odyssey back to the place he once called home.

Daniel Mason - Country People

2026/08/04

Physician and acclaimed novelist Daniel Mason has a gift for finding the extraordinary in everyday life. His new novel, 'Country People,' follows a young family whose move to rural Vermont becomes an unexpected journey into folklore, community, and imagination.

Colson Whitehead - Cool Machine

2026/07/27

Colson Whitehead is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and now brings his acclaimed Harlem trilogy to a close with 'Cool Machine.' The novel reunites readers with furniture dealer and reluctant fence Ray Carney as one last score draws him back into New York City’s criminal underworld.

Amy Bloom - Blunt Instrument

2026/07/21

Novelist Amy Bloom ventures into new territory with her first mystery novel, 'Blunt Instrument.' At the center is Dell Chandler, a failed professor and newly minted private investigator called to solve the murder of an eminent English scholar whose death by a bronze Hawthorne bust leaves an entire university full of suspects.

Francine Prose - Five Weeks in the Country

2026/06/30

Novelist Francine Prose’s latest, 'Five Weeks in the Country,' turns a strange real-life literary episode into rich, darkly funny fiction. In the summer of 1857, Hans Christian Andersen arrives at Charles Dickens’ country home for what should have been a brief visit. Instead, he stays five excruciating weeks.

Colm Toibin - The News from Dublin

2026/06/23

Author Colm Toibin’s latest, 'The News From Dublin,' is his first story collection in more than a decade. The volume gathers nine stories set across Ireland, Spain, the United States, and beyond, tracing lives shaped by distance, memory, and the pull of home.

Andrew Sean Greer - Villa Coco

2026/06/16

Andrew Sean Greer, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less, returns with 'Villa Coco,' a witty and warmhearted novel set in the hills of Tuscany.The story follows a drifting young American who takes a job with the eccentric Baronessa Coco and soon finds himself tangled in romance, old secrets, impossible errands, and one final quest for lost love.

Ann Patchett - Whistler

2026/06/09

Ann Patchett's new novel, Whistler, begins with a chance meeting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Daphne Fuller unexpectedly encounters Eddie Triplett, the former stepfather who vanished from her life decades earlier.Their reunion reopens memories of a childhood tragedy and a relationship that quietly transformed them both. The latest novel is 'Whistler' which explores grief, coincidence, and the lingering pull of the past.

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4.6 out of 5

38 reviews

★★★★★

Mavis M 2025/04/08

Love it!

I just discovered The Book Show and am enjoying it so much! I love hearing some of my favorite authors like Billy Collins (the definition of poetry is...

★★★★★

Gingerrsnapped 2017/04/23

Best Author Interviews Out There

Such an underrated show in the podcast sphere. I used to listen on the radio back east and it's a treasure trove for listening to some of the best aut...

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