The B&n Podcast

The latest selection of the B&N Book Club is the highly anticipated debut novel from Hank Green.  Green is the co-creator (with his brother John) of the YouTube sensation "Vlogbrothers" and the podcast "Dear Hank and John," as well as the founder of Vidcon and many other creative initiatives. What all of his endeavors have in common is the goal of telling stories that matter. With An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, Green offers a different kind of story -- a suprise-laden tale about a group of friends whose encounter with a strange new artifact catapults them -- for better or for worse -- into global celebrity. The result is an unclassifiable, exuberant novel about 21st-century fame, the ambitions and fears of a generation coming into stewardship of a troubled world, and what might happen if a group of really smart young people encounter something potentially world-changing. Hank Green joins B&N's Miwa Messer in our studio for a (spoiler-free!) conversation about his new novel and what he wants readers

Doris Kearns Goodwin is one of the most celebrated chroniclers of the lives of American presidents, the author of multiple bestsellers including The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism and Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, the basis for Stephen Spielberg's Academy Award-winning film Lincoln. Leadership in Turbulent Times is something different, though: an attempt to extract vital lessons from her many hours spent immersed in the lives of four presidents: Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR and Lyndon Johnson, in whose White House she served. In this book, the historian tries to understand how these four men dealt with some of the most overwhelming challenges faced by this country and its government. She joins Bill Tipper in our podcast studio to talk about what she took away from this journey into America's moments of crisis.

With In Pieces, Sally Field has delivered an amazingly rare thing:  a memoir of growing up to become world-famous that isn't really, much about fame at all.  It's about the search for love and acceptance, her devotion to her beloved mother and the damage of an abusive stepfather, the peculiarities of growing up in a 1950s show business family, and the high-wattage straitjacket of her early fame in the television roles of Gidget and The Flying Nun.  It's about her quest, in her work with Lee Strasberg and the Actors Studio, to find that moment of focused sharpness again, in films which would bring her Academy Awards for her roles in Norma Rae and Places in the Heart.  It's about the roadblocks – put up by directors, boyfriends, writers and others – thrown in the way of a woman determined to follow her own vision, and to put the pieces of her life together for herself.    The result is eloquent, tough-minded, and as singular as the author's career.  She joined us in the studio just before the publication of In

The astrophysicist, author and champion of science Neil deGrasse Tyson is more than comfortable taking on the very biggest of subjects. The director New York City’s Hayden Planetarium and host of the 21st-century edition of the documentary series Cosmos, Tyson is the author of a raft of bestsellers that unveil the mysteries of the universe, from the Higgs Boson to black holes. Now, in Accessory to War, Tyson and co-author Avis Lang ask a big question: where does astrophysics end and military research begin? To find out, we visited Tyson in his offices for a talk about telescopes, spy satellites, and the future of science.

Critically acclaimed and prizewinning author Jacqueline Woodson joins us to talk about her career making unforgettable fiction out of the lives of ordinary young people.  She's author of more than 30 books for children, young adults and adults, and among her many honors is the National Book Award for her bestselling book Brown Girl Dreaming and is currently serving as the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature.  She sat down in the studio to talk with Miwa Messer about her extraordinary body of work and her latest novel for young readers, Harbor Me.

Multitudes of readers now know the story of Mark Watney, the astronaut stranded in the massively popular novel The Martian, by today's guest Andy Weir. When Weir was a young reader, however, he had his own science fiction addiction with authors like Larry Niven and Robert A. Heinlein. And like in Heinlein's popular "juvenile" books Red Planet and Have Spacesuit, Will Travel, Andy Weir expertly mixes the science of space travel with addictive fantasy. The B&N Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog's editor, Joel Cunningham, sat down at this year's San Diego Comic Con to talk with Andy Weir about his follow up novel Artemis (available now in paperback), his early influences, and what it's like to see something you have written adapted for the big screen.

Science fiction author, activist, blogger, and journalist Cory Doctorow is one of the most lucid and fascinating thinkers when it comes to the question of how technology and society shape each other. He writes a kind of science fiction that frequently takes place in a future very much like an extension of our present, and which resists classifications like “dystopia” or “utopia.” Cory sat down with Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog editor Joel Cunningham at this year’s San Diego Comic Con and discussed his most recent novel Walk Away, along with a retrospective of his past work.

If you're a parent who has ever had to think about limiting what we've come to call "screen time" with your child, you have an ally in the scientist and inventor Temple Grandin.  She's the author of 12 books on animal behavior and on autism, including the national bestsellers Thinking in Pictures and Animals in Translation.   She lectures to parents and teachers on her experiences as a scientist with Autism, and she was recently named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people of the year.  She joined us on this episode to the podcast to talk about her new book Calling All Minds:  How to Think and Create Like an Inventor, and why she's determined to reach out to a new generation of kids and encourage them to make, experiment, and "tinker" with their own inventions.

The Adventure Zone began life as a podcast with an irresistible premise: three brothers, sitting down for a game of Dungeons & Dragons with their dad. It was a lark that grew into a phenomenon, spinning out a years-long, partially improvised fantasy saga that grew increasingly complex, attracted a fervent fan following, and spun off into side quests and live shows. Now, the first part of the story has become a graphic novel, The Adventure Zone: Here There Be Gerblins, adapted by podcast co-host Clint McElroy (he’s the dad) and artist/co-writer Carey Pietsch. We caught up with Clint and Carey at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con to talk about adapting the show to a new medium while keeping its spirit of irreverence and, yes, adventure alive.

Ahmir Thompson, better known as Questlove, has been known to music lovers for years as the drummer and co-leader of The Roots, and since 2014 to millions more since the Roots became the house band for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. He's also the author of multiple bestselling books including an unconventional memoir Mo' Meta Blues: The World According to Questlove, Soul Train: The Music, Dance, and Style of a Generation, and Something To Food About: Exploring Creativity with Innovative Chefs. He joins Jim Mustich on this episode to the podcast to talk about his latest book,Creative Quest, and the intersection between life, listening, and making of art.

Daniel Silva’s eighteen bestselling thrillers featuring art restorer and Israeli spymaster Gabriel Allon share DNA with the works of classic espionage writers like Grahame Green, Eric Ambler and John Le Carre. His latest novel The Other Woman begins when a carefully planned operation involving a Russian courier goes fatally awry on the streets of Vienna.  In the aftermath of disaster, Allon begins to unravel a plot that intersects with the real-world case of an infamous spy, and spans generations.  Daniel Silva joined us in the podcast studio to talk about his long obsession with the story behind The Other Woman.

The novelist Emily Giffin has been hailed by Vanity Fair as a "modern day Jane Austen."  Books like Something Borrowed, First Comes Love, and The One and Only have brought her endearingly flawed characters through the trials of modern adulthood -- love, marriage, children -- with humor, empathy and insight. Emily Giffin recently joined Barnes & Noble's Amanda Cecil in our podcast studio to talk about her new novel All We Ever Wanted and its story of three characters who have to reconcile unexpected conflicts between the things they believe and the people they love.

Anne Tyler is the bestselling author of more than twenty novels including Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant and A Spool of Blue Thread.  She's the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, a favorite of critics, readers, and book clubs everywhere. Her new novel Clock Dance is a story of family, resilience, second chances, and self-discovery, in which a wife and mother longing to be a grandmother, finds herself in uncharted territory after a phone call from a stranger and her own impulsive decision. Anne Tyler joins Miwa Messer from her home in Baltimore to talk about the writing of Clock Dance — our latest B&N Book Club selection.

In this episode our guest is the fascinating writer and thinker Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of the bestsellers The Black Swan and Antifragile.  Taleb has been a hedge fund manager, a mathematician and professor of engineering, but he's found his widest influence as a thinker about risk, randomness and how they influence our lives from the boardroom to the street.  He was joined in our podcast studio by our executive producer Jim Mustich for a conversation about His latest book, Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life, and about Taleb's unique point of view on how we make our way in a fundamentally uncertain world.

The film actor and star of BET’s critically acclaimed drama Being Mary Jane became a New York Times bestselling author with the publication of her memoir in essays We’re Going to Need More Wine: Stories That Are Funny, Complicated, and True.  In this special live episode of the podcast, Gabrielle Union is joined by two NBA stars: her husband Dwayne Wade their friend Channing Frye, who hosts the conversation.  Join us for a wide-ranging conversation that is both laugh-out-loud funny and thought-provoking and features Union's takes on writing, basketball, race, gender, stardom, and family life.

Ruth Ware's bestselling novels — including The Lying Game and The Woman in Cabin 10 — bring the aura of classic works of gothic fiction into cinematically rendered modern settings, yielding tightly wound tales of paranoia, mystery and suspense.   But for all of the perfectionistic care the author seems to take with her plots, her characters lead messy, all-too-human lives.  She joins us in this episode of the podcast to talk about her latest, The Death of Mrs. Westaway, in which a mysterious inheritance leads a young woman down a path of deception.

On this episode we welcome chef, restaurateur and television star Lidia Bastianich, the author of more than a dozen bestselling cookbooks which have introduced a generation to the flavors, ingredients and methods of traditional Italian regional cuisines.  She joins Jim Mustich to talk about her new memoir My American Dream, which shares the story of her family's journey to America, through displacement and struggle, perseverance and ultimately a career that has  — deliciously — helped shape how we eat

How does a young person take the raw material of their life experiences — painful, funny, exhilarating, confusing — and make them into lasting art? The writer Alexander Chee drew deeply on his own childhood experiences in his riveting debut novel Edinburgh — and then turned to his fascination with masks, artifice and reinvention for his second work, the historical epic The Queen of the Night.  Along the way he's made his mark as a master of the personal essay, and his new collection How to Write an Autobiographical Novel takes us with him on wonderful brief journeys — into a young man's experience of drag, into the homes of the rich and famous, and into confrontations with the most painful aspects of memory.  In this episode, Alexander Chee joins us for an in-depth conversation about those journeys and where he finds himself now.

The Academy Award-winning actor Marcia Gay Harden has created indelible characters for the stage (Angels in America, God of Carnage) and screen (Pollock, Miller's Crossing, Mystic River). On this week's episode she talks with us about her lyrical and multifaceted new book, The Seasons of My Mother: A Memoir of Love, Family and Flowers. In it, she combines a poignant tribute to her mother's creative genius with a thought-provoking investigation into Alzheimer's disease, and reflects on the role memory plays in a big question: how, exactly, do we know who we are?

When James Patterson sets out to write a thriller, he doesn’t take half measures.  With his latest novel, The President is Missing, the creator of Alex Cross, the Women’s Murder Club, and countless page-turners proves once again that nobody knows more about how to keep readers’ pulses racing.  But for this project, he couldn’t go it alone: he needed the kind of inside knowledge only his co-author, former President Bill Clinton, could provide.  In this special episode of the B&N Podcast, recorded on the eve of publication, James Patterson sits down with B&N’s James Mustich to talk about how he and President Clinton collaborated, and the very serious message he hopes readers will take away once the thrill ride is over.