The B&n Podcast

Rumaan Alam's new novel That Kind of Mother is a story about the making of a family in the wake of a loss, one that that upends comfortable ideas about our responsibility to each other, and raises issues about race and class in America that couldn't be more timely.  The author joins Miwa Messer on this episode to talk about how writing the story of an uneasily blended family is a way of writing about nothing less than America.

Journalist, author, environmental and nutrition advocate — none of these labels adequately captures the impact of Mark Bittman's career across 21 books, countless articles and his work on multiple television series.  The author of the now-classic guide How to Cook Everything and award-winning Food Matters has become one of the voices we turn to to help us make sense of the sometimes bewildering choices that face us in the store, in the restaurant, or in the kitchen.  And now, over an open flame:  his latest is the eye-poppingly illustrated and backyard-barbecue inspiring new book How to Grill Everything.  He joined us in the studio, to talk about the art of the grill — and how he developed his unique approach to writing about food.

Historian, journalist, editor and biographer Jon Meacham has never shied away from challenging subjects.  American Lion, his study of the presidency of Andrew Jackson, captured one of America's most controversial and consequential figures for the 21st century, and brought its author the Pulitzer Prize.  He joins us on this episode to talk about The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels, a study of the urgent moments, from Reconstruction through early 20th century battles over immigration, McCarthyism, racism and equal rights, that have tested the national character — and give us, he writes, an opportunity to better understand what we can be in the here and now. 

For a writer who has spent so many books imagining the future, for the novelist John Scalzi there’s no time like the present.  The award-winning author of the celebrated Old Man’s War series joins B&N’s Jim Killen to talk about his new book Head On, which returns readers to the near-future America of his novel Lock In, which introduced FBI agent Chris Shayne and the fascinating world of the Haydens.  In this episode, John Scalzi talks about the ideas behind his latest novel, as well as his influences, his childhood, and why right now may be the greatest time yet to be a fan of science fiction.

Paula McLain’s luminous bestseller The Paris Wife swept readers away into Jazz Age Paris, as imagined through the eyes of Hadley Richardson, whose marriage to Ernest Hemingway buckled under the pressure of fame and infidelity.  McLain didn’t expect to return to Hemingway’s life for another story — but in the great journalist Martha Gellhorn, whose volatile and passionate relationship with Hemingway became the stuff of literary legend, she found a character she couldn’t resist.  McLain joins B&N’s Miwa Messer to talk about the exclusive B&N edition of her captivating new novel Love and Ruin.

As a reviewer once memorably said of the comic novelist Christopher Moore, "Less may be more, but it isn’t Moore."  From the supernatural hijinks of books like Practical Demonkeeping to his upside-down takes on the likes of Shakespeare (Fool) or the Bible (Lamb) , Moore's combination of sly wit, literary remixing and Looney-Tunes action mean that his bestselling works of fiction are crammed with delights.  His new novel, Noir takes readers to a version of 1940s San Francisco in true Christopher Moore style.  The author joins us to talk about his latest book, and why he took up writing to prove an editor wrong.

The Academy Award winning actor Christine Lahti has captivated audiences in films like Swing Shift, in Broadway plays such as The Heidi Chronicles and God of Carnage, and in her Emmy-winning turn as Dr. Kathryn Austin on the CBS drama Chicago Hope. Her new book True Stories from an Unreliable Eyewitness: A Feminist Coming of Age -- which began as a set of staged monologues taken from episodes in her life -- resists the usual form of the performer's memoir to instead deliver a constellation of reflections that map her journey as a woman and an actress that couldn't be more timely. She sat down in our studio with B&N's Amanda Cecil to talk about what she wanted to accomplish with this unconventional new book.

Award-winning critic and journalist Michelle Dean's new book Sharp: The Women Who Made an Art of Having an Opinion is a group portrait of a set of nonfiction writers from Dorothy Parker and Mary McCarthy to Joan Didion and Nora Ephron — who Dean finds connected by the way each made powerful intelligence and a rapier wit a calling card. Dean joins us in the podcast studio to talk about how these women turned argument into art — and why we should learn from their razor-edged example.

After serving on a Navy SEAL team deployed in Iraq and other global conflicts, decorated veteran Brent Gleeson returned to civilian life as an entrepreneur and businessman with a passion for great management.  In his new book Taking Point, Gleeson brings insights that emerged from his experience in the unpredictable, high-pressure crucible of modern combat to business leaders facing the challenges of a rapidly transforming marketplace.  In this episode, Gleeson joins Jim Mustich to talk about how his service still informs the work he loves.

With her keenly observed, winningly self-aware forays into the adventure of the everyday, Sloane Crosley makes her essays the voice of an ideal friend on a long journey – thoughtful, charming, and ready to turn any misfortune into a hilarious and beloved memory. Readers first discovered Crosley's irresistible voice in her bestselling collections I Was Told There Would Be Cake and How Did You Get This Number.  She joined us recently to talk about her new book, Look Alive Out There, which pits her razor wit against everything from nightmarish neighbors to family secrets to a trip up an Andean volcano that ends in a fiasco.  Our conversation began with a classic question: can you judge a book by its cover?

If Americans in the 21st century know about the role Aaron Burr played in the founding of our country, it's likely that it's because of the electrifying performance by Leslie Odom, Jr. in the Broadway smash Hamilton.  Now, the multi-talented actor and singer draws on his own fascinating life and career in his new book for younger readers, Failing Up: How to Take Risks, Aim Higher, and Never Stop Learning.  He joins us on the podcast to talk about his commitment to mentoring students and young performers, his own struggles with uncertainty, and his belief that in order to stand, you've got to be ready to fall.

For Lisa Scottoline, writing — whether in her Rosato & DiNunzio series of legal thrillers, her standalone works of suspense, or the humor columns she co-authors with her daughter Francesca Serritella —is personal, and the courtroom cases behind her bestsellers are all deeply rooted, she says, in her experiences or the issues she’s come to care about.  On this episode, the author sat down with us to talk about her new novel After Anna, in which a shocking case of abuse and murder gives way to a mystery that gets at deep questions about love and identity.  And, true to form for Scottoline’s work, there’s a twist: Francesca Serritella also joins us for some real talk about what it’s like to co-write with her mom.  

Human colonies on Mars, laser beams shooting digital copies of ourselves into space, and freezing your age at thirty: does it sound like fantasy?  Not at all, says the physicist and author Dr. Michio Kaku. The co-founder of string field theory joins Jim Mustich in the studio, to talk about his new book The Future of Humanity, why he's an optimist about the world of tomorrow, and what you should do if you're abducted by an alien.

The Academy Award-winning actor and director Sean Penn has in his long film career brought to the big screen figures from bestselling books like Mystic River and Into the Wild.  Now, with his debut novel Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff, Penn offers a darkly comic vision of  21st-century America for readers.  When septic tank salesman Bob travels to Iraq in search of Bagdad waste-management business, he's kidnapped and recruited into a bizarre and lethal international scheme.  On this episode of the podcast, Sean Penn sits down in our studio with Bill Goldstein to talk about the making of a book with flavors of Vonnegut, Pynchon, and the high-wire work of David Foster Wallace.  

The Barnes & Noble Book Club launches this week with its inaugural pick, and we couldn't be more excited. Meg Wolitzer, the bestselling author of The Interestings and the razor-sharp contemporary classic The Wife (soon to be a major motion picture starring Glenn Close) joins us to talk about The Female Persuasion, the story of how an ambitious young woman’s life is transformed when she is taken under the wing of a famous feminist. In this episode, Meg Wolitzer joins Miwa Messer to talk about her wide-ranging career and her timely, engrossing new novel.

When Uzodinma Iweala’s first novel Beasts of No Nation was first published, readers were astonished to discover such a powerful rendering of the world of a West African child soldier could come from a writer making his debut. He followed with Our Kind of People, an equally unpredictable nonfiction work about the global AIDS crisis. Now, Uzodinma Iweala has returned to fiction with the story of a Nigerian-American teen who takes a friend into confidence — setting off life-changing consequences for them both. Speak No Evil is being called one of the must-reads of 2018; in this episode, the author talks with Miwa Messer about this shattering new tale.

With his bestselling novel The Woman in the Window, author A.J. Finn proved that our appetite for twisty works of psychological suspense is boundless.  This week on the podcast, he joins Miwa Messer to talk about the joy he took writing a work which begins with “four walls and this woman” — and about the day his main character walked into his imagination.  

What happens when you turn your childhood obsessions with science fiction, fantasy and video games into a novel that contains them — and then that story itself becomes a touchstone for a new generation of fans?  That's what happened with Ernest Cline and Ready Player One, the bestselling story of a lone gamer in a dystopian future who has to use his knowledge of 80s pop culture to defeat an evil corporation — in both the virtual and real worlds. In this episode, recorded live at the 2017 San Diego Comic Con, Cline talks with B&N’s Joel Cunningham about his novel and his excitement to see it turned into a film by Steven Speilberg.

The television journalist Hoda Kotb is not only familiar to millions of viewers who join her every morning as the anchor of The Today Show, but she’s also the author of multiple bestselling books, including Hoda: How I Survived War Zones, Bad Hair, Cancer, and Kathie Lee and Ten Years Later: Six People Who Faced Adversity and Transformed Their Lives.  But her new book I’ve Loved You Since Forever is a departure, a children’s book celebrating the arrival of her daughter Haley Joy. Not only has it become a publishing sensation, it's been adapted as a song by The Voice’s Kelly Clarkson.  In this episode, Hoda Kotb sits down with Jim Mustich to talk about becoming a mother the inspiration for her new book.

With her role as a heavenly creature on the long-running television drama Touched by an Angel, the actor Roma Downey became an icon to fans, and she became a Hollywood power as the co-producer of the hit miniseries The Bible.  With her new book Box of Butterflies, Downey opens up about her childhood in Northern Ireland, her early losses of both her beloved parents, and the joy of her close relationship with costar Della Reese.  She joined us in the studio to talk about how she finds inspiration in life’s struggles.