The Book Case
Episodes
Jenny Lawson Wants You to Be Okay
02 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Jenny Lawson is Kate’s all time favorite humor author. Obsessed since her first book, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, Kate saw she had a new on...
Louise Erdrich and the Art of the Seminal Moment
26 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Louise Erdrich is one of the most important writers of our time. Her award-winning words have created modern classics such as Love Medicine, The Night...
Elizabeth Berg And a Love Story to Life (Also with Kate DiCamillo and Kelly Yang!)
19 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
It’s a TRIPLE header on the Book Case podcast. First, our main guest is Elizabeth Berg, whose newest, Life: A Love Story is a beautifully woven tale...
Joan Lunden Says Good Morning Book Case!
12 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Joan Lunden has been a part of the Gibson family for a long time. Her newest memoir, Joan, is an attempt to look back upon the moments of her life, he...
For Us, Anna Quindlen is ALWAYS More Than Enough
05 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
We have been broadcasting long enough to have what we think of as “authors we always love to talk to” and Anna is one of those. She is a stunni...
Tayari Jones and the Meaning of Kin
26 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Tayari Jones is one of the country’s most gifted writers, and her newest, Kin, is sure to get everyone talking. Beautiful, wrenching and compelling,...
Allegra Goodman, Her Stories, and the Messiness of Family
19 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Allegra Goodman’s latest, This is Not About Us is a treasure. Centered around the Rubenstein family, each chapter examines the Rubensteins from a ...
Belle Burden and the Art of Being Vulnerable
12 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Belle Burden’s Strangers is not your everyday memoir about divorce. After three kids, two decades and two homes, her husband was caught having an ...
The Librarians: A Must-See Documentary for Book Lovers
05 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
This week we dedicate our show to a documentary that we think is important. We have promised our listeners to keep the podcast non-political (no sho...
Roger Rosenblatt on the Magic of Books
29 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Roger Rosenblatt wrote a column for the NY Times called Before You Toss that Book… We already loved Roger’s books, and this column moved us to re...
Susan Orlean Takes a Joyride
22 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Susan Orlean, one of the best journalists of our generation, has written a memoir, along with some great advice about writing. Beyond writing, she h...
Janice Page and an Unlikely Memoir
15 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Janice Page’s The Year of the Water Horse is a funny memoir. At times, laugh out loud funny. But it is also about why we tell stories, what we make ...
Paula McLain Escapes into the Paris Underground
08 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Paula McLain’s Skylark is the GMA book club pick this month and we are so pleased she sat down with us too. This book is a beautifully written, tou...
We Pick Our Favorites: 2025
01 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Grab a pen and pencil so you can write down what are some of our absolute favorite reads of 2025. There is something for everyone, fiction, non fict...
Getting Books In Their Hands: Stephen and Ayesha Curry
25 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We have devoted several podcasts to the issue of how parents get children to read - off screens and into pages. We talk about it - others DO somethi...
Classics Series: A Jane Austen Discussion
18 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Our next installment in the Book Case Classics series comes from listeners like you. Many of you asked for Austen…you wanted it? You got it! ...
Abir Mukherjee and the Beauty of Historical Mysteries
11 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Abir Mukherjee was a revelation to us, even if he is already an international bestseller. The Burning Grounds, the sixth of the Wyndham and Banerjee m...
J. Ryan Stradal SELLS and A Bookstore with a Mission
04 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We are so pleased that our Writer in Residence, J. Ryan Stradal, has sold his newest to Atria Publishing. He is here this week to tell us how he did i...
Megha Majumdar and Moral Ambiguity
27 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Megha Majumdar was on the short list for the National Book Award, and we were rooting hard for her to win. She may not have won THIS year, but her tal...
John Irving Creates a Queen
20 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We DO love talking to John Irving. In our winding, wandering and wonderful conversation we cover it all from his newest, Queen Esther, the art of w...
Catherine Newman and Bittersweet Motherhood
06 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Catherine Newman’s latest, Wreck, is a beautiful meditation on the act of motherhood. Revisiting the family from Sandwich as they enter a new phase ...
R.L. Stine Loves Scaring Kids
30 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It’s Halloween…so who better to follow up our conversations about middle school reading than R.L. Stine? With over 400 titles to his name (the la...
Rick Riordan and Katherine Rundell Explore the Middle School Reading Crisis
23 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We knew that reading levels were in fluctuation, but we had no idea there was a Middle School reading crisis. According to the NWEA (The Northwest E...
Lily King Writes her Heart
16 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Lily King’s newest, Heart the Lover, is a sparing, funny, painful and beautiful novel about the first loves we have, and how they never really let g...
Angela Flournoy’s Friendship Circle
09 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Angela Flournoy’s newest, The Wilderness was on the long list of nominees for the National Book Award, and we believe if you read it, it’s easy to...
The Book Case’s Best of Summer Review
02 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sometimes we look back on a season of great podcasts (humble podcasts hosts that we are) and consider what we like best within a season. Today, we ...
Leigh Bardugo Makes Magic
25 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Leigh Bardugo has written some masterful fantasy. And, the Six of Crows Duology (that means there is only two books in the series) is about to turn ...
Joanne Harris and the Literary Beauty of Chocolat
18 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Joanne Harris is the writer of the “Chocolat" series, which began with the famous Chocolat (also made into a movie with Juliette Binoche and Johnny ...
The Reynolds Brothers and International Dot Day
11 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Take a moment to sit down with us to talk to the Reynolds Brothers, Peter and Paul. On Thursday of this week we appeared on GMA to talk about Inter...
Virginia Evans and the Art of Writing Letters
04 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Occasionally, a book comes into your life that is a revelation. And The Correspondent by Virginia Evans was one of these books for us. A masterful epi...
Thomas Schlesser and the Art of Art History
28 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Thomas Schlesser is a French Art Historian whose new novel, Mona’s Eyes is a brilliant way of exploring the great museums of Paris. When Mona, his...
Kathy Wang Believes in Satisfaction
21 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Kathy Wang’s newest, The Satisfaction Café is the story of Joan Laing, her compromises, her victories, her loves and her loneliness. In this memo...
Our Writer in Residence Finishes His First Draft
14 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
J. Ryan Stradal is our Writer in Residence, if you have been following along. What does that mean? Well, we have been with him from step one sin...
Classics Series: Invisible Man
07 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man is a feverishly paced, lyrical portrait of an unnamed African American man in the 1930’s. Hauntingly beautiful and...
Adriana Trigiani’s Romance with Italy
31 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Adriana Trigiani is a true joy, and her new novel, The View from Lake Como, is a love letter to Italy. Italian by birth, Italy always plays a big ro...
Stacey Abrams Makes AI a Murder Suspect
24 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Stacey Abrams is a prolific figure in American history. And although her bread and butter come from political organization and practicing law, a lo...
Dennard Dayle Writes Some Serious Satire
17 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Dennard Dayle has written a laugh out loud satire about the Civil War. It’s both risky and ambitious and he pulls it off beautifully in How to Dod...
Sophie Elmhirst Takes Us to Sea
10 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sophie Elmhirst has done something extraordinary. In her new book, Marriage at Sea, she rediscovers and adds new mystery to the true story of Mauric...
Chris Chibnall Masters the Mystery
03 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It’s been a while since we have covered a good mystery on the Book Case, so this week, take a seat by a book that will keep you guessing. Death a...
Classics Series: To Kill a Mockingbird
26 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It’s the third in our classics analysis series! To Kill a Mockingbird is one of America’s favorite novels. Is it worth its weight in the pub...
Two Amazing Booksellers
19 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We have been skimping on including independent booksellers in our show lately (and we are sorry) but here is a whole show worth of bookseller conversa...
Jess Walter is So Far Gone
12 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jess Walter has written a book that is funny, compulsively readable, and complex. In So Far Gone, he reminds us, in a world that sometimes seems to...
Andrew Porter Writes a Family Story
05 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Andrew Porter’s newest, The Imagined Life, is a beautiful and atmospheric novel following a man on a search for his father, who disappeared decades ...
Our Writer in Residence Talks Endings
29 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Another installment of our Writer in Residence series, and J. Ryan Stradal is two chapters away from the end! How did he get here? What are his ...
Dave Barry Was And Is The Class Clown
22 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Dave Barry is one of the funniest writers alive, and he makes it look so easy. How and why does he do it? Enter Class Clown: The Memoirs of a Prof...
Richard Russo Talks Life and Art
15 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Richard Russo is an American treasure. The writer of so many great novels (Empire Falls, Straight Man), we strongly encourage you to read his newest...
Jemimah Wei is the GMA Book Club Pick!
08 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jemimah Wei’s The Original Daughter is the GMA book club pick for May, and we loved it. In some ways, this book is not just a compelling family d...
We Get a Little Deeper with David K. Shipler
01 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We loved talking to David K. Shipler so much that we wanted to squeeze one more show out of our conversation. We talked so much on our last episode...
David K. Shipler Interprets Interpreters
24 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Interpreter is a beautiful book about the end of the war in Vietnam and one interpreter’s story as his country is torn apart and remade over and...
Niall Williams and Christine Breen: The Director's Cut
17 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
If you are a devoted GMA watcher (and you should be), you know that about a month ago we sat down with the great Irish native writing couple of Niall ...
Harlan Coben Writes Like It’s His Job
10 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Harlan Coben has authored close to 40 books with some seriously good writing. His latest, Nobody’s Fool, takes a detective from an already existi...
Two Great Summer Reads Arrive in Spring
03 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It’s a two for one show and do bear with us, because it’s two books we loved, AND you get two authors in one podcast. One book is a darkly comi...
Colum McCann And his Twist on Great Literature
27 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Colum McCann’s newest, Twist, explores how the world of underwater fiber cables has vital physical and metaphoric meaning in our day to day lives. ...
Kaveh Akbar and Tommy Orange: The Author Friendship
20 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Kaveh Akbar and Tommy Orange are a writer’s circle of two. We can’t remember how we first heard they were close friends, but we knew it when we...
Curtis Sittenfeld Tells Great Stories
13 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We love short story collections. We hope this doesn’t put us in the minority, because when authors do it well the books can be transcendent. Cas...
The Great Gatsby is Still Great
06 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
There is no greater classic in Kate’s mind than The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. So when our audiences liked our holiday revisit of the Chr...
Geraldine Brooks Honors Her Husband
27 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Geraldine Brooks' latest, Memorial Days, is a deeply personal memoir about the sudden loss of her husband Tony Horowitz. In this beautiful and deeply...
Jeffrey Toobin Examines The Presidential Pardon
20 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Politics are heavily loaded in today’s America; we seem to be so angry at one another. Jeffrey Toobin’s newest, The Pardon: The Politics of Pre...
Jeff Hobbs is a Non-Fiction Storyteller
13 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jeff Hobbs is a best-selling author, but the way he listens to his subjects and retells their stories brings a deeply human perspective to really diff...
Jessica Soffer Tells Us a Love Story
06 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This is a Love Story by Jessica Soffer sees love’s complexities, beauties; its selfishness, difficulties, and maddening passions. Jessica Soffer te...
Adam Haslett Examines Mothers & Sons
30 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Adam Haslett’s new novel, Mothers & Sons is a brilliant book examining the relationships between mothers and sons from all sorts of angles. The s...
Samantha Harvey Goes Orbital
23 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Booker Prize is awarded each year to the best work of sustained fiction in the English language. In other words, it doesn’t get any more p...
Scott Turow Revisits Old Friend Rusty Sabitch
16 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
If like your drama in a courtroom, Scott Turow is the writer for you. His newest, Presumed Guilty, is the conclusion to the story of Rusty Sabitch,...
Karissa Chen Brings Us A Chinese Love Story
09 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Our first book show of the year is a first-time novelist, Karissa Chen. Her new book Homecoming is a novel a portrait in longing, an epoch love sto...
We Explore How to Write a Book
02 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week we take a look back at last year’s Book Case episodes focussing on the methodology of writing. We love talking to authors about their tec...
A Christmas Carol Still Haunts Readers
26 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We decided to break format this week, and we might do it again at that (it was wonderful). To ring in the holiday week, we had to spend a little ti...
Susan Rieger and Surviving Your Mother
19 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We know we want to talk to an author if we argue long and lustily about a book’s themes. And Like Mother, Like Mother, the newest by Susan Rieger, ...
Delia Ephron Takes Broadway
12 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Delia Ephron is a courageous woman. Not only did she lose her husband Jerry, she then faced death in the form of leukemia and a very risky bone marro...
Louise Penny Reflects on Her Process
05 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this, the second part of our interview with Louise Penny we talk to her about the art of writing, how she stays fresh and what her year looks like ...
Louise Penny Stalks The Grey Wolf
28 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We read fan comments, and several of you wrote us about Louise Penny. Charlie has always been a fan (he would want me to say that) but Kate was sha...
Niall Williams is Magic
21 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When Niall Williams releases a book, we positively cheer. His writing feels like coming home to us. A home full of warm fires, good stories, kin...
Ann Patchett Reads AND Writes
14 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We don’t do it often, but we are giving two episodes to one conversation: the Great Ann Patchett talking about the Annotated Bel Canto. After we ...
Ann Patchett Revisits Bel Canto
07 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Ann Patchett burst on the scene with Bel Canto twenty three years ago. Bel Canto was not her first novel, but many still consider it to be her best (...
Danzy Senna Creates Worlds She Wants to See
31 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Danzy Senna has written a seriously funny and thought provoking book in Colored Television. It will make you laugh, but also make space for anger, pa...
Dwayne Betts Is Proof That A Book Can Change Your Life
24 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Reginald Dwayne Betts is on a mission is to put a curated library in the cell block of every prison in America. A survivor of the system himself, he ...
Paula Hawkins is a Mystery Master
17 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Paula Hawkins is a master of the mystery, and her new one, The Blue Hour, has one of the best opens and closes to a mystery we have ever read. An aut...
Richard Osman Begins a New Series
10 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Richard Osman has one of the most successful literary mystery series of all time: The Thursday Murder Club (just finished filming as a major motion pi...
Wright Thompson Investigates His Home State
03 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This week's book case: Emmitt Till’s murder has been a seminal moment in American history ever since it occurred in 1955. Wright Thompson’s new b...
Katherine Rundell Believes in Children’s Lit
19 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The United Kingdom has given us some amazing children’s authors: C.S. Lewis, Lewis Carroll, Roald Dahl, Beatrix Potter...and may we add Katherine Ru...
Elizabeth Strout Unites Beloved Characters
12 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
If you aren’t an Elizabeth Strout fan yet, Tell me Everything, her newest novel, is going to wow you. If you are already devoted fans, like we are,...
Spoken Word Poets Write Their Catharsis
05 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This is a special episode dedicated the art of spoken word poetry. One of our listeners wrote to us mentioning the name of Rudy Francisco and from th...
Dr. Fei-Fei Li Explains AI
29 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Fei-Fei Li is one of the most important scientists of our time. Her book, The Worlds I See, chronicles her pioneering efforts in Artificial Intel...
Jodi Picoult Envisions A Woman Behind Shakespeare's Work
22 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Have you ever heard the rumor that Shakespeare didn’t write his own plays? So had we, but By Any Other Name, the new novel by Jodi Picoult, may ma...
Emily Nussbaum Explains Why We Should Take Reality TV Seriously
15 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Love it or hate it, the genre of “reality tv” has now shaped American history. That means no matter how you feel about it, you cannot ignore it. ...
Evan Friss Traces the History of American Bookstores
08 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today we talk about a book that seems tailor-made to our show, given our conversations with independent booksellers. The Bookshop: A History of the Am...
Whoopi Goldberg Hails Her First Loves
01 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When you say the name Whoopi Goldberg it’s hard not to smile. The name is filled with heart, laughter, and a joyous sense of fun, just like the woma...
Ben Shattuck's Short Stories Span Time and History
25 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Ben Shattuck is a renaissance man of sorts, which might be why we dedicated the whole episode to him. He wrote The History of Sound, a thought provoki...
Hope Jahren Expands on Mark Twain
18 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Every so often, a new author tackles the work of expanding a classic novel to expand its reach. Even more rarely, they succeed beautifully. This week’...
J. Ryan Stradal Tackles His Next Novel
11 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Our third check in with J. Ryan Stradal, author extraordinaire and our writer in residence. He has begun to write in earnest, and has lots to tell us ...
Rachel Khong Asks, 'Who Is A Real American?'
04 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Magician’s Hat by Malcolm MitchellThis week we talk to Rachel Khong. Her new novel, Real Americans, asks probing questions about the reality of ...
Joseph Kanon Conjures WWII Shanghai
27 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Do you like a good spy novel? Do you love le Carré and Graham Greene? Then we hope, with great sincerity, that you are reading the work of Joseph K...
Catherine Newman Brings Us to Cape Cod
20 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sandwich: A Novel by Catherine Newman is full of great characters, evocative nostalgic imagery and a love for Cape Cod that we share with her. It is ...
Sarah Langan Crafts a Dystopian Mystery Thriller
13 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Want a great summer read? We have it. A Better Place by Sarah Langan is a page turning mystery/thriller….like if The Stepford Wives met Shirley Ja...
Scott Preston Writes a UK Western
06 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This week, a dark and funny tale of sheep farming in Rural England that reads like an American Western by Cormac McCarthy. Sound a little strange? W...
Two Editors Who Changed Publishing
30 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today we have a book that helped us to lift the curtain on the inner workings of the book business. The Editor by Sara B. Franklin tells us the story ...
Book Store Owners Present Their Top Summer Reads
23 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We love the summer because it means trips the bookstore! We have some of our favorite bookstores recommending their favorite summer titles. If you a...
George Stephanopoulos Takes Us To The Situation Room
16 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This episode is a double whammy of extreme talent. First, we have George Stephanopoulos, giving us history through the perspective of one of the most...
Heidi Reimer Examines Motherhood, Sacrifice, and Redemption
09 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It's always a pleasure for us to talk to a debut author and we have a good one this week in Heidi Reimer. Her novel, The Mother Act, is the story of ...
Erik Larson Illuminates History
02 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
If you haven’t heard of Erik Larson, you don’t read enough non-fiction. A giant in the industry and an immense talent, Erik is turning his attenti...
Carlos Lozada Makes the Case for Political Memoirs
25 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We try not to do books about politics — political discourse in this country is, currently, divisive in the extreme. However, Carlos Lozada, in his n...