The B&N Podcast

Our guest today is Dean Atta, author of The Black Flamingo—our June YA Book Club Pick. The Black Flamingo is a fierce coming-of-age story told in verse about identity and the power of drag. Michael, the main character of the story, is a mixed-race gay teen growing up in London and navigating what it means to be Greek-Cypriot and Jamaican. When he discovers the Drag Society, he finally finds where he belongs—and the Black Flamingo is born. We were simply in awe of this beautifully crafted and inspiring work on so many levels and can’t wait for everyone to experience all the powerful, life-affirming messages throughout this unforgettable novel. Acclaimed UK poet and performer Dean Atta joins us to discuss his personal connection to this story, the process of selecting characters to challenge readers’ perspectives and winning the Stonewall Book Award. Join us Thursday, July 9th, at 4PM ET when Dean Atta will be with us live on B&N Facebook for a discussion of his novel The Black Flamingo. We hope to see you there! #BNYABookClub

Our guests today are Mike Birbiglia and J. Hope Stein, authors of The New One. The hilarious and surprisingly heartfelt Broadway show is now essential reading for all parents (new and old) — or really anyone who has ever resisted change. With laugh-out-loud observations and whimsical poetry perfectly placed throughout, Birbiglia and Stein offer a devastatingly honest, yet beautiful look at parenthood. Be sure to pick up a signed edition of The New One: Painfully True Stories from a Reluctant Dad and listen here as comedian Mike Birbiglia and poet Jennifer Hope Stein discuss the trials of writing a book with your significant other, jealousy, poetry and the great bread debate (to freeze or not to freeze). Join us Tuesday, June 16th, at 7PM ET when Mike Birbiglia and J. Hope Stein will be with us live on B&N Facebook for a discussion of their book The New One. We hope to see you there! #BNEvents

Our guest today is Megha Majumdar, debut author of A Burning—our June Discover Pick of the Month. A Burning is an astonishing, heartbreaking story about power—who has it, who doesn’t, and what some will do to get it. In a deceptively slim package like Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys and There, There by Tommy Orange, this is an unforgettable debut by a magnificent new voice. Megha Majumdar, a book editor by trade, never takes the reader for granted, and her writing is full of the contradictions and surprises she looks for in a great novel. We could not get over the complexities, distinct characters and timely messages throughout this amazing story, and we're not the only ones who were completely enchanted by its language and universal themes: Yaa Gyasi, author of Homecoming raved about how "Megha Majumdar writes about the ripple effects of our choices, the interconnectedness of our humanity, with striking beauty and clarity.” We couldn't agree more. We can’t wait for you to devour this cinematic story and get to know Megha Majumdar here as she discusses art and politics, various forms of storytelling, and alternative endings.

Our guest today is Brit Bennett, author of our June Barnes & Noble Book Club selection The Vanishing Half. [ean1]The lives of identical twin sisters diverge when they leave their tiny hometown in this indelible story of identity, family and home. As the narrative cuts across the country and across decades, we follow the aftermath of trauma and the events that follow difficult, often unimaginable choices. The Vanishing Half is the kind of book you never want to end; Brit writes her characters with such understanding and love that you wish you could follow them forever. There’s a lot to unpack in this incredible novel, which is why it’s the perfect choice for our June B&N Book Club pick. We’re excited to get the conversation going and for readers to discuss a story that asks big questions about who we are and where we’re headed. As you ready yourself for this not-to-be-missed event and novel, be sure to also check out Brit Bennett’s acclaimed novel, The Mothers and listen to Brit here as she brilliantly discusses the inspiration for the community at the center of this story and the characters she chose to leave out. Join us Tuesday, July 7, at 7PM ET when Brit Bennett will be with us live on B&N Facebook for a discussion of her novel The Vanishing Half. We hope to see you there!

Our guest today is Emma Straub, author of our May Barnes & Noble Book Club selection All Adults Here. All Adults Here is a sharp, yet sincere look at how we define our lives and the profound effects we have on those we love most. This deeply fulfilling story of sibling relationships, aging parents, hard truths, and second chances is chockfull of heady topics ripe for discussion, so it should come as no surprise it’s been selected as our BN Book Club pick for May. Reading an Emma Straub novel is essentially like hanging out with your smartest, most insightful friend – it’s life-affirming, wisdom-giving, and something you’ll look back on fondly – so we know you’re going to love it! As you get ready for what’s sure to be a lively conversation around a great book, due yourself the favor of checking out her other bestselling novels, The Vacationers  and Modern Lovers , and listen to Emma here as she brilliantly talks about her love of bookstores, personal ambitions, and the atmospheric small-town vibe of her new novel – secretly inspired by Gilmore Girls! Join the conversation on social media using #BNBookClub. Then on Tuesday, 6/2 at 7 PM ET, join the author for a virtual #BNBookClub event on our Instagram!

Our guest today is Elizabeth Gilbert, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Big Magic and Eat Pray Love here to discuss her latest bestseller City of Girls. With City of Girls, beloved author Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction with a unique love story set in the New York City theater world during the 1940s. Told from the perspective of an older woman as she looks back on her youth with both pleasure and regret (but mostly pleasure), City of Girls explores themes of female sexuality and promiscuity, as well as the idiosyncrasies of true love.  

Our guest this week is the three-time Hugo Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author N.K. Jemisin. She joins us today to discuss her latest novel, The City We Became. A story of culture, identity, magic, and myths in contemporary New York City.

In this episode, we dive into They Went Left, A tour de force historical mystery from Monica Hesse, the bestselling and award-winning author of Girl in the Blue Coat. They Went Left is also our Barnes & Noble YA Book Club selection for the month of May. The Barnes & Noble YA Book Club Edition features an author Q&A and an annotated chapter.

Our guest this week is Rhodes Scholar, bestselling author, decorated combat veteran, former White House fellow, and CEO of Robin Hood, one of the largest anti-poverty nonprofits in the nation, Wes Moore. He joins us to talk about his latest book, Five Days: The Fiery Reckoning of an American City; a kaleidoscopic account of five days in the life of a city on the edge told through eight characters on the front lines of the uprising that overtook Baltimore and riveted the world.

Our guest today is Lisa Wingate, bestselling author of Before We Were Yours. Lisa joins us to discuss her new historical novel The Book of Lost Friends. A dramatic story of three young women searching for family amid the destruction of the post–Civil War South, and of a modern-day teacher who learns of their story and its vital connection to her students’ lives.

Our guest today is Afia Atakora, author of our April Barnes & Noble Book Club selection Conjure Women.  Conjure Women is a sweeping story that brings the world of the South before and after the Civil War vividly to life. Spanning eras and generations, it tells of the lives of three unforgettable women: Miss May Belle, a wise healing woman; her precocious and observant daughter Rue, who is reluctant to follow in her mother’s footsteps as a midwife; and their master’s daughter Varina.  Join the conversation on social media: #BNBookClub. Then on Tuesday, 5/5 at 7:00 PM ET, join the author for a virtual #BNBookClub event!   

Our guest today is Elizabeth Wetmore here to discuss Valentine, an astonishing debut novel that explores the lingering effects of a brutal crime on the women of one small Texas oil town in the 1970s. Valentine is our April Discover Pick of the Month. The Discover program finds unforgettable stories from up-and-coming authors. Be the first to know about these amazing new voices!

Our guest this week is Sarah Watson, creator of the hit TV series, The Bold Type.  Sarah joins us to discuss Most Likely, our Barnes & Noble YA Book Club pick, an empowering and heartfelt novel about a future female president's senior year of high school. The Barnes & Noble YA Book Club Edition features a bonus epilogue and a list of book club discussion questions. Be sure to follow us on Instagram @barnesandnoble for more Barnes & Noble YA Book Club news  

Our guest today is Abi Daré here to discuss her debut novel The Girl with the Louding Voice. A powerful, emotional debut novel told in the unforgettable voice of a young Nigerian woman who is trapped in a life of servitude but determined to fight for her dreams and choose her own future. The Girl with the Louding Voice was recently named a Most Anticipated Book of 2020 by the New York Times, Marie Claire, Vogue, Essence, PopSugar, Daily Mail, Electric Literature, Red Magazine, Stylist, Daily Kos, Library Journal, The Every Girl, and Read It Forward!

Our guest today is Therese Anne Fowler, here to talk with us about her latest novel, A Good Neighborhood. Fowler has penned a gripping contemporary novel that examines the American dream through the lens of two families living side by side in an idyllic neighborhood, over the course of one summer that changes their lives irrevocably. Our Barnes & Noble Exclusive Edition of A Good Neighborhood includes a discussion guide and a personal essay from Therese Anne Fowler.

Our guest today is Hillary Mantel, the two-time winner of the Man Booker Prize. Mantel joins us to talk about her latest novel The Mirror & The Light, a triumphant close to the trilogy she began with her peerless, Booker Prize-winning novels, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies.  

Our guest today is non-other than James McBride, author of the National Book Award-winning The Good Lord Bird. James is with us to discuss his latest book Deacon King Kong, a captivating novel about what happens to the witnesses of a shooting in a Brooklyn housing project. Listen in as we go in-depth with James on what it was like to pen Deacon King Kong.  

Our guest today is Erik Larson, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Devil in the White City and Dead Wake joins us to discuss his newest work, The Splendid and The Vile, where he delivers a fresh and compelling portrait of Winston Churchill and London during The Blitz.

Our guest today is Holly Jackson, who joins us to talk about her new YA crime thriller A Good Girl's Guide to Murder. The book plays well for readers of Kara Thomas and Karen McManus, an addictive, twisty crime thriller with shades of Serial and Making a Murderer about a closed local murder case that doesn't add up, and a girl who's determined to find the real killer—but not everyone wants her meddling in the past.  A Good Girl's Guide to Murder has been chosen for our March Barnes & Noble YA Book Club event! Mark your calendars to join us for a discussion on Friday, March 13th at 7:00 PM!

We revisit our podcast interview with celebrated novelist for young readers Jason Reynolds, recently named National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, and the author of Look Both Ways.  He joined B&N's Miwa Messer in our studio on the occasion of his powerful novel Long Way Down.

Lydia Pérez is an ordinary bookseller in Acapulco, Mexico, when an article by her journalist husband makes her family a target for a drug cartel. In an instant, Lydia and her family become migrants, fleeing for their lives. Their story at the center of American Dirt is a powerful and often harrowing story of love, sacrifice, and hope. John Grisham, Stephen King, and Oprah Winfrey are all talking about this timely novel that features an unforgettable mother and son at its heart. Our booksellers can't stop thinking about American Dirt either, which is why we've made it our February 2020 Barnes & Noble Book Club Pick. The author sat down with B&N's Miwa Messer to take us behind the making of this propulsive story.

Our guest today is the novelist Abigail Hing Wen, who joins us to talk about her new YA novel Loveboat, Taipei, a coming-of-age story about taking risks, finding your voice, and discovering yourself in places you never would have predicted. Ever's Chinese-American parents have planned every aspect of her future: but one summer in Taiwan -- a trip they've sprung on their daughter as a not-very-welcome surprise might change everything. The result is an absolutely sparkling story that's based in part on the author's own young experience and a program that's still going on today, and it's B&N's latest YA Book Club selection. Abigail Hing Wen sat down with Bill Tipper in the B&N studio to talk about the real summer-in-Taiwan experience that was the genesis for the story of Loveboat, Taipei.

Our guest on today's episode of the B&N Podcast is the novelist Ann Napolitano, who joins us to talk about her heart-stopping new novel Dear Edward.  When his survival in a terrible accident transforms a twelve-year-old boy's life forever, Edward Adler sets out on a confrontation with challenges both more subtle and more daunting -- grief, confusion, and the strangest kind of fame. We found Ann Napolitano's richly told, emotionally devastating novel one of the most compelling books of the season, and we asked the author to join B&N's Miwa Messer in the studio for a discussion about Dear Edward and how Napolitano brought its characters to vibrant, unforgettable life.

In celebration of some of the most fascinating authors we spoke with in 2019, we're re-sharing our conversation with Pulitzer Prize winning writer Elizabeth Strout, who joined us to talk about her new novel Olive, Again. Since she published her first novel Amy and Isabelle, Elizabeth Strout has been known to readers for her subtle, sidelong portrayals of what Alice Munro, praising Strout's fiction, described as "the bravery and hard choices of what is called ordinary life." Strout's novels have all been populated with brilliantly illuminated characters, but one resident of the fictional town of Crosby, Maine has crackled with an especially powerful charge. The star of Strout's Pultizer winning 2008 novel Olive Kitteridge — an abrasive, unfiltered, and wincingly honest former schoolteacher — proved a voice that echoed in readers' heads long after the last page of that wry and winning story concluded. So Strout's return to Crosby and to this unforgettable personality in novel Olive, Again, has been hailed by readers and critics alike as one of the best things to happen this year. Elizabeth Strout sat down in the B&N Podcast studio earlier this fall for a talk with Bill Tipper about storytelling, overheard conversations, and Olive's triumphant return.

To mark the end of 2019 we're re-sharing some of our favorite conversations from our year in reading. Among the standouts: our chat with Colson Whitehead, the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author of The Underground Railroad , who returned to the B&N Podcast for a conversation about his novel The Nickel Boys. It's a riveting story of injustice, friendship, resistance and survival that turns on the experience of two boys incarcerated in a Florida institution, and its reverberating effects on their lives. Whitehead joined B&N's Miwa Messer for a talk about the true story that was the inspiration for the novel -- a 2019 Barnes & Noble Book Club selection  -- the battle between optimism and pessimism in his own worldview, and how he learns from the characters he brings to life.

Today's episode is a conversation with the prolific, bestselling author Alice Hoffman, who joins us to talk about her engrossing new novel The World That We Knew.  Hoffman is the author of more than thirty works of fiction, including The Rules of Magic, The Marriage of Opposites, Practical Magic, The Red Garden, and 1997's Here on Earth, which was an Oprah's Book Club selection, and she's written multiple works for young adults and children. In her novels Hoffman has drawn boldly on both historical fact and myth, folktale and legend, to create stories in which mystery and magic often suffuse an otherwise familiar world. For The World That We Knew, which follows a group of Jewish refugees struggling to survive and resist the unfolding terror of the Holocaust, Hoffman links ancient traditions of Jewish magic to the stories of hidden children she researched for her book. When she joined us in the studio,  B&N's Bill Tipper asked her to talk about the alchemy of her storytelling, and how she was able to connect the traumas of the 1930s and 40s to tapestry of legends that spans centuries.

In this episode we're so pleased to be joined via phone by the artist and author Charlie Mackesy, whose wonderful new book The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse has just been selected by Barnes & Noble Booksellers as our Book of the Year. Mackesy, who lives and works in the United Kingdom, is a lifelong artist and illustrator whose works in both pen and ink and paint can be found in the British magazine The Spectator and in many books. But when Mackesy posted to Instagram a deceptively simple drawing of a boy atop a large horse, engaged in a dialogue and about courage, the internet took notice, and the artist found his work reaching an audience he'd never expected. That single drawing grew into a charmingly illustrated story in which a young boy and three animals wander through a beautifully rendered English countryside, and talk about life, love, acceptance, and, not to be forgotten, cake. There's a quiet grace about Macksey's work that has found the place in the hearts of readers around the world. Bill Tipper spoke to Mackesy by phone from his home studio, where he told us about the conversations that led to his work, and an unexpected visit from one of his book's wild counterparts.

Today on the podcast we're bringing you a conversation that features the wildest science fiction story in the galaxy -- one that's not been playing out not on television on a movie screen, but on the colorful pages of a comic book since 2012. Aptly named Saga, this expansive and unclassifiable outer space epic, co-created by writer Brian K. Vaughan and artist Fiona Staples, is many things: a story of star-crossed love between warring alien species, a soap opera featuring larger than life scenarios and stranger-than-human characters, a gritty war drama, a political satire, and the coming-of-age of one very special little girl. After 7 years, the series recently reached its halfway point, with the first 54 issues collected in the massive Saga: Compendium One. To mark the occasion, Barnes & Noble editor Joel Cunningham recently sat down with Vaughan to discuss the story’s genesis, his collaborative relationship with Staples, and what the future holds

Our guest on today's episode is the writer, thinker and teacher Michael Eric Dyson, who joins us to talk about his new book Jay-Z: Made in America. Dyson is the author of a wide array of books, including the bestsellers Tears We Cannot Stop and What Truth Sounds Like: Robert F. Kennedy, James Baldwin and Our Unfinished Conversation About Race in America, and has become one of the most incisive and eloquent voices speaking about race and the black experience. And among the subjects he's written about memorably is the poetry and meaning of hip hop, with works on rap superstars like Tupac Shakur advancing our understanding of hiphop as an art form with unparalleled global impact. In his  new book Jay-Z: Made in America, Dyson takes on one of the most influential personalities working not only in hip hop but in business and on the world stage -- he sat down in our studio with Miwa Messer to give us a taste of how he sees this moment in our nation's life through the lyrics and life of an icon.

Our guest today is bestselling writer Bill Bryson, whose books on travel, history and science celebrate our endless curiosity, our drive to discover and understand the mysteries of our world and of the universe itself. Readers followed Bryson's questing intelligence and wry humor in books about explorations like A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail and Notes from a Small Island. With 2003's wildly ambitious A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bryson followed his desire to overcome his dissatisfaction with his own early education in science. The result ranges from the birth of the universe to the evolutionary history of humankind, in under 600 pages.  He's gone on to write about everything from Shakespeare to Jazz Age America, but in his latest book The Body: A Guide for Occupants, Bryson returns to a set of mysteries at once everyday and profoundly elemental. It's an exploration of our inner universe in the company of a guide whose fascination about the secrets of the human organism is utterly infectious -- and as delightfully witty as any of his tales of wandering the globe, as B&N's Bill Tipper found our when he sat down with the author to talk about The Body and the multiple mysteries that lie within.

Welcome back to the B&N podcast. Our guest on today's episode is author, editor, fashion maven, and social media star Eva Chen, who joins us to talk about her latest marvelous book for kids, Juno Valentine and the Fantastic Fashion Adventure. Her career has been nothing short of a fantastic adventure itself, highlighted by her work at Elle and Teen Vogue before she became Lucky magazine's youngest ever editor in chief. She joined the social media platform Instagram in 2015 where she became Head of Fashion Partnerships — and an Insta star in her own right. But she's also a parent, and that experience led her to create picture books starring her young heroine Juno Valentine, whose exploits celebrate self-discovery with a touch of sass and style. Eva Chen joined B&N's Amanda Cecil in our studio to talk about being a late bloomer, literary heroes, and raising readers.

Our guest on today's episode is the novelist Erin Morgenstern, who joins us to talk about her new novel The Starless Sea. Every now and again a writer comes along with a story that seems to want to resist classification — a book that slips between the subjects and genres we tend to slot our fiction into, and there's no better example than Erin Morgenstern's best-selling 2011 debut The Night Circus, in which a deadly contest between two magicians is played out between their talented proteges, who fall in love despite their mentors schemes. Dreamlike, yet firmly grounded in its characters, heartbreaking yet funny, and manifestly unique, The Night Circus defied any classification other than addictive. It's no surprise that readers were eager to learn what its author would choose for her next act, and with The Starless Sea we finally get to return to a world created Morgenstern's thrilling imagination. She joined B&N's Miwa Messer by phone to talk about her new story, in which a strange volume leads a student into a labyrinth of discovery.

Our guest on today's episode of the B&N Podcast is the musician and author Flea, famous as the bassist for the iconic, sometimes outrageous band the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who built a fervent fan base in their Los Angeles hometown before exploding as rock superstars with 1991's Blood Sugar Sex Magik.  He joins us to talk about his new memoir Acid for the Children, a nakedly honest and deeply tender account of his years growing up in 1970s Los Angeles, enamored of both the possibilities of art and the lure of the streets. Acid for the Children chronicles in appropriately electric style the life of a self-described "street kid" who was also a devoted reader and aspiring punk musician. Candid about both the drug use central to the scene and the vital friendships that buoyed him through those years, Flea delivers a true story with an emotional punch that matches its tough-minded revelations.  He joined B&N's Josh Perilo for a conversation about what it meant to revisit a time in his life marked by exuberant excess, joy, and tragedy.

We're joined on today's episode by Lisa Jewell, the author of a host of suspenseful, psychologically twisty novels that include I Found You, The Girls in the Garden, and the New York Times bestseller Then She Was Gone. She's been called "a master of bone-chilling suspense" and she joins us today to talk about her riveting new novel The Family Upstairs, a fascinating story in which a young woman's lifetime quest to discover her real identity turns dark when she finds herself the inheritor of a London mansion with a terrible history. And Libby's story is only one path in the beguiling labyrinth Lisa Jewell leads us down in The Family Upstairs. We were so transfixed by her storytelling that we chose The Family Upstairs as the latest selection in the Barnes & Noble Book Club — and Lisa Jewell joined B&N's Miwa Messer by phone to talk about the creation of this enthralling tale.

Happy Halloween! On today's episode of the B&N Podcast we're joined by the novelist and filmmaker Stephen Chbosky, for a conversation about his spine-tingling new novel Imaginary Friend. Many readers and moviegoers alike know Chbosky as the author of the acclaimed coming-of-age story The Perks of Being a Wallflower, a novel whose early devoted audience grew substantially following Chbosky's deft and memorable 2012 film adaptation of his own work starring Emma Watson and Ezra Miller. His long-awaited second work of fiction is now finally here: Imaginary Friend is the story of a seven year old boy named Christopher and his mother Kate, their arrival in a small town with a strange past, and what happens when Christopher disappears into the woods for nearly a week — only to return terribly changed, and obsessed with the knowledge that the fate of the world is in his hands. The chilling tale that follows takes in the secret lives and hidden shames of a community, a cosmic clash between mysterious forces, and the deep love between parent and child. We spoke to Stephen Chbosky in our podcast studio about his excursion into nightmare, and what drove him there.

Our guest on today's episode is the bestselling, Pulitzer Prize winning writer Elizabeth Strout, who joins us to talk about her new novel Olive, Again. Since she published her first novel Amy and Isabelle, Elizabeth Strout has been known to readers for her subtle, sidelong portrayals of what Alice Munro, praising Strout's fiction, described as "the bravery and hard choices of what is called ordinary life." Strout's novels like Amy and Isabelle, My Name is Lucy Barton and Anything Can Happen have all been populated with brilliantly illuminated characters, but one resident of the fictional town of Crosby, Maine has crackled with an especially powerful charge. The star of Strout's Pultizer winning 2008 novel Olive Kitteridge — an abrasive, unfiltered, and wincingly honest former schoolteacher — proved a voice that echoed in readers' heads long after the last page of that wry and winning story concluded. So Strout's return to Crosby and to this unforgettable personality in her latest novel Olive, Again, has been hailed by readers and critics alike as one of the best things to happen this year. We were lucky enough to get Elizabeth Strout in the B&N Podcast studio for a talk about storytelling, overheard conversations, and Olive's triumphant return.

With Halloween only a few days away we're thrilled that our guest on this episode is the writer Joe Hill, here to talk about his engrossing and often hair-raising new collection Full Throttle. Two of the short stories included here were written in collaboration with his father, Stephen King, but Full Throttle's range of invention shows that the author of bestsellers like NOS4A2, The Fireman, and Horns works from a spell book of his own devising. From a tale that fuses big-game hunting with a classic work of fantasy to a story that draws us into a diabolic circus via the means of an all too familiar social media app, the stories of Full Throttle offer pleasures heartfelt and horrifying in equal measure. Hill prefaces Full Throttle with a marvelous introduction that stands as a great story of its own, a story of Hill's experience growing up as a writer in an extraordinary family, and with an extraordinary literary force as a father and mentor. When he joined us in the studio, we talked about his journey as a writer, and the obsessions behind these fantastic dark tales.

Our guest on today's episode is celebrated poet and memoirist Saeed Jones, who joins us to talk about his new book How We Fight for Our Lives. The author of the award-winning poetry collection Prelude to a Bruise, Jones has made wry, cutting and often laugh out loud hilarious commentary on contemporary culture his hallmark on Twitter and in online venues like Buzzfeed's beloved AM to DM web series, which he launched with co-host Isaac Fitzgerald in 2017. In How We Fight for Our Lives, Jones delivers a revelatory, incendiary, page-turning true story: it's both a richly rendered portrait of the artist as a young man growing up gay and black in 1980s Texas, and a chronicle of confrontation with deadly challenges that emerge from both within and without. One of the most keenly anticipated books of the fall, How to Fight for Our Lives is a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, and Miwa Messer, Director of the Discover program, spoke to author via phone recently about what it meant to put his story down on paper.

Today's guest has turned thousands of 21st century kids into passionate, intensely knowledgable fans of ancient mythologies. When Rick Riordan published The Lightning Thief in 2008, his story of modern tweens magically connected to a hidden world of gods and monsters taken from Greek myths was an instant sensation — but it was no flash in the pan. Across multiple blockbuster series including Percy Jackson and the Olympians, the Kane Chronicles and Magnus Chase, Riordan has taken his fans on thrill rides through fantasy worlds that draw up on Greek, Roman, Egyptian and Norse mythos, mixing anachronistic humor and page-turning thrills to make figures from Poseidon to Loki come alive as friends or foes to his young adventurers. In his latest series, The Trials of Apollo, Riordan has taken a fresh twist, following the travails of a god trapped in a human body. Book four in the series, The Tyrant's Tomb, is just out, and Riordan joined B&N's Melissa Albert — who frequently hosts our YA podcast — to talk about his new book and his groundbreaking new imprint Rick Riordan Presents, which has tapped authors from diverse backgrounds to tell stories from myth traditions around the world.

We're joined on this episode of the B&N podcast by Julie Andrews and her daughter and co-author Emma Walton Hamilton, for a conversation about Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years. Julie Andrews is the sort of guest for whom the phrase "needs no introduction" was invented, but here's one thing worth mentioning at the start: if you didn't know that the singer, actor and Academy Award-winning star of Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music, Victor/Victoria and many other films was also the author of an absolutely wonderful memoir of growing up singing and traveling the vaudeville circuit in postwar Britain, do yourself a favor and go and get her 2008 memoir Home. But in the meantime, you can savor the wealth of stories in Home Work, which brings us in just as Andrews, a young mother and stage star, arrives in Hollywood, ready to start her career in movies with Walt Disney and Mary Poppins. It's a scintillating story that unfolds not just Andrews' fascinating career and often tumultuous family life, but a keen observer's inside view of moviemaking on some cinematically legendary sets. B&N's Bill Tipper had the chance to speak with Julie Andrews and Emma Walton Hamilton together via phone, and he wanted to know what it was like to work both as mother and daughter, and co-authors of this splendid true story.

Our guest on today's episode is the award-winning writer Kate DiCamillo, whose books include contemporary classics like Because of Winn Dixie, The Tale of Despereaux, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane and Flora and Ulysses. DiCamillo is one of a handful of writers to win American Library Association's prestigious Newbery Medal twice, and in 2104 was named National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. DiCamillo writes books for young readers across many age ranges, and she's the rare writer who can both sweep a family away into a world of fantasy, like that inhabited by the mouse Despereaux, or precisely render an American small town like the Naomi, Florida of Because of Winn-Dixie. Her new novel Beverly, Right Here is the story of a young girl who sets out in search of a new life, and it's part of a triptych of moving, funny and absolutely memorable stories set in the small-town south that began with Raymie Nightingale and continued with Louisiana's Way Home. Kate DiCamillo joined B&N's Bill Tipper in the studio for a talk about the experiences that became the wellsprings of her fictional worlds.

Our guest on today's episode of the B&N Podcast is the journalist and bestselling author Shea Serrano, whose unconventional, hilarious and insightful works put the writer's obsessions with sports, movies, and music into a dialogue with big issues like race, class, gender — who gets to take center stage and who wields cultural power. In books like The Rap Year Book and Basketball (and Other Things), Serrano proved that when you're in the hands of the right writer, a subject can come alive for super fans and newbies alike. Serrano is back with Movies (and Other Things), in which he takes on everything from defining the Mean Girls expanded universe to what it means for marginalized people to see themselves represented on screen. He sat down just before the book's publication with B&N's Miwa Messer for a wide-ranging conversation about the movie moments he loves — and why they matter.

Today's guest is the bestselling writer Leigh Bardugo, whose works of boldly imagined and intricately plotted fantasy like Shadow and Bone, Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom have made her one of the superstars of YA fiction — and now she's expanding her territory in her new novel for adults with Ninth House. In Bardugo's Grishaverse novels the author has rewritten the templates for 21st-century fantasy, building worlds inspired by Tsarist Russia and the 17th-century Dutch Republic, and weaving quite modern, witty stories of espionage and crime into tales of sorcery and myth. To the delight of her fans, Netflix has announced that a new series based on Shadow and Bone and Six of Crows is about to begin filming. But the author has fresh wonders in store: Ninth House retains Bardugo's gift for fantasy and magic but departs from YA and sojourns into a version of our world. It's a darkly conceived world of Ivy League secrets, power, privilege, and yes, magic. Bardugo joins B&N's Miwa Messer by phone to talk about mixing fantasy with real-world issues in Ninth House.

On this episode of the B&N Podcast we're bringing you our final installment of our special podcast series King of the Dark, one devoted to a project that has been woven through most of Stephen King's career, the multi-volume fantasy epic The Dark Tower. The Dark Tower began with King's 1982 novel The Gunslinger, and unfolded over the course of seven numbered books and 22 years, a sprawling saga of wild west outlaws and powerful sorcery, of a quest through ages and a tower that spans universes. That would be a massive creation for any author, but King's Dark Tower is unique in that it's a world that keeps bleeding into and crossing over with his other stories in ways large and small, so that the Dark Tower's Mid-World begins to look like a secret network of passageways that interlink King's entire body of work. Liz Braswell, Louis Peitzman and Bill Tipper are joined for this conversation by B&N Science Fiction and Fantasy blog editor Joel Cunningham, who has spent more time in the Dark Tower world than any of the rest of us.

Our guest on the B&N podcast today is none other than Queer Eye star Jonathan Van Ness.  Van Ness's brand new new memoir is titled Over the Top and that title resonates with the dramatic, witty, and scene-stealing persona that fans of the show have come to know — but it's the subtitle, A Raw Journey to Self-Love — that really says volumes about this engaging and revealing new book. Van Ness charts the tumultuous course of a life growing up in a small town, navigating the world of a queer teen without role models, and finding a way forward — first as a hairstylist, and then as a performer, comedian, podcast host and TV star. In Over the Top, Van Ness is absolutely candid about abuse and addiction and talks openly about living with HIV — it's a book that's dead set against a culture of silence and shame about the facts of life. And when Jonathan Van Ness joined us in the studio — just as Over the Top was being published — he was just as forthcoming in person as he is on the page.

The Testaments is Margaret Atwood's long-awaited return to the world and characters of her 1985 classic The Handmaid's Tale, a dystopian novel set in a fictional near-future theocracy called Gilead, a nation in which religious fundamentalists wield absolute power, and which organizes itself chiefly around the subjugation of women. Atwood's literary career has been among the most prolific and wide-ranging among novelists of her generation — a short sampling of her notable works includes Cat's Eye, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, The Robber Bride and the MaddAddam Trilogy — The Handmaid's Tale and the story of its narrator Offred has resonated with readers through decades. It's acquired a fresh generation of readers since becoming the basis for a television adaptation on the streaming platform Hulu. So it's no exaggeration to say that readers worldwide were exultant to learn that this fall Atwood would return to Gilead and to some of its characters in her new novel The Testaments. And the resulting book is no disappointment, a story of intrigue and struggle to survive that both reflects our fears for how close our future might be to the dangers Atwood signals — and offers a vision of the humanity that is not only capable of endurance, but resistance. Atwood spoke with B&N's Miwa Messer about what it meant to return to the dark and compelling world she's brought into life in a book we've been thrilled to name a Barnes & Noble Book Club selection.

On this episode of King of the Dark, Louis Peitzman, Liz Braswell and Bill Tipper turn from the grand scale of Stephen King's dark epics to the supremely concentrated pleasures of his short fiction. King has published over 200 works of short fiction, most of which have been collected in volumes including Night Shift, Skeleton Crew, Everything's Eventual and others. In many of these — especially some of the earlier stories collected in Night Shift and Skeleton Crew — the master is at his elemental best, spinning tales that take just a few pages to cast a spell that lasts long after the short, sharp shock of the ending has been delivered. So we decided it was time to devote an episode to the glorious — and some times a little gory — work in miniature that is the classic King short story.

Today our guest is the spellbinding storyteller Ann Patchett, joining  us to talk about her new novel The Dutch House.  Patchett is the author of a treasure trove of fiction including 2011's State of Wonder, and 2016's Commonwealth, but she may be most widely known for her award-winning 2002 novel Bel Canto, which crafted a symphonic and deeply humane multi-character story amid an embassy hostage crisis.  She's also the author of the widely lauded memoir Truth and Beauty, a wide-ranging essayist, and a bookseller, the co-founder of Parnassus Books in Nashville, where she lives.  In The Dutch House, Patchett plunges readers into the story of Danny and Maeve, a brother and sister whose lives are bound up in the memory of the house they once lived in and the splintering of their family. Patchett joined B&N's Miwa Messer by phone to talk about composing on her feet, sibling bonds, and what it means to find a home.

Welcome to episode fifteen of King of the Dark, our special series on the B&N Podcast devoted to the worlds of Stephen King. It's big week for us — Louis Peitzman, Liz Braswell and Bill Tipper started with King's 1974 bestseller Carrie and now we've arrived at his latest novel, The Institute, which was published just last week, on September 10th. It's a story packed with themes that will be familiar to King's fans — the story concerns a group of children who possess psychic talents, a drifter who finds a fresh start in a small town, and a government conspiracy willing to stop at nothing. But it's also about kids banding together against grotesque forces, about uncertain journeys across America, the ease with which the powerful exploit human weakness, and the unheralded strength in the bonds of friendship, shot through with humor, horror, incredible tension and an eye for workaday cruelties and unexpected moments of beauty. In other words, vintage Stephen King. A quick warning: Spoilers Ahead! If you haven't read The Institute yet, definitely pause and devour before listening.

Our guest on this episode is author and cartoonist Randall Munroe, author of the new book How To: Absurd Advice for Common Real-World Problems. Munroe became an internet legend via his webcomic XKCD, a daily feature published since 2005 in which a cast of stick figures take on the conundrums of 21st-century living via a mixture of scientific analysis, wry humor, and absolutely unpredictable creativity. It's inspired flash mobs, taught lessons in radiation exposure and password security, and coined the immortal phrase "someone is wrong on the internet." Munroe's scientific background is no joke — he's a former NASA roboticist — and he became a bestselling author in 2014 with his book What If, which used science to answer readers' wild questions like "could you make a jetpack out of machine guns." In How To, Munroe applies science to the everyday — but uses Rube Goldberg concepts to find the most unnecessarily complicated, difficult, and expensive way to do everything from charging your phone to making friends. But as he explains to B&N's Bill Tipper sometimes it's the long way around that gets you where you need to go.

Welcome back to King of the Dark, our special series on the B&N Podcast, a journey through the gloriously shadowy fiction of Stephen King. On today's episode, we're not quite caught up to the author's brand new release The Institute — we'll be talking about that one next week. This week, we're looking at 2013's Doctor Sleep — a marvelous novel that is both a sequel to his classic The Shining and a bewitching tale all on its own. Danny Torrance, the psychically gifted little boy of The Shining, is now an adult, tormented by some of the same addictions that plagued his father, but working to fight his demons in every sense of the word. Dan uses his abilities — his Shining, you might recall — is to help the dying find peace, but when he meets a young girl named Abra with talents like his, he also discovers the plot of a terrifying secret society called The True Knot — and they have plans for Abra and all children like her. If you didn't think that The Shining would lead us to a page-turning thriller about psychic vampires, alcoholism and recovery, and one of the most compelling villains ever to put on a top hat, well, when did Stephen King ever fail to surprise?