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The Book Show
Tuesdays, 3-3:30 p.m.; Thursdays, 8:30-9 p.m

Each week on The Book Show, host Joe Donahue interviews authors about their books, their lives and their craft. It is a celebration of both reading and writers. Joe holds interesting conversations with a variety of authors including Malcolm Gladwell, Lawrence Wright, and Emily St. John Mandel.

As the son of a librarian, Joe has been part of the book world since childhood. His first job was as a library assistant, during college he was a clerk at an independent book store and for the past 25 years he has been interviewing authors about their books on the radio.

He is also the host of The Roundtable on WAMC Northeast Public Radio, a 3-hour general interest talk show. Notable authors he has interviewed include: Kurt Vonnegut, John Irving, John Updike, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Arthur Miller, Stephen King, Amy Tan, Anne Rice, Philip Roth, E.L Doctorow, Richard Russo, David Sedaris and Maya Angelou.

Joe has won several awards for his interviews, including honors from the Associated Press, the Edward R. Murrow Awards, the New York State Association of Broadcasters, The Headliners, The National Press Club and the Scripps-Howard Foundation.

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Latest Episodes
  • Louise Erdrich, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of 'The Night Watchman,' returns with 'Python’s Kiss,' a new story collection that blends the everyday with the uncanny. Spanning decades, these stories explore love, loss, and the porous boundary between worlds.
  • Novelist Emma Straub’s new novel, ‘American Fantasy,’ is set aboard a nostalgic cruise devoted to a 1990s boy band. At its center is Annie, newly divorced and searching for direction, as music, memory, and unexpected connections reshape her sense of who she is - and who she might become.
  • Ani DiFranco has spent more than three decades redefining what it means to be an independent artist. A Grammy-winning singer-songwriter, poet, and activist, her new book, ‘The Spirit of Ani: Reflections on Spirituality, Feminism, Music, and Freedom,’ extends that voice into a deeply personal and philosophical space.
  • Tayari Jones’s fiction, including her previous novel, ‘An American Marriage,’ confronts the deepest questions of love, identity and belonging with a rare combination of lyrical grace and moral clarity. Her new novel, ‘Kin,’ is tale of two girls born in the segregated South and how they journey from home and back.
  • Best-Selling Author Anna Quindlen’s latest novel, ‘More Than Enough,’ centers on Polly Goodman, a high-school English teacher whose closest confidants are the women in her book club. When the group jokingly gives Polly a DNA ancestry test, the results uncover an unexpected family connection that raises new questions about her past.
  • Lauren Groff has long been one of the most daring and emotionally precise writers working today. Her new collection, ‘Brawler,’ returns her to the short story with a set of fierce, searching narratives about people pushed to their limits.
  • C.J. Box has carved out a singular place in contemporary American fiction, blending mystery and the mythic landscapes of the West with characters rooted in moral complexity. His latest novel ‘The Crossroads,’ game warden Joe Pickett is discovered shot and near death while his family seeks justice.
  • Journalist Eugene Robinson has spent decades chronicling American democracy. In his new book, 'Freedom Lost, Freedom Won,' Robinson blends sweeping history with personal narrative, grounding the national struggle for civil rights in his own family’s story.