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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The Times calls Booker Prize winning writer Anne Enright one of our greatest living novelists. Her latest, “The Wren, The Wren” is about a dead poet’s daughter and granddaughter coming to terms with his troubling legacy. Enright’s novel about language and connection explores the inheritance of trauma, wonder, and love across three generations of women. -
John Irving has written some of the most acclaimed books of our time, among them: “The World According to Garp,” “A Widow for One Year,” “A Prayer for Owen Meany” and “The Cider House Rules.” He now returns with his first novel in seven years “The Last Chairlift.” -
Esmeralda Santiago is the award-winning, best-selling author of “When I Was Puerto Rican.” Her latest, “Las Madres,” is a powerful novel of family, race, faith, sex, and disaster that moves between Puerto Rico and the Bronx, revealing the lives and loves of five women and the secret that binds them together. -
National Book Award Winner James McBride’s new novel, “The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store,” is rooted in small-town secrets as the residents of rundown Chicken Hill in Pottstown, Pennsylvania live with compassion on the margins of society. -
Lauren Groff is a three-time National Book Award finalist and New York Times bestselling author. Her new novel, “The Vaster Wilds,” is at once an adventure story and a penetrating fable about trying to find a new way of living in a world succumbing to the churn of colonialism. It tells the story of America in miniature, through one girl at a hinge point in history. -
"The House in the Pines" is a new psychological thriller from Ana Reyes. We follow Maya, a young woman who only has hazy memories about the most traumatic moment in her life – witnessing the mysterious death of her best friend – and feels the desperation to hide from and eventually fight for long-buried answers. This episode was recorded live at The Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield, Massachusetts on May 13, 2023. -
Best-selling author and naturalist Peter Heller’s new novel, “The Last Ranger,” tells of an enforcement ranger in Yellowstone National Park who likes wolves better than most people. When a clandestine range war threatens his closest friend, he must shake off his own losses and act swiftly to discover the truth and stay alive. -
Lorrie Moore is one of the most celebrated living writers in the United States. Her new novel, “I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home,” is her first in 14 years and is an exploration of love and death, passion and grief where a man takes a road trip with the corpse of his dead ex-lover. -
Pulitzer-Prize winning author Richard Russo’s new novel, “Somebody's Fool,” returns to North Bath in upstate New York and to the characters that captured the hearts and imaginations of millions of readers in his beloved best sellers “Nobody’s Fool” and “Everybody’s Fool.” -
Ann Patchett is the author of nine novels, including “Bel Canto,” “State of Wonder,” “Commonwealth” and “The Dutch House,” a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her latest, “Tom Lake,” is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born.
