Shows / The Book Case
The Book Case
Are you stuck in a reading rut? The Book Case makes the case for books outside of your usual genre. Wander the aisles of your local bookstore with Kate and Charlie Gibson and meet fascinating characters who will open your appetite to new categories while deepening your hunger for books. This weekly series will journey cover to cover through the literary world, featuring interviews with best-selling authors, tastemakers, and independent bookstore owners. New episodes post every Thursday…
Episodes
- The Book Case
Kathy Wang Believes in Satisfaction
Kathy Wang’s newest, The Satisfaction Café is the story of Joan Laing, her compromises, her victories, her loves and her loneliness. In this memorable story…
- The Book Case
Our Writer in Residence Finishes His First Draft
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 since he started…
- The Book Case
Classics Series: Invisible Man
Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man is a feverishly paced, lyrical portrait of an unnamed African American man in the 1930’s. Hauntingly beautiful and raw, this book…
- The Book Case
Adriana Trigiani’s Romance with Italy
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 role in…
- The Book Case
Stacey Abrams Makes AI a Murder Suspect
Stacey Abrams is a prolific figure in American history. And although her bread and butter come from political organization and practicing law, a lot of her…
- The Book Case
Dennard Dayle Writes Some Serious Satire
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 Dodge a…
- The Book Case
Sophie Elmhirst Takes Us to Sea
Sophie Elmhirst has done something extraordinary. In her new book, Marriage at Sea, she rediscovers and adds new mystery to the true story of Maurice and…
- The Book Case
Chris Chibnall Masters the Mystery
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 at the White…
- The Book Case
Classics Series: To Kill a Mockingbird
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 public’s love? Is…
- The Book Case
Two Amazing Booksellers
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 conversations!…
- The Book Case
Jess Walter is So Far Gone
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 have gone…
- The Book Case
Andrew Porter Writes a Family Story
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 ago…
- The Book Case
Our Writer in Residence Talks Endings
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 goals as he…
- The Book Case
Dave Barry Was And Is The Class Clown
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 Professional…
- The Book Case
Richard Russo Talks Life and Art
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, Life and…
- The Book Case
Jemimah Wei is the GMA Book Club Pick!
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 drama, but it…
- The Book Case
We Get a Little Deeper with David K. Shipler
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 about the…
- The Book Case
David K. Shipler Interprets Interpreters
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 over…
- The Book Case
Niall Williams and Christine Breen: The Director's Cut
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 Williams…
- The Book Case
Harlan Coben Writes Like It’s His Job
Harlan Coben has authored close to 40 books with some seriously good writing. His latest, Nobody’s Fool, takes a detective from an already existing book and TV…
- The Book Case
Two Great Summer Reads Arrive in Spring
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 comic novel, All the…
- The Book Case
Colum McCann And his Twist on Great Literature
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. Sound dull?…
- The Book Case
Kaveh Akbar and Tommy Orange: The Author Friendship
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 interviewed…
- The Book Case
Curtis Sittenfeld Tells Great Stories
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. Case in point…
- The Book Case
The Great Gatsby is Still Great
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 Christmas…
- The Book Case
Geraldine Brooks Honors Her Husband
Geraldine Brooks' latest, Memorial Days, is a deeply personal memoir about the sudden loss of her husband Tony Horowitz. In this beautiful and deeply felt…
- The Book Case
Jeffrey Toobin Examines The Presidential Pardon
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 Presidential Mercy…
- The Book Case
Jeff Hobbs is a Non-Fiction Storyteller
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 difficult…
- The Book Case
Jessica Soffer Tells Us a Love Story
This is a Love Story by Jessica Soffer sees love’s complexities, beauties; its selfishness, difficulties, and maddening passions. Jessica Soffer tells us the…
- The Book Case
Adam Haslett Examines Mothers & Sons
Adam Haslett’s new novel, Mothers & Sons is a brilliant book examining the relationships between mothers and sons from all sorts of angles. The story of Peter…
- The Book Case
Samantha Harvey Goes Orbital
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 prestigious than…
- The Book Case
Scott Turow Revisits Old Friend Rusty Sabitch
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, his best…
- The Book Case
Karissa Chen Brings Us A Chinese Love Story
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 story between…
- The Book Case
We Explore How to Write a Book
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 technique…
- The Book Case
A Christmas Carol Still Haunts Readers
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 time talking…
- The Book Case
Susan Rieger and Surviving Your Mother
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, has so many…
- The Book Case
Delia Ephron Takes Broadway
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 marrow…
- The Book Case
Louise Penny Reflects on Her Process
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 as she…
- The Book Case
Louise Penny Stalks The Grey Wolf
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 shamefully new…
- The Book Case
Niall Williams is Magic
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, kind neighbors…
- The Book Case
Ann Patchett Reads AND Writes
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 wrap our…
- The Book Case
Ann Patchett Revisits Bel Canto
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 (although…
- The Book Case
Danzy Senna Creates Worlds She Wants to See
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, pain and…
- The Book Case
Dwayne Betts Is Proof That A Book Can Change Your Life
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 has…
- The Book Case
Paula Hawkins is a Mystery Master
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 author who…
- The Book Case
Richard Osman Begins a New Series
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 picture…
- The Book Case
Wright Thompson Investigates His Home State
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 book “The Barn…
- The Book Case
Katherine Rundell Believes in Children’s Lit
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 Rundell. Her…
- The Book Case
Elizabeth Strout Unites Beloved Characters
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, then you…
- The Book Case
Spoken Word Poets Write Their Catharsis
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 there we…
- The Book Case
Dr. Fei-Fei Li Explains AI
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 Intelligence…
- The Book Case
Jodi Picoult Envisions A Woman Behind Shakespeare's Work
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 make the best…
- The Book Case
Emily Nussbaum Explains Why We Should Take Reality TV Seriously
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. Enter Cue the…
- The Book Case
Evan Friss Traces the History of American Bookstores
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 American…
- The Book Case
Whoopi Goldberg Hails Her First Loves
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 woman herself…
- The Book Case
Ben Shattuck's Short Stories Span Time and History
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 provoking and…
- The Book Case
Hope Jahren Expands on Mark Twain
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’s book…
- The Book Case
J. Ryan Stradal Tackles His Next Novel
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 about his…
- The Book Case
Rachel Khong Asks, 'Who Is A Real American?'
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 America’s…
- The Book Case
Joseph Kanon Conjures WWII Shanghai
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 Kanon. His…