Authors on Audio: Nat Segaloff
A longtime journalist, producer, and publicist, Nat Segaloff is also the author of more than 30 books, including The Naughty Bits: What the Censors Wouldn’t Let You See in Hollywood’s Most Famous Movies, The Exorcist Legacy: 50 Years of Fear, and Breaking the Code: Otto Preminger Versus Hollywood’s Censors. His…
Beings: A Novel
M.L. Mallow in Conversation with Jean Flanagan
During this free event, Mike (M.L.) Mallow will discuss his new book, A Ghost Chases the Horizon, an Appalachian gothic thriller set in and around the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, West Virginia. A native of Pendleton County, WV, now living in Minnesota, Mike is traveling “back home” for this…
John Candy: A Life in Comedy
Gish Jen is finally ready to talk about her mother. In Bad Bad Girl, titled for her mother’s recurring scolding, Jen traces a fictionalized version of her mother’s life from childhood to leaving Shanghai as the Chinese Communist Party takes power to immigrating to New York as a graduate student…
Appraising Information in the Cybersphere, Pt. I
The visuals accompanying articles, blogs, ads, and instructional manuals on AI always seem to look the same: There’s a disembodied brain or a white, translucent cyber-mannequin head. The head is often androgynous, but its features are always Anglo. The background is a soothing aqua, blue-green, or blue. There are thin…
Children’s Book Roundup: October 2025
Bob the Vampire Snail by Andrea Zuill (Random House Studio). “Did you know that all snails are named Bob? It’s true! They feel that having the same name helps keep their lives simple. Snails like a straightforward, bland, uncomplicated life.” And that goes for this particular Bob, too, a slimy,…
Born Equal: Remaking America’s Constitution, 1840-1920
Born Equal: Remaking America’s Constitution, 1840-1920
Julia Ioffe in Conversation with Sabrina Tavernise
In 1990, 7-year-old Julia Ioffe and her family fled the Soviet Union. Nearly 20 years later, Ioffe returned to Moscow — only to discover just how much Russian society had changed while she had been living in America. The Soviet women she had known growing up — doctors, engineers, scientists…
Season of the Swamp
No Road Leading Back
Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It by Cory Doctorow (MCD). Reviewed by William Rice. “The phenomenon Doctorow so rudely but effectively describes is the tightening profit squeeze on everyone who interacts with Apple, Meta, Google, Microsoft, and our other few corporate overlords. The inescapable…
The Durrells: The Story of a Family
The Durrells: The Story of a Family
Nightmare on H Street: A Horror-Writing Workshop
Join DC Horror Book Club to try out new prompts and techniques to give your writing a spooky spin. Writers of all skill levels will be able to explore different forms and horror-related subjects that will keep your spine chilling. All participants will have the opportunity to sign up for…
Artificial intelligence is enjoying a moment, so much so that there’s already a backlash claiming the market fervor is overblown and investors are headed for a disappointment. It’s no surprise, then, that mystery writer Jo Callaghan has come out with a character named Lock, an artificially intelligent detecting entity, or…
Elizabeth Knapp’s newest collection is a powerful example of contemporary poetry’s ability to reckon with political, personal, and collective disruption. Given the translation of the book’s title, Causa Sui, Latin for “self-caused,” one can almost hear the echo of Radiohead’s song “Just” playing as the background score to all these…
Martha’s Daughter: A Novella and Stories
Martha’s Daughter: A Novella and Stories
The Shape of Wonder: How Scientists Think, Work, and Live
The Shape of Wonder: How Scientists Think, Work, and Live
In 2025, choosing to study literature, philosophy, and the arts is a radical act. In a world intoxicated by instantaneous AI output and endless swipes, immersing yourself in human-generated texts and thoughts isn’t an antiquarian pursuit; it’s an act of defiance. In his 1865 essay “The Function of Criticism at…
The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother): A Novel
The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother): A Novel
An Interview with Richard Simon
Richard Simon directs website strategy at Georgetown Law, so he’s no technophobe. Yet when he realized that his cellphone was ruling his life, he turned it off…for a year. In his new book, Unplug: How to Break Up With Your Phone and Reclaim Your Life, Simon tells his own story…
Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It
Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It
I’ve been thinking lately about what the world was like before humans arrived, and what it’ll be like after we’re gone — assuming the planet is fortunate enough to survive the Anthropocene. Maybe, I’ve mused while watching vines trailing determinedly every which way around a manmade obstacle, the end of…
When the Personal and the Political Intersect
In the lead-up to the publication of my novel, Restitution, I’ve had lots of practice telling people what the book is about. By now, I can rattle it off. “As kids in Central Illinois, Kate and Martin were never told much about their mother’s East German childhood. Decades later, when…
Meet James Workman and Amanda Leland
Sea Change is the captivating, deeply-human tale of how fishermen — along with some unlikely allies — helped carry out the biggest conservation success story you’ve never heard of. Exploring a victory for the world’s most vital ecosystem, Sea Change tells the story of unlikely partnerships and surprising solutions that…
The Position of Spoons
History Matters by David McCullough; edited by Dorie McCullough Lawson and Michael Hill (Simon & Schuster). Reviewed by Kitty Kelley. “In this short book, McCullough advises anyone who wants to be an author to write four pages a day, every day. He stresses doing research: If writing a biography, walk…
John Lewis
Ghosted: A History of Ghost Hunting, and Why We Keep Looking
Ghosted: A History of Ghost Hunting, and Why We Keep Looking
Karen Palmer in Conversation with Erin Palmer
“Once upon a time, I disappeared.” So begins Karen Palmer’s harrowing and redemptive memoir, She’s Under Here. In 1989, shortly after her second marriage, Palmer and her new husband quit their jobs without notice. They pulled her two young daughters out of school and buckled them into the rear seat…
What We Can Know: A Novel
The train from Malmö Central Station whisked us across the span of the Öresund Bridge. The Bron, eight kilometers long, carrying cars above and trains below, makes it easy and beautiful to cross the sound, the marine border between Sweden and Denmark. On fine days, sailboats dot sparkling water. We…
Percival Everett to Headline the F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Festival
The F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Festival is in its 30th year of not only honoring authorial talent, but bringing that talent to Maryland. The festival, which happens mainly on Saturday, October 18th, at Montgomery College in Rockville, will feature Percival Everett, recipient of the 2025 F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for…
Deadwood: Gold, Guns, and Greed in the American West
Deadwood: Gold, Guns, and Greed in the American West
Authors on Audio: A Conversation with Mark K. Updegrove
Mark K. Updegrove, president and CEO of the LBJ Foundation and presidential historian for ABC News, is also the author of multiple books, including Incomparable Grace: JFK in the Presidency and The Last Republicans: Inside the Extraordinary Relationship Between George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. His latest work is…
An Interview with Ren Cedar Fuller
Writer and educator Ren Cedar Fuller has championed diversity throughout her career. Her debut essay collection, Bigger, explores all the ways her family is quirky and how those idiosyncrasies have expanded her world. Fuller’s father was neurodiverse, her child came out as trans, and Alzheimer’s seemed to carry her mother…
Muscle Man: A Novel
I don’t usually write in coffee shops. Still, here I am in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, under a sign that says, “Thanks to Rev. Bob ‘The Soul Man’ Fairfax Coffee House is Soul-Powered!” Indie pop music sprinkles through the speakers overhead, and a mom repeats to her school-age daughter that…
As we’ve said many times — and have tried to demonstrate via our recurring “And the Banned Played On” feature — we’re big believers in the freedom (nay, the right) to read widely and deeply. And so, in honor of Banned Books Week 2025, we invite you to do some…
History Matters
Join Arlington Public Library for a presentation with Mike Curato and discuss topics such as banned books and censorship. Curato is an author and illustrator of picture books and graphic novels. His highly acclaimed and 2024 Top Ten Challenged Book debut young adult graphic novel, Flamer, was awarded the Lambda…
American Scary
Hot Desk: A Novel by Laura Dickerman (Gallery Books). Reviewed by Kristin H. Macomber. “Dickerman sets her novel in motion with this not-quite-meet-cute-waiting-to-happen scenario. So, yes, Hot Desk checks the rom-com box. But truth be told, the author’s opening chapters only scratch the surface of the multilayered narrative to come.…
To Overthrow the World
It’s spooky season! There’s something magical about October that I can’t resist — fall has finally, truly arrived, the leaves are changing, and I feel an irresistible pull to spend cozy nights curled up with a good book. It’s the all-too-brief lull before the hectic holiday season, the perfect time…
Our 7 Most Favorable Reviews in September 2025
Sunburn: A Novel by Chloe Michelle Howarth (Melville House). Reviewed by Madeleine de Visé. “I’ve devoured this novel twice now — when it first came out in 2023 and then again in its American reprint. It’s late summer, my shoulders are peeling, and I’m pressing flowers between the pages of…
The Unbroken Coast: A Novel
Our 5 Most Popular Posts: September 2025
William Schwartz’s review of The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces by Seth Harp (Viking). “The United States government has long asserted that the Taliban actually funded itself via opium. This explanation was necessary not only to justify America’s continuing operations in Afghanistan, but also…
For the Sun After Long Nights: The Story of Iran’s Women-Led Uprising
For the Sun After Long Nights: The Story of Iran’s Women-Led Uprising
Archipelago
Loneliness is all too prevalent in our modern world, but Silent Book Club (SBC) is fighting back by helping people connect over a shared love of reading. To celebrate its 10th anniversary, the SBC is planning a global readathon on October 10th-12th. The event will bring together the worldwide community…
Jennifer Anne Moses in Conversation with Susan Crawford
Sometimes hilarious, sometimes sad, and always compelling, the stories in this collection explore the many manifestations of being Jewish in a modern and largely secular world. Jennifer Anne Moses creates characters, mostly American, who are struggling with love, relationships, faith, tradition, and, most of all, family and the ties that…
The Improbable Victoria Woodhull: Suffrage, Free Love, and the First Woman to Run for President
The Improbable Victoria Woodhull: Suffrage, Free Love, and the First Woman to Run for President
An Interview with John Patrick Higgins
I first met John Patrick Higgins three years ago in a cozy Dublin pub, where a handful of writers had gathered for pints of Guinness. He turned out to be a very amusing drinking companion who kept me laughing like a deranged gibbon for two solid hours. John’s been very…
Hot Desk: A Novel
Banned Books Week (Oct. 5-11) aims to rally defenders of free speech despite the heavy hands being laid on those with controversial opinions by the government, businesses, and so-called community leaders. On Monday, October 6, at 7 p.m., the DMV chapter of the Authors Guild will sponsor a special FREE…
What Walks This Way
Leigh Bardugo in Conversation with Alix Harrow
Leigh Bardugo is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Familiar, Ninth House, and the creator of the Grishaverse, which spans the Shadow and Bone trilogy, the Six of Crows duology, the King of Scars duology, and was adapted into a Netflix original series. To celebrate the 10th…
Circle of Days: A Novel by Ken Follett (Grand Central Publishing). Reviewed by Holly Smith. “Even by Follettian standards, it’s clunky. But you can’t fight city hall, so just enjoy the ride. Besides, it’s kind of cool spending time in c. 2500 BCE Europe and learning how flint was mined,…
The Rising
You Belong Here: A Novel
Nearly 65 years ago, my father, Gerard Previn Meyer, wrote a book called Pioneers of the Press. The publisher was Rand McNally, and the book, republished in paperback as a Fawcett Publications’ “Student Edition,” was translated and reprinted in several languages and distributed abroad by the U.S. Information Agency (USIA).…
Every now and then, I get a bee in my bonnet about an author I think everybody should read. Today’s column will be devoted to one such author. His name was Farley Mowat, and he died just short of his 93rd birthday in 2014. Now, I realize that no one…
Kate Medina is the winner of Biographers International Organization’s 2025 Editorial Excellence Award. Established in 2014, the annual award — whose past recipients include Michael Korda, Gayatri Patnaik, and Nan A. Talese — honors an editor for outstanding work in the service of biography and literature. Medina will be presented…
The Perilous Deep: A Supernatural History of the Atlantic
The Perilous Deep: A Supernatural History of the Atlantic
One of the DMV’s favorite festivals kicks off soon! The open-to-the-public Fall for the Book returns to George Mason University in Fairfax, VA, on Tuesday, October 7th, at 2:15 p.m., with a virtual talk by Brian Buckbee and Carol Ann Fitzgerald, authors of the memoir We Should All Be Birds.…
Swallows: A Novel
Washington Writers’ Publishing House Poetry Celebration at FBAC!
The Washington Writers’ Publishing House comes to Frederick, Maryland, with a fabulous FREE literary evening on Friday, September 26th, from 7-9 p.m.! The evening will feature local writer/artist Suzanne Feldman, Professor Dorian Elizabeth Knapp from Hood College, and the co-editors of America’s Future: Poetry and Prose in Response to Tomorrow,…
Canadian Collections: September 2025
Unlike other Canadian lyric poets of my generation (I’m 49), I’ve always loved Christian Bök’s hit, Eunoia, published in 2001. I defended his book-length univocal lipogram in the most aggravating way possible: by praising its lyric capabilities. Even my neoformalist friends admitted that writing a book like Eunoia required both…
A Seat at the Table: The Making of Busboys and Poets
A Seat at the Table: The Making of Busboys and Poets
High-fives, Handshakes, and Hugs
Consider the high-five: a friend raises their hand in celebration or encouragement, asking you to make contact, emphatically, with it. A point of contact — human to human — that is tangible, auditory, and visual. The openings of well-made poems are often like this. But the author and the poem…
Bedtime Stories: September 2025
Curtis Ippolito: Every fiction author gets asked which books have influenced their work. But what about as an editor of an anthology? I wondered about this recently while preparing to promote the release of On Fire and Under Water: A Climate Change Crime Fiction Anthology from Rock and a Hard…
Circle of Days: A Novel
Melissa Lozada-Oliva in Conversation with Rax King
From the author of Dreaming of You and Candelaria comes an ethereal and revelatory short-story collection about faith, delusion, and the demons that can’t get enough of us. A beheaded body interrupts a quinceañera. An obsession with her father’s bizarre video game shifts a lonely girl’s reality. A sentient tail…
Fierce Desires
A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever: The Story of Spinal Tap by Rob Reiner with Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer (Gallery Books). Reviewed by Daniel de Visé. “‘This Is Spinal Tap’ feels like the ultimate cult film: powerfully appealing to a select group of fans, baffling to…
Beautiful Dreamers
Lucky Day
How do you feel about our country’s prospects these days? It’s a question on all our minds, and one Washington Writers’ Publishing House recently put to writers in the DMV. The result is America’s Future: Poetry & Prose in Response to Tomorrow. This anthology, showcasing the work of 164 contributors,…
The Midnight Shift
Meet Meghan Keane and LA Johnson
Join us for the Messy! Sexy? Midlife. Book Club at 3pm, where we will be discussing Party of One by Meghan Keane and LA Johnson, or come afterwards for the book signing with the author and illustrator duo. Meghan Keane is the founder and supervising editor for NPR’s Life Kit,…
Authors on Audio: Charlotte DeCroes Jacobs
A professor emerita of medicine at Stanford, Charlotte DeCroes Jacobs is also the author of the critically acclaimed Henry Kaplan and the Story of Hodgkin’s Disease and Jonas Salk: A Life. Her latest work, a biography of Setsuko Nakamura Thurlow, is 90 Seconds to Midnight: A Hiroshima Survivor’s Nuclear Odyssey,…
Transformed by India: A Life
Amity: A Novel
An Interview with Robin Allison Davis
In Surviving Paris: A Memoir of Healing in the City of Light, journalist Robin Allison Davis takes the reader with her as she moves to France and deals with being diagnosed — twice — with breast cancer. But along with sharing the story of her illness and recovery, Davis reveals…
Children’s Book Roundup: September 2025
Bea’s Balikbayan Box of Treasures by Christine Alemshah (author) and Dream Chen (illustrator) (Free Spirit Publishing). It’s finally time to fill another balikbayan box, and the little girl is excited! “We stuff the box full to the tippy top with all the goodies we’ve gathered. Tinned meats for Tito Rico.…
In Franz Kafka’s 1915 novella, Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa wakes up one day to find he has become an insect. Lying on his armored back, he observes his new brown belly, his many “pitiful” legs. For the next 10 pages, he watches the clock, believing he might still get up and…
A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever: The Story of Spinal Tap
A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever: The Story of Spinal Tap
Shame on You
Taj McCoy in Conversation with Celeste Dador
Loyalty is psyched to welcome back one of our most treasured authors in community, Taj McCoy, for her latest book The Dating Prohibition! Take a mental load off and enjoy some happily ever after this September with us as we celebrate a good love story. We’ll have light refreshments, wine,…
After Lives: On Biography and the Mysteries of the Human Heart by Megan Marshall (Mariner Books). Reviewed by Kitty Kelley. “Each of the essays in this miniature memoir explores portals to the past with lessons on pursuing the future, and the most significant lesson is to never stop searching, never…
The Wildes
Launching Liberty: The Epic Race to Build the Ships That Took America to War
Launching Liberty: The Epic Race to Build the Ships That Took America to War
The Macabre: A Novel
Authors on Audio: Heather Clark
Guggenheim fellow and literary critic Heather Clark may be best known for her nonfiction works on Sylvia Plath, including Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath and Sylvia Plath: A Very Short Introduction. In her latest offering, The Scrapbook, however, the author turns to fiction. Says…
The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze that Captured Turn-of-the-Century America
The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze that Captured Turn-of-the-Century America
Join us for a meet-and-greet with author Lacey N. Dunham as she promotes her debut novel, The Belles. This dark, coming-of-age story centers on an exclusive clique that tests the boundaries in risky ways as they navigate their way through college in the 1950s. Copies of The Belles will be…
An Interview with Jeffrey Boutwell
Journalist and historian Jeffrey Boutwell shares a surname with George Boutwell, an important if little-remembered figure from 19th-century politics. In his new book, Boutwell: Radical Republican and Champion of Democracy, he seeks to bring the story of his distant relative to today’s readers, who may empathize with the long-ago politician…
The Hounding: A Novel
This fall marks my 24th year of teaching English at Broad Run High School in Northern Virginia. As I begin to think about how many years I have left in the classroom, I’m reminded of something Maya Angelou said on the cusp of her retirement, “I always said I am…
George Sand wrote 70 novels, but has anyone ever recommended their favorite to you? I have perused three of them — Indiana, The Country Waif, and Lucrezia Floriani — but find her correspondence much more compelling than her books. I think her legacy rests in how she lived rather than…
After Lives: On Biography and the Mysteries of the Human Heart
After Lives: On Biography and the Mysteries of the Human Heart
Where Tyranny Begins
V Is for Venom: Agatha Christie’s Chemicals of Death by Kathryn Harkup (Bloomsbury Sigma). Reviewed by Lawrence De Maria. “This is a book written for chemistry buffs — if there is such a thing — by an author who’s herself a former chemist. Harkup fills it with bacteria, acids, noxious…
Bite
Andrew Joseph White in Conversation with Alice Scott
Join us at Chantilly Regional Library for the launch of award-winning author Andrew Joseph White’s adult horror debut, You Weren’t Meant to Be Human. “Alien” meets “Midsommar” in this deliciously macabre novel following pregnant trans man Crane, who is just trying to survive amidst and alien invasion in rural West…
Romance Roundup: September 2025
The calendar year may start in January, but September will always feel like the real new year to me. The kids are back in school, the days have a different rhythm, and the weather is cooler. It’s starting to feel like fall — or maybe it’s just a tease before…
The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces
The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces
In Too Deep: When Canadian Punks Took Over the World
In Too Deep: When Canadian Punks Took Over the World
Thousands of books are published each month. And much as we’d like to, we can’t read (or review) them all. But what we can do is point out a few we think you might enjoy. In that spirit, here’s a rundown of forthcoming titles that caught our eye and may…
Sunburn: A Novel
An Interview with Hannah Grieco
The tales in Hannah Grieco’s First Kicking, Then Not are honest, funny, thoughtful — like the author herself — and explore the turbulence of womanhood and everyday life. A longtime writer, editor, and writing instructor in the Washington, DC, area, Grieco most recently edited Already Gone: 40 Stories of Running…
Our 7 Most Favorable Reviews in August 2025
Slip: Life in the Middle of Eating-Disorder Recovery by Mallary Tenore Tarpley (Simon Element). Reviewed by Frances Thomas. “For those with chronic food and body struggles, a salient benchmark for getting better might be what Tarpley calls ‘the middle place’: a liminal space between sickness and full recovery, where ‘hope…
Make Me Commissioner: I Know What’s Wrong with Baseball and How to Fix It
Make Me Commissioner: I Know What’s Wrong with Baseball and How to Fix It
Our 5 Most Popular Posts: August 2025
Kitty Kelley’s review of The Club: Where American Women Artists Found Refuge in Belle Époque Paris by Jennifer Dasal (Bloomsbury Publishing). “Dasal writes about the discrimination against American female artists and their ‘pretty little paintings,’ citing the diaries and letters of some of the women who lived in one of…
V Is for Venom: Agatha Christie’s Chemicals of Death
V Is for Venom: Agatha Christie’s Chemicals of Death
Sally McKenney in Conversation with Meghan Keane
For years, Sally’s Baking Addiction has been the trusted online resource for how to make delicious and approachable baked goods from scratch. In Sally’s Baking 101: Foolproof Recipes from Easy to Advanced, the self-taught baker shares 101 sweet and savory recipes for crowd-pleasing bakes to suit every occasion and craving,…
That Librarian
Sunbirth: A Novel by An Yu (Grove Press). Reviewed by Nicole Yurcaba. “One of the village’s rare places of hope is a small, traditional-medicine pharmacy operated by the story’s narrator, an unnamed young woman whose only living relative, her sister Dong Ji, works at a wellness parlor for Five Poems…
Kent State
Please Don’t Lie: A Thriller
My new favorite detective series has a Scotland Yard investigator heading to various foreign locales to lead teams exploring mysteries. Protagonist Beatrice Stubbs may be bipolar and not like traveling that much, but author JJ Marsh lives in Switzerland and knows Europe is a small place. She sends her characters…
Chasing Evil: Shocking Crimes, Supernatural Forces, and an FBI Agent’s Search for Hope and Justice
Chasing Evil: Shocking Crimes, Supernatural Forces, and an FBI Agent’s Search for Hope and Justice
A Truce That Is Not Peace
It’s the End of the Word as We Know It
Some thought the internet would spread reading and writing everywhere. A Stanford professor talked about a “literacy revolution” online. The One Laptop Per Child project was going to teach millions of children to read. Households would own multiple Kindles, and e-books would overtake paper ones, Amazon’s boss predicted. Instead, as…
Meet Don Martin and Christine Platt
Loyalty cannot wait to kick off back to school with a fantastic young adult book event! The coziest fantasy with your new favorite heroine, Verity Vox opens up a world you will want to return to again and a again. Join us at the DC Pop-Up for refreshments and fantastic…
An Interview with Nancy Kricorian
The Burning Heart of the World, by New York-based novelist Nancy Kricorian, is a poignant coming-of-age story set largely in an Armenian community in Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War. In spare language, Kricorian evokes the lasting psychological effects of war and displacement as the novel moves from post-9/11 New…
Autocorrect: Stories
I bought Jenny Slate’s second book for adults, Lifeform, without bothering to check what it was about because I’ll read anything she writes — up to and including instructions on loading the dishwasher. She’s just that funny, clever, and moving. In some ways, this approach turned out to be a…
Sunbirth: A Novel
The Way That Leads Among the Lost
The Way That Leads Among the Lost
Willie, Waylon, and the Boys
Charles Sumner: Conscience of a Nation by Zaakir Tameez (Henry Holt and Co.). Reviewed by Eugene L. Meyer. “Sumner also could be confounding. While abhorring slavery, he defended the U.S. Constitution that allowed it. A staunch Unionist, he nonetheless was censured by the Massachusetts House of Representatives for opposing the…
Elaine U. Cho in Conversation with Alice Stephens
Teo Anand, former ne’er-do-well second son of the Anand Tech empire and current solar fugitive, has just crash-landed on the moon after escaping the latest attempt on his life. But if anyone can help exonerate him, it’s his best friend, bold Korean space pilot Ocean Yoon. Falsely accused of murdering…
Bundle up before you open The Mouth Is Also a Compass (Barrow Street) by New England poet Carrie Bennett, and make sure you’re wearing sturdy shoes. This collection is an expedition through an icy — no, make that slushy — hellscape, a trek into a future we wish we could…
Blessings and Disasters: A Story of Alabama
Blessings and Disasters: A Story of Alabama
Gifts in our family are often rectangular and a couple inches thick. Gift-guessers have it easy. The surprise isn’t what it is — a book — but which it is. This past December, I received a gently pre-read biography, The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll: The Search for Dare…
Wayward Girls: A Novel
Here Beside the Rising Tide: Jerry Garcia, the Grateful Dead, and an American Awakening
Here Beside the Rising Tide: Jerry Garcia, the Grateful Dead, and an American Awakening
Authors on Audio: David Levering Lewis
National Humanities Medal and MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient David Levering Lewis is the author of multiple books, including God’s Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, When Harlem Was in Vogue, and two Pulitzer Prize-winning biographies of W.E.B. Du Bois, W.E.B. Du Bois, 1868-1919: Biography of a Race and W.E.B.…
Anand Pandian in Conversation with Emma Snyder
In Something Between Us, anthropologist Anand Pandian offers us a remarkable close-up of the forces that have hardened our suspicions of others. From car dealerships to sales conferences of home fortification systems and materials, Pandian travels the country to locate the language and attitudes that produce our high-stakes divisions, and…
A Case of Mice and Murder: The Trials of Gabriel Ward
A Case of Mice and Murder: The Trials of Gabriel Ward
32 Books They Should Assign in School (but Probably Won’t)
The Awkward Black Man: Stories by Walter Mosley. “I’d never read any Mosley before, but a friend said this was probably his best one, and I took advantage of the recommendation. Quirky, funny, and slightly sad stories. The title says it all.” ~Tara Campbell Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis. “There…
I recently read the first two volumes of Nancy Mitford’s postwar trilogy about the Radlett and Montdore families, The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate, and for several weeks, I exited 2025 and was transported into the world of two mid- to late-1940s English aristocratic families. Shortly…
Charles Sumner: Conscience of a Nation
Charles Sumner: Conscience of a Nation
On Call
Princess Joy L. Perry in Conversation with Laura Pegram
Bless was born into slavery in 1690s Virginia and faces her mother’s fury, learning that cruelty can come from any side. David, an enslaved child of a freed father, dreams of the promise of liberty made to him. Jack, an impoverished Scots-Irish boy, sails to America to be indentured. Somehow,…
Baldwin: A Love Story by Nicholas Boggs (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). Reviewed by Kitty Kelley. “Now comes an eloquent celebration of his centenary in Nicholas Boggs’ spellbinding Baldwin: A Love Story. This mammoth tribute celebrates the artist’s life — personal and professional — by dividing it into four parts, each…
In France Profound
Rehab: An American Scandal
Too Good to Be Altogether Lost: Rediscovering Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House Books
Too Good to Be Altogether Lost: Rediscovering Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House Books
Louis Bayard in Conversation with John Copenhaver
Join us at Bards Alley for a discussion with acclaimed author Louis Bayard to celebrate the paperback release of his most recent book, The Wildes: A Novel in Five Acts, which brings Oscar Wilde’s wife, Constance, to the forefront to create a vivid, poignant story of love, loss, and secrets.…
Authors on Audio: Anita Kopacz
A spiritual advisor and former editor-in-chief of Heart & Soul magazine, award-winning writer Anita Kopacz is also the author of two novels, Shallow Waters and, more recently, The Wind on Her Tongue. Says Mara Brock Akil of the latter, “[It] reimagines difficult parts of our past, giving flowers to many…
The Colonel and the King: Tom Parker, Elvis Presley, and the Partnership that Rocked the World
The Colonel and the King: Tom Parker, Elvis Presley, and the Partnership that Rocked the World
Winnie M Li: The funny thing about being a novelist is that by the time you’re releasing a new book into the world, it’s been at least one or two years since you’ve done most of the creative thinking around it. So, a few years ago, when I was working…
The Mapmaker: A Novel of World War II
The Mapmaker: A Novel of World War II
Children’s Book Roundup: August 2025
The Tour at School! by Katie Clapham (author) and Nadia Shireen (illustrator) (Candlewick). “When you show a New Person around, it’s called giving them The Tour. It’s a really important job and there are lots of things to remember because they don’t know ANYWHERE and you have to tell them…
I spent this past Saturday at the Frederick Book Arts Center in Frederick, Maryland, where I worked with ink and paper, rolling the early 20th-century letterpresses, cutting the paper, folding it, and feeling renewed. The tactile, muscle-bound experience of making literary art — in this case, poetry broadsides and posters…
Baldwin: A Love Story
Marjan Kamali in Conversation with Hena Khan
We are delighted to welcome bestselling author Marjan Kamali as she promotes the paperback release of The Lion Women of Tehran. Telling the story of two girls coming of age in 1950s Tehran, this novel highlights the impact friendships can have on the course of a life. Marjan will be…
Most Honorable Son
John Hancock: First to Sign, First to Invest in America’s Independence by Willard Sterne Randall (Dutton). Reviewed by Stephen Case. Imagine the Revolutionary War as a film competing at the Academy Awards. Surely, George Washington would win Best Patriot. But who would take home Best Supporting Patriot? In his crackerjack…
All the Worst Humans
Mad as Birds
Culpability: A Novel
I just returned to Florida after four days in Connecticut visiting my two sons. My six grandmonsters all still call me Popop, even the three who are teenagers now. Those three belong to my son Larry and his wife, Megan. Their two boys go to Villanova, and their daughter is…
Twelve Stories by American Women
Twelve Stories by American Women
In Hiroshima, John Hersey fused six eyewitness accounts from August 6, 1945, to create a grisly description of the scene on the ground in the aftermath of the first use of a nuclear weapon in war. His style of journalism employed great restraint in not commenting on those accounts but…
Stop by CCB as we celebrate Bookstore Romance Day! Blind Date with a Book and Rheb's Chocolate: All Day Surprise yourself with a lovingly wrapped mystery romance novel all day! Each gift wrapped book will feature a different romance novel and comes with a chocolate from local candy shop, Rheb's,…
Slip: Life in the Middle of Eating-Disorder Recovery
Slip: Life in the Middle of Eating-Disorder Recovery
John Hancock: First to Sign, First to Invest in America’s Independence
John Hancock: First to Sign, First to Invest in America’s Independence
Learning to read and write poetry isn’t a linear process. Though one wouldn’t necessarily be required to watch “Dead Poets Society” to understand this fact, many folks certainly discovered it that way. I recently watched the film with my family during our annual vacation to Ocean City (well, most of…
Our 7 Most Favorable Reviews in July 2025
Putin’s Sledgehammer: The Wagner Group and Russia’s Collapse into Mercenary Chaos by Candace Rondeaux (PublicAffairs). Reviewed by Antoaneta Tileva. “Author Candace Rondeaux, an award-winning journalist, public-policy scholar, and director of Future Frontlines at the New America Foundation, gives us in Putin’s Sledgehammer an expansive chronicle, making connections few have traced,…
Three Kings
The Club: Where American Women Artists Found Refuge in Belle Époque Paris by Jennifer Dasal (Bloomsbury Publishing). Reviewed by Kitty Kelley. “Dasal writes about the discrimination against American female artists and their ‘pretty little paintings,’ citing the diaries and letters of some of the women who lived in one of…
Autocracy, Inc.
Love in a F*cked-Up World: How to Build Relationships, Hook Up, and Raise Hell Together
Love in a F*cked-Up World: How to Build Relationships, Hook Up, and Raise Hell Together
Our 5 Most Popular Posts: July 2025
Kitty Kelley’s review of Claire McCardell: The Designer Who Set Women Free by Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson (Simon & Schuster). “A practical woman, McCardell used her own experiences to fuel her designs. For instance, she grew frustrated having to lug a 100-pound steamer trunk full of clothes from her apartment to…
August is here, and I’ve officially had enough of the summer heat. I’m counting down to cooler temps and the return of a school routine, but I’m not quite ready to let go of these long, lazy days just yet. I’ve got a vacation coming up — and, yes, I’ll…
Jill Dougherty in Conversation with Alex Marquardt
At the height of the Cold War, as a high school freshman, CNN’s Jill Dougherty developed an obsession with Russia. Over the next half-century, she studied in Leningrad, traveled across the Soviet Union, lived in Moscow, and reported on the presidencies of Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin, and Vladimir Putin. Jill’s…
I Want to Burn This Place Down: Essays
I Want to Burn This Place Down: Essays
Dinner with King Tut: How Rogue Archaeologists Are Re-Creating the Sights, Sounds, Smells, and Tastes of Lost Civilizations
Authors on Audio: A’Lelia Bundles
An award-winning journalist and founder of the Madam Walker Family Archives, A’Lelia Bundles is also the author of On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker, based on the life of her great-great-grandmother, which was turned into the Netflix limited series “Self Made.” Her new book…
I Gave You Eyes and You Looked Toward Darkness: A Novel
I Gave You Eyes and You Looked Toward Darkness: A Novel
On a main square of Lithuania’s capital, two large metal hooks remain on the wall of building number 20, Didžioji Street. Early in 2025, the city of Vilnius decided to remove the Dostoevsky plaque there — along with Russian-language plaques throughout the city. At a Vilnius hotel with rooms named…
Like most self-care regimes, my reading is ritualized. I must finish any book I start. I have at least four books in rotation at all times: a poetry collection, a short-story collection, a nonfiction book, and a novel. My first leisure reading of the day is always a poem, a…
The Club: Where American Women Artists Found Refuge in Belle Époque Paris
The Club: Where American Women Artists Found Refuge in Belle Époque Paris
Raiders, Rulers, and Traders
The Dry Season: A Memoir of Pleasure in a Year Without Sex by Melissa Febos (Knopf). Reviewed by Jennifer Bort Yacovissi. “On hearing that Febos was undertaking the experiment of trying to remain celibate, initially for three months and eventually for an entire year, a friend on an extended dry…
Back Roads and Better Angels
Will Leitch will discuss his new novel, Lloyd McNeil’s Last Ride, a twisty, funny, and ultimately uplifting story that follows a father in a race against time to provide for his child. Hosted by Wonderland Books, 7920B Norfolk Ave., Bethesda, MD. Learn more here. Want more people at your event?…
The Rarest Fruit: A Novel
A Remarkable Man: Dr. Shuntaro Hida from Hiroshima to Fukushima
A Remarkable Man: Dr. Shuntaro Hida from Hiroshima to Fukushima
Noah and the Flood in Western Thought
Noah and the Flood in Western Thought
A professor at Rutgers and contributing opinion writer at the New York Times, Roxane Gay is also the author of multiple bestselling books, including Bad Feminist, Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body, and Difficult Women. Her newest work, on which she served as editor, is the anthology The Portable Feminist…
Alison Owings: Whenever I get an idea for an oral-history book, I start futzing — e.g., conducting trial-run interviews, making lists — while also inundating myself with background reading. Eventually, futzing slides toward competitiveness. What have I missed? Or, thrillingly, what has everyone else missed? And there’s a concomitant nag:…
The English Masterpiece: A Novel
The English Masterpiece: A Novel
The Dry Season: A Memoir of Pleasure in a Year Without Sex
The Dry Season: A Memoir of Pleasure in a Year Without Sex
If you’d like a thoughtful novel about refugees and undocumented workers, try Jenny Erpenbeck’s 2015 Go, Went, Gone. It’s about a group of African refugees who make their way to Italy and on to Germany. An East German retiree named Richard encounters them in Berlin and finds himself involved in…
Escape from Shadow Physics
Stacey Abrams in Conversation with Carla Hayden
In Coded Justice, Stacey Abrams — trailblazing political leader, voting rights advocate, attorney, and entrepreneur — offers the next thriller in her #1 New York Times bestselling Avery Keene series. Avery, the former Supreme Court clerk, is now working as an internal investigator at a prestigious law firm in DC…
Bomb Island
How to Lose Your Mother: A Daughter’s Memoir by Molly Jong-Fast (Viking). Reviewed by Gretchen Lida. “Jong found celebrity following the publication of her scandalous-for-1973 novel, Fear of Flying, which is still considered an important text for second-wave feminism. She was, for several years, a household name (which didn’t keep…
The Very Heart of It: New York Diaries, 1983-1994
The Very Heart of It: New York Diaries, 1983-1994
Mark Halliday’s essay collection, Living Name (LSU Press), was, for me, the best kind of rigorous engagement with a writer who shares my love of poetry if not always my taste. In devoting two essays each to several poets he considers underrated, including Kenneth Koch, Kenneth Fearing, and Dean Young,…
If You Love It, Let It Kill You: A Novel
If You Love It, Let It Kill You: A Novel
Meet Andrew Porter & Andrew Bertaina
Join us as Andrew Porter (The Imagined Life) and Andrew Bertaina (Ethan Hawke & Me) give a reading and discuss their new books. Afterward, pick your favorite Andrew and ask him questions in the Q&A! Both authors' books will be available for purchase. Hosted by Kramers, 1517 Connecticut Ave., NW,…
Death of a Racehorse: An American Story
Death of a Racehorse: An American Story
Authors on Audio: Prithi Kanakamedala
A professor of history at Bronx Community College/CUNY and a public historian, Prithi Kanakamedala is also the author of Brooklynites: the Remarkable Story of the Free Black Communities that Shaped a Borough. Kirkus calls the work a “vigorous history of a free Black community in Brooklyn and its contributions to…
In 1618, English poet Ben Jonson walked from London to Edinburgh, then from Edinburgh to Hawthornden Castle, to visit the Scottish poet William Drummond, the castle’s proprietor. The walk took more than two months; the visit, more than four. While together, these wordsmiths filled their days much as wordsmiths prefer…
Bodock: Stories
Children’s Book Roundup: July 2025
Orpheline by Katelyn Aronson (author) and Dow Phumiruk (illustrator) (Candlewick). Walking along the beach one day, a young girl is stunned to find an infant mermaid washed up on the sand inside an abalone shell. “I’m Cora,” the girl says. “Don’t be afraid. You aren’t lost anymore. You’re found.” The…
How to Lose Your Mother: A Daughter’s Memoir
How to Lose Your Mother: A Daughter’s Memoir
The Write Stuff: Making Haikus and Understanding Environmental Justice
In this hands-on workshop led by Mariah Barber, participants will explore environmental justice through the lens of haiku. Using the traditional 5-7-5 syllable structure, this session will guide students in writing nature-inspired poems that reflect personal and collective relationships with the environment. Whether you’re new to haikus or a seasoned…
A Gentleman and a Thief
Woman of Interest
July is here — and so is the heat. While I count down to my August beach trip, I’m happily escaping into books that bring the vacation vibes, no packing required. I’m also logging every title for my local library’s summer-reading challenge — because why should kids get all the…
How to Dodge a Cannonball: A Novel
How to Dodge a Cannonball: A Novel
The main theme of William Kent Krueger’s 2019 novel, This Tender Land, is family. In it, two orphaned boys at an Indian school set off in a stolen canoe on a trip down Minnesota’s Gilead River, which eventually leads to the Mississippi. Their goal is to live with their Aunt…
Theater Kid: A Broadway Memoir
Theater Kid: A Broadway Memoir
Drag Story Hour: Charlemagne Chateau
Loyalty is so excited to host Drag Story Hour with Charlemagne Chateau! We’ll meet at the DC Pop Up, located next to JINYA Ramen, at 1155 Dahlia St., NW. This event is FREE to attend, but please RSVP to let us know you’re coming! Please note: For safety reasons, adults…
All This Can Be True
A former politician who represented Texas in both chambers of Congress, Democrat-turned-Republican Phil Gramm is also an economist and author. His new book, co-authored with Donald J. Boudreaux, is The Triumph of Economic Freedom: Debunking the Seven Great Myths of American Capitalism. Lawrence Summers says that this “readable and important…
Charlottesville: An American Story
Charlottesville: An American Story
An Interview with Susan Buttenwieser
Junction of Earth and Sky, Susan Buttenwieser’s debut novel, came out in England in 2024 and will be released in the U.S. next month. Also the author of the short-story collection We Were Lucky with the Rain, Buttenwieser has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has had her writing…
The poem “won’t you celebrate with me” by Lucille Clifton hangs on my wall. It starts, “won’t you celebrate with me/what i have shaped into/a kind of life?” Clifton’s poems have always felt both deeply grounded and extravagant; indeed, after revealing that she “made it up/here on this bridge between/starshine…
Kuleana: A Story of Family, Land, and Legacy in Old Hawai’i
Kuleana: A Story of Family, Land, and Legacy in Old Hawai’i
The Friday Afternoon Club
I Don’t Want to Go Home
The End of the British Empire in the Middle East, 1952-1971
The End of the British Empire in the Middle East, 1952-1971
Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson. Over 100 years old, this book’s timeless themes — encompassing what feels like the whole of the human condition in small-town America — resonate yet today. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison. Following the life of Milkman, this well-known novel surveys nearly a century of…
A novelist, I welcome the compression of blogging. It’s nice to have a project I can get my mind around, one with a beginning, middle, and end. But finishing my previous column about the first leg of a recent trip with my daughter along a portion of the Civil Rights…
On Book Banning
Kate Myers in Conversation with Erika Montgomery
Put on your sunglasses for this fun summer murder mystery! Join us as we dive in with Kate Myers and her new book, Salty. This story follows two sisters who team up to uncover the real designs behind their rich employer’s shady development plans. Kate will discuss her work with…
That’s All I Know: A Novel
Our 7 Most Favorable Reviews in June 2025
Authority: Essays by Andrea Long Chu (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). Reviewed by Nick Havey. “It is, therefore, logistically challenging to be a critic today because capitalism, the expansiveness of the modern cultural sphere, and the endangered nature of criticism as a profession make it nigh impossible to engage critically (or…
Our 5 Most Popular Posts: June 2025
Sarah Trembath’s review of One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad (Knopf). “One Day is also a call to conscience. It isn’t just for those of us who agree with every word. It is for anyone with the courage to peel back the veil…
Putin’s Sledgehammer: The Wagner Group and Russia’s Collapse into Mercenary Chaos
Putin’s Sledgehammer: The Wagner Group and Russia’s Collapse into Mercenary Chaos
Hidden Heroes: Anthology of North Korean Fiction
Hidden Heroes: Anthology of North Korean Fiction
Emily Kasriel in Conversation with Christopher Turpin
Distracted by our own agenda, we so often hear without understanding, impatiently waiting for our turn to speak. In this exploration of transformational listening, Kasriel shows how shifting from surface-level exchanges to Deep Listening can enrich our relationships as friends, parents, and partners, enhance our effectiveness as leaders, and strengthen…
Orwell’s Ghosts
Cull of the Wild
Echoes of the Water War: Legacies of Cochabamba, Bolivia
Echoes of the Water War: Legacies of Cochabamba, Bolivia
7 Books that Get the Classical-Music World Right
My new novel, Duet for One, is a love story, a journey through grief, and a tour of the classical-music world, based in my hometown of Philadelphia. As a former violist, and during Duet’s 20-year gestation, I’ve paid close attention to books about classical music. Fully capturing music on the…
Behold the Bird in Flight: A Novel of an Abducted Queen
Behold the Bird in Flight: A Novel of an Abducted Queen
Join us in welcoming one of our favorite thriller authors, S.A. Cosby, to the shop on Saturday, June 28th! We’ll have an author talk where we’ll chat about his newest release, followed by a Q&A, with the opportunity for attendees to get their books signed in person! This is truly…
What Is Wrong with Men: Patriarchy, the Crisis of Masculinity, and How (Of Course) Michael Douglas Films Explain Everything
Authors on Audio: Michael F. Weisberg
Physician Michael F. Weisberg made his initial foray into writing with the novel The Hospitalist, followed by another fictional tale, In the End. But in his new book, A Second Shot: The Pursuit of Justice in Maryland's Oldest Cold Case Murder, he turns to nonfiction for the first time. The…
An Interview with Beth Konkoski
Beth Konkoski won the Acadia Fiction Prize for her short-story collection, A Drawn & Papered Heart, which came out one year ago this month. She has also published work in such journals as Story, Smokelong Quarterly, the Baltimore Review, and Split Lip Magazine, and in the anthologies Amazing Graces and…
The Living and the Rest
_1.png)
