The Book Case

Sandwich: A Novel by Catherine Newman is full of great characters, evocative nostalgic imagery and a love for Cape Cod that we share with her. It is full of thoughts on what it means to be a woman, why we keep secrets from our family, and what it is we love about the yearly vacation traditions we cherish if we were lucky enough to have them in our lives. For our bookstore this week, Bookshop West Portal, who for independent bookstore day brought in llamas. Because....well, tune in.Books mentioned in this week's episode: Sandwich by Catherine Newman We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman Waiting for Birdy: A Year of Frantic Tedium, Neurotic Angst, and the Wild Magic of Growing a Family by Catherine Newman The Worst Noel: Hellish Holiday Tales by Catherine Newman Catastrophic Happiness: Finding Joy in Childhood's Messy Years by Catherine Newman The Beans of Egypt, Maine, by Carolyn Chute Writers & Lovers by Lily King Quietly Hostile by Samantha Irby The Dutch House by Ann Patchett Tom Lake by Ann Patchett Long Island by Colm Toibin Brooklyn by Colm Toibin The Librarianist by Patrick deWitt Shopkeeping: Stories, Advice, and Observations by Peter Miller Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Want a great summer read? We have it. A Better Place by Sarah Langan is a page turning mystery/thriller….like if The Stepford Wives met Shirley Jackson in The Lottery. The story is original, the characters are well written, and the mysteries presented will baffle you as they unfold. It’s a terrific ride. We also talk also talk to John Mendelson, president of Nosy Crow Books, an independent publishing house for kids, who took the entire bike trail laid out by our Massachusetts guests from last week at Whitelam Books. Why did he do it, and how? Tune in and find out.Books mentioned in this week's episode: A Better World by Sarah Langan Good Neighbors by Sarah Langan Audrey’s Door by Sarah Langan The Keeper by Sarah Langan The Missing by Sarah Langan The Lottery by Shirley Jackson The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin My Antonia by Willa Cather House of Leaves by Mark. Z. Danielewski The House of Last Resort by Christopher Golden A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay Rum Punch by Elmore Leonard The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins A Horse Called Now by Ruth Doyle and Alexandra Finkeldey Dig, Dig, Dinosaur by Anjali Goswami and Maggie Li Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, a dark and funny tale of sheep farming in Rural England that reads like an American Western by Cormac McCarthy. Sound a little strange? Well, it is. But it is also compelling, suspenseful, complex and packed with great characters. Scott Preston is a debut novelist, and this book, The Borrowed Hills, may defy a two sentence description but it’s worth the read. For our bookstore this week we talk to Whitelam books in Reading, Massachusetts, who tell us about what they did to bring in folks on Indpendent Bookstore Day. Join us.Books mentioned in this week's episode: The Borrowed Hills by Scott Preston Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson The Man with the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren Shane by Jack Schaefer Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey True Grit by Charles Portis Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry The Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien Independent People by Halldór Laxness Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk The Great Transition by Nick Fuller Googins The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today we have a book that helped us to lift the curtain on the inner workings of the book business. The Editor by Sara B. Franklin tells us the story of Judith Jones, the game changing editor who changed the publishing business at a time where women weren't in the publishing business. Judith helped shape literature and change publishing, and so we pair her with one of our current favorite editors who has just announced her retirement, Beverly Horowitz. Beverly has been in the business for 50 years and has worked with everyone from Judy Blume to E. Lockhart. Join us for a wonderful insiders look at the business that sustains our minds and hearts.Books mentioned in this week's episode: The Editor by Sara B. Franklin Edna Lewis: At the Table with an American Original by Sara B. Franklin The Phoenicia Diner Cookbook: Dishes and Dispatches from the Catskill Mountains by Sara B. Franklin The Colossus and Other Poems by Sylvia Plath Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, Simone Beck The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food by Judith Jones Rabbit, Run by John Updike Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler The Living Mountain: A Celebration of the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland (Canons) by Nan Shepherd We Were Liars by E. Lockhart Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We love the summer because it means trips the bookstore! We have some of our favorite bookstores recommending their favorite summer titles. If you are in need of a laugh, a thrill or just a great story to read on the beach, this is an episode of The Book Case you don't want to miss.Books mentioned in this week's episode: A Short Walk Through the Woods by Douglas Westerbeke Real Americans by Rachel Khong Same as it Ever Was by Claire Lombardo James by Percival Everett The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl The Summer Book by Tove Jansson A Love Song for Ricki Wilde by Tia Williams Lo Fi by Liz Riggs Central Park West by James Comey Westport by James Comey Table for Two by Amor Towles Swamp Story by Dave Barry The Backyard Book Chronicles by Amy Tan The Worlds I See: Curiosity, Exploration and Discovery at the Dawn of AI by Fei-Fei Li Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson Different Seasons by Stephen King The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is a double whammy of extreme talent. First, we have George Stephanopoulos, giving us history through the perspective of one of the most mysterious and powerful rooms in the White House: The Situation Room. It's the title of his new book...and it's an illuminating read. Second, the great J. Ryan Stradal and our second installment of the Writer in Residence series. He says he is doing a lot of writing these days...and he knows most of it won't make it in the book. You don't want to miss this week's Book Case.Books mentioned in this week's episode: The Situation Room: The Inside Story of Presidents in Crisis by George Stephanopoulos All Too Human: A Political Education by George Stephanopoulos Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club by J. Ryan Stradal Lager Queen of Minnesota by J. Ryan Stradal Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal Think Twice by Harlan Coben I Will Find You by Harlan Coben Table for Two by Amor Towles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's always a pleasure for us to talk to a debut author and we have a good one this week in Heidi Reimer. Her novel, The Mother Act, is the story of mothers and daughters and the heap of complexities that come in those relationships. How do we know we are going to be a good mom? Once we have a child are we ALWAYS a mother first? This book asks these questions and challenges the reader to question the concepts of motherhood, empathy and family.Books mentioned in this week’s episode: The Mother Act by Heidi Reimer Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Dear Life by Alice Munro Maybe Baby: 28 Writers Tell the Truth About Skepticism, Infertility, Baby Lust, Childlessness, Ambivalence, and How They Made the Biggest Decision of Their Lives by Lori Leibovich Bomb Shelter: Love, Time, and Other Explosives by Mary Laura Philpott Middlemarch by George Eliot The Giver by Lois Lowry Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you haven’t heard of Erik Larson, you don’t read enough non-fiction. A giant in the industry and an immense talent, Erik is turning his attention to the beginnings of the Civil War in his latest, The Demon of Unrest. It’s the nail biting account of how we ended up turning guns against one another, North to South, with a specific focus on the stand off at Fort Sumter. Told through the eyes of rich characters through their unique perspectives, Larson brings new learning to an oft discussed topic…how the Union tore itself apart over slavery. You won’t want to miss this one.Books mentioned in this week's episode: The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War by Erik Larson The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson Isaac’s Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History by Erik Larson Lethal Passage by Erik Larson Thunderstruck by Erik Larson The Naked Consumer: How Our Private Lives Become Public Commodities by Erik Larson Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson No One Goes Alone: A Novel by Erik Larson The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson Mary Chesnut's Diary by Mary Boykin Chestnut The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We try not to do books about politics — political discourse in this country is, currently, divisive in the extreme. However, Carlos Lozada, in his new book, The Washington Book: How to Read Politics and Politicians, gives us a survey of Washington literature that will surprise, delight and inform you. From Tocqueville to Trump, from The Muller Report to DeSantis’ plea for the presidency, Carlos has read it all, and written about almost everything he has read. This book is a compendium of his best columns about books…why does Carlos think presidents insist on writing their own biographies? Why is George H.W. Bush one of the only presidents without a presidential autobiography? Tune in and find out.Books mentioned in this week's episode: The Washington Book: How to Read Politics and Politicians by Carlos Lozada What We Were Thinking: A Brief Intellectual History of the Trump Era by Carlos Lozada Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant by Ulysses S. Grant An Hour Before Daylight: Memories of a Rural Boyhood by Jimmy Carter Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush by Jon Meacham Heartburn by Nora Ephron Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kao Kalia Yang is a Hmong writer who has written her family and country’s history through deeply personal prisms. She told the story of her family’s beginnings via her grandmother’s story in The Latehomecomer, shared the life of her father in The Song Poet and now writes her mother’s journey in Where Rivers Part. Told in the first person, Where Rivers Part is the beautiful and compelling story of Tswb, who fled Laos to Thailand, eventually fighting her way to Minnesota to give a better future to her children. It is an epic tale of mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, struggle and triumph. Our bookstore this week is a 22-year-old dynamo who has already taken Mendham, NJ by storm…watch out world, it’s Chapter One Books.Books mentioned in this week's episode: Where Rivers Part by Kao Kalia Yang The Song Poet by Kao Kalia Yang Latehomecomer by Kao Kalia Yang A Map into the World by Kao Kalia Yang The Shared Room by Kao Kalia Yang From the Tops of the Trees by Kao Kalia Yang The Most Beautiful Thing by Kao Kalia Yang Yang Warriors by Kao Kalia Yng The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich The Round House by Louise Erdrich The BFG by Roald Dahl Danny the Champion of the World by Roald Dahl The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices