Burned By Books

“In the fall of 1980, when I was fourteen, a friend of my parents named Naomi Shah fell in love with me. She was thirty-six, a mother of two, and married to a wealthy man. Like so many things that happened to me that year, it didn’t seem strange at the time.”Griffin Hurt is in over his head. Between his role as Peter Proton on the hit TV show The Nuclear Family and the pressure of high school at New York's elite Boyd Prep—along with the increasingly compromising demands of his wrestling coach—he's teetering on the edge of collapse.Then comes Naomi Shah, twenty-two years Griffin’s senior. Unwilling to lay his burdens on his shrink—whom he shares with his father, mother, and younger brother, Oren—Griffin soon finds himself in the back of Naomi’s Mercedes sedan, again and again, confessing all to the one person who might do him the most harm.Less a bildungsroman than a story of miseducation, Playworld: A Novel (Knopf, 2025) is a novel of epic proportions, bursting with laughter and heartache. Adam Ross immerses us in the life of Griffin and his loving (yet disintegrating) family while seeming to evoke the entirety of Manhattan and the ethos of an era—with Jimmy Carter on his way out and a B-list celebrity named Ronald Reagan on his way in. Surrounded by adults who embody the age’s excesses—and who seem to care little about what their children are up to—Griffin is left to himself to find the line between youth and maturity, dependence and love, acting and truly grappling with life.ADAM ROSS is the author of Mr. Peanut, which was selected as one of the best books of the year by The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Economist. He has been a fellow in fiction at the American Academy in Berlin and a Hodder Fellow for Fiction at Princeton University. He is editor of The Sewanee Review. Born and raised in New York City, he now lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with his two daughters.Recommended Books: Edward P Jones, The Known World Ben Austin, Correction: Parole, Prison, and the Possibility of Change Melissa Febos, The Dry Season Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Associate Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As the child of a Hooters waitress and an ex-pro wrestler, Margo Millet's always known she’d have to make it on her own. So she enrolls at her local junior college, even though she can’t imagine how she’ll ever make a living. She’s still figuring things out and never planned to have an affair with her English professor—and while the affair is brief, it isn’t brief enough to keep her from getting pregnant. Despite everyone’s advice, she decides to keep the baby, mostly out of naiveté and a yearning for something bigger.Now, at twenty, Margo is alone with an infant, unemployed, and on the verge of eviction. She needs a cash infusion—fast. When her estranged father, Jinx, shows up on her doorstep and asks to move in with her, she agrees in exchange for help with childcare. Then Margo begins to form a plan: she’ll start an OnlyFans as an experiment, and soon finds herself adapting some of Jinx’s advice from the world of wrestling. Like how to craft a compelling character and make your audience fall in love with you. Before she knows it, she’s turned it into a runaway success. Could this be the answer to all of Margo’s problems, or does internet fame come with too high a price?Blisteringly funny and filled with sharp insight, Margo's Got Money Troubles (William Morrow, 2024) is a tender tale starring an endearing young heroine who’s struggling to wrest money and power from a world that has little interest in giving it to her. It’s a playful and honest examination of the art of storytelling and controlling your own narrative, and an empowering portrait of coming into your own, both online and off. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How has a writer known principally for his contained domestic novels come to represent the most dynamic elements of world literature? In Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature (Bloomsbury, 2025), Chris Holmes expands our understanding of how world literature engages with the most pressing crises of the 20th and 21st centuries by examining Ishiguro's fascination with characters who are profoundly constrained in their ability to understand global systems to which they are subject. Rather than following the established pattern of so-called global novels, which crisscross the planet exhibiting a knowing cosmopolitanism, Ishiguro's fictional engagement with the world comes principally in the form of characters who are cut off from the global systems that abuse them.By examining the ways in which Ishiguro foregrounds the in-process thinking of those who fail to comprehend their place in the flow of politics, culture, and ideas, Holmes positions Ishiguro as the great chronicler of everyday lives, and as such, prepares a mode of reading world literature that questions the assumptions for how we live and think with others when each of us is deeply limited.Chris Holmes is Associate Professor and Chair of Literatures in English at Ithaca College. He is the host of the literary interview podcast, Burned by Books, and he is host and co-producer on Novel Dialogue, the podcast of the Society of Novel Studies, both of which are New Books Network partners. His most recent essays appear in NOVEL, MFS, Critique, and Public Books.Caroline Levine is David and Kathleen Ryan Professor of the Humanities at Cornell University. She is the author most recently of The Activist Humanist: Form and Method in the Climate Crisis, and Forms: Whole, Rhythm, Hierarchy, Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Andrew’s debut novel Last Resort was published in 2022 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in the US, and Weidenfeld & Nicolson in the UK. You can hear our interview about that amazing literary hoax on burned by books at the website or anywhere you find your podcasts. His second novel The Vegan was published in July 2023. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and three sons.Recommended Books: Nicholson Baker, The Mezzanine Marilyn Robinson, Reading Genesis Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Associate Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the hills of Sparta, Tennessee, during the early nineties, Helen decides to break free from the life that stifles her: marriage, motherhood, the monotonous duties of a Southern housewife. But leaving isn't the same thing as staying gone...Rooted in a lush natural landscape, this stunning poetry collection explores Helen's isolation and rebellion as her expansive personality clashes with the social rigidity of her small town. In richly layered poems with settings that range from football games to Chuck E. Cheese to the bathroom of a Motel 6, Helen enters adulthood as a disaffected homemaker grasping for agency. She marries the wrong man, gives birth to a child she is not ready to parent, and embarks on an affair that throws her life into chaos. But she never surrenders ownership of her story or her choices, insisting to the reader: "if you never owned a bone-sharp biography... / i don't want to hear it. i want you silent. / i want you listening to me."Blurring the line between mythology and modernity, Helen of Troy, 1993 is an unforgettable collection that shows the Homeric Helen like she's never been seen before.Maria Zoccola is a queer Southern writer and educator from Memphis, Tennessee. Maria has worked and written for nonprofits both big and small, and from 2017-2021 managed Deep Center’s Young Author Project in Savannah, Georgia, a program embedding creative writing workshops within the Savannah–Chatham County Public School System and serving 400 young people annually.Maria’s fiction and poetry can be found in such venues as Ploughshares, Fantasy Magazine, the Kenyon Review, ZYZZYVA, Electric Literature’s The Commuter, and elsewhere. Her work has been nominated Best Small Fictions and Best New Poets, has been a finalist for Best of the Net, and has received a special mention for the Pushcart Prize.Recommended Books: Alice Oswald, Memorial Rita Dove, Motherlove Ellen Bryant Voigt, Kyrie Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Associate Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After a seismic event leaves the world shattered, an unnamed narrator at the end of a mediocre acting career struggles to regain the ability to walk on ground that is in constant motion. When her alluring younger housemate, Tala, disappears, what had begun as an obsession grows into an impulse to kill, forcing the narrator to confront the meaning of the ruptures that have suddenly upended her life. The drive to find and eliminate Tala becomes an existential pursuit, leading back in time and out into a desolate, dust-covered city, where the narrator is targeted by charismatic “healing” ideologues with uncertain motives. Torn between a gnawing desire to reckon with the forces that have made her and an immediate need to find the stability to survive, she is forced to question familiar figurations of light, shadow, authenticity, resistance, and the limits of personal transformation in an alienated, alienating world.Darkly comic, deeply resonant, and hallucinatory in tone, An Earthquake Is a Shaking of the Surface of the Earth (Soft Skull, 2024) will appeal to readers of Annie Ernaux, Dionne Brand, and Sheila Heti.Anna’s most recent book is Participation. A poet and a translator, Anna has won the James Laughlin Award for her poetry and shared the 2021 International Booker Prize with David Diop for his novel At Night All Blood is Black. A student of plants and herbalism, she is a member of the publishing collective Ugly Duckling Presse and a cofound of Bushel Collective.Recommended Books: Poupeh Missaghi, Sound Museum Renee Gladman, My Lesbian Novel Mari Ruti, A World of Fragile Things Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Associate Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lisa Swayze has been the General Manager at Buffalo Street Books for 7 years and will transition to becoming the Executive Director of the bookstore’s new literary nonprofit in 2025. Lisa is on the board of directors of the American Booksellers Association and the Downtown Ithaca Alliance.Jessica Stockton-Bagnulo is the owner and co-founder of Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn, New York, where she also currently serves as the Events & Marketing Manager (because she loves hosting parties). She has worked in independent bookstores in New York City since 2000, has served on the board of NAIBA and various other book industry boards and committees, and is currently on the board of the American Booksellers Association (along with lovely colleagues Lisa and Jake). She lives with her husband and daughter (both avid readers, thankfully) in Brooklyn.Lisa's Favorites:  James - Percival Everett The Sapling Cage - Margaret Killjoy Not for the Faint of Heart - Lex Croucher (YA) Swift River - Essie Chambers American Daughters - Maurice Carlos Ruffin God of the Woods - Liz Moore Where They Last Saw Her - Marcie Rendon Anita de Monte Laughs Last - Xochitil Gonzalez Blue Light Hours - Bruna Dantas Lobato Catalina - Karla Cornejo Villavicencio The Pairing - Casey Mcquiston Shred Sisters - Betsy Lerner A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy - Nathan Thrall Jessica's favorites: The Book of Love by Kelly Link — Best Literary Novel Featuring Complex Magic Systems, Diverse Love Stories, Unexpected Beauty, and Karaoke Hum by Helen Phillips — Best Near-Future Dystopia that is Also About Parenting Help Wanted to Adelle Waldman — Best Novel About Capitalism The Light Eaters by Zoe Schlanger — Best Science Writing / Best Book About Plant Intelligence and Scientist Drama The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman — Best Doorstop Literary/Historical Fantasy (With Philosophical Caveats) In Universes by Emet North — Best Queer Multiverse Novel Playground by Richard Powers — Best Nature Writing as Fiction Far Sector by N. K. Jemisin — Best Socially Aware Superhero Graphic Novel Orbital by Samantha Harvey — Best Sentences About Earth non-frontlist / rereads: Space Crone by Ursula LeGuin — Best Essays by Best Essayist The Privilege of a Happy Ending by Kij Johnson — Best Quest Narrative Berlin: City of Stones, City of Smoke, City of Light — Best Epic of Quotidian Life Before the Abyss Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Author Christine Coulson spent twenty-five years writing for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her final project was to write wall labels for the museum's new British Galleries. During that time, she dreamt of using The Met's strict label format to describe people as intricate works of art. The result is this "jewel box of a novel" (Kirkus Reviews) that imagines a privileged 20th-century woman as an artifact--an object prized, collected, and critiqued. One Woman Show (Avid Reader Press, 2023) revolves around the life of Kitty Whitaker as she is defined by her potential for display and moved from collection to collection through multiple marriages. Coulson precisely distills each stage of this sprawling life, every brief snapshot in time a wry reflection on womanhood, ownership, value, and power."A moving story of privilege, womanhood, and the sweep of the 20th century told through a single American life" (Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind), Kitty is an eccentric heroine who disrupts her porcelain life with both major force and minor transgressions. Described with poignancy and humor, Coulson's playful reversal on our interaction with art ultimately questions who really gets to tell our stories.Christine Coulson spent 25 years writing for The Metropolitan Museum of Art and left the museum as Senior Writer in 2019. She started at The Met in 1991 as a summer intern in the European Paintings Department and returned in 1994 to start her first job at the museum after graduate school. During her tenure, she rose through the ranks of the museum, working in the Development Office, the Director’s Office, and the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts.In 2017, The Met gave Coulson a yearlong sabbatical to write Metropolitan Stories, her bestselling 2019 novel about the museum.Recommended Books: Katheryn Scanlan, Kick the Latch J.L. Carr, A Month in the Country Myra Coleman, Women Holding Things Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sam Sax is a queer, jewish, writer and educator. They're the author of Yr Dead (McSweeney's Books, 2024), longlisted for The National Book Award and PIG named one of the best books of 2023 by New York Magazine and Electric Lit. They're also the author of Madness, winner of The National Poetry Series and Bury It winner of the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets. They're the two time Bay Area Grand Slam Champion with poems published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Poetry Magazine, Granta and elsewhere. Sam's received fellowships from The National Endowment for the Arts, The Poetry Foundation, Yaddo, Lambda Lit, MacDowell, and is currently serving as an ITALIC Lecturer at Stanford University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kristopher grew up in Lincroft, New Jersey. He received his B.A. in The Writing Seminars from Johns Hopkins University and an M.F.A. in Fiction from Columbia University. He is the author of the critically-acclaimed novels, OUR NARROW HIDING PLACES (Ecco/2024) WHY WE CAME TO THE CITY (Viking/2016) and THE UNCHANGEABLE SPOTS OF LEOPARDS, (Viking/2013). His book of essays on the creative process is REVISIONARIES: WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM THE LOST, UNFINISHED, AND JUST PLAIN BAD WORK OF GREAT WRITERS. And Kristopher is the director of the creative program and SUNY New Paltz.Recommended Books: E. Lily Yu Break Blow Burn and Make Kate Hamilton, Mad Wife Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Associate Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is forthcoming with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices