Fully Booked by Kirkus Reviews

Vanessa Veselka discusses The Great Offshore Grounds (Knopf, Aug. 26), an exquisite, freewheeling character-driven novel that ponders the possibility of reinvention, the meaning of family, and the American Dream. Then our editors join with their reading recommendations for the week, including books by Amra Sabic-El-Rayess, Ben Macintyre, and Sigrid Nunez. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Award-winning author Claudia Rankine joins editor-in-chief Tom Beer to discuss Just Us: An American Conversation (Graywolf Press, Sept. 8), a paradigm-shifting cross-disciplinary collection of essays, poems, and images that contend with the perceptual and experiential divide between Black and White Americans. And in a sponsored interview, host Megan Labrise talks with Swedish hip hop star Jason Diakité, author of A Drop of Midnight: A Memoir (Amazon Crossing). Then our editors join with their reading recommendations for the week, including books by Mychal Denzel Smith, Yaa Gyasi, and Helen Macdonald. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Poet and essayist Eula Biss joins us to discuss Having and Being Had (Riverhead, Sept. 1), an exquisite essay collection that interrogates the trappings of American affluence. Then our editors join with their reading recommendations for the week, including books by Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Elena Ferrante, and Deesha Philyaw. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Novelist David Heska Wanbli Weiden joins us to discuss Winter Counts (Ecco, Aug. 25), an intense crime thriller set on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. Then our editors join with their reading recommendations for the week, including books by Daniel Nayeri, Darcie Little Badger, Isabel Wilkerson, and Ali Smith. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Debut YA novelist Jordan Ifueko joins us to discuss Raybearer (Amulet Books, Aug. 18), “A fresh, phenomenal fantasy that begs readers to revel in its brilliant world” (Kirkus, starred review). Then our editors join with their reading recommendations for the week, including books by Veronica Chambers, Raquel Vasquez-Gilliland, Ilan Stavans, and Margot Livesey. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Brazilian American novelist Gabriella Burnham joins us to discuss It Is Wood, It Is Stone (One World, July 28), “A transporting debut that deftly probes the complex nature of relationships between women” (Kirkus). Then our editors join with their reading recommendations for the week, including books by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, M.T. Anderson and Jo Rioux, and Raven Leilani. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Melissa Faliveno joins us to discuss Tomboyland (Little A, Aug. 1), an expansive essay collection exploring Midwestern values, families and teams, natural disasters, gender identity, and New York City. As our reviewer writes, this promising debut showcases “an expressive voice evolving deliberately, resisting having to be one thing or the other.” Then our editors join with their reading recommendations for the week, including books by Aunty Joy Murphy, Andrew Kelly, and Lisa Kennedy, Syed M. Masood, Jacob Soboroff, and Maggie O'Farrell. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Michelle Bowdler joins us on this week’s episode to discuss Is Rape a Crime? A Memoir, an Investigation, and a Manifesto (Flatiron Books, July 28). In 2007, the author was called to activism after reading a Boston Globe article exposing thousands of unexamined rape kits in the possession of police departments across the country. Kirkus calls her personal, powerful, profound debut, “An urgent, necessary, stark exploration of ‘one of the most horrific violations that can happen to a human being.’” Then our editors join with their reading recommendations for the week, including books by Hannah Barnaby, Eddie Glaude, and Sarah MacLean. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Emma Donoghue joins us on this week’s episode to discuss The Pull of the Stars (Little, Brown, July 21). The bestselling author, screenwriter, and literary historian’s latest novel is inspired by the 1918 flu pandemic; set in the maternity/flu ward of a Catholic hospital in Dublin, it is “Darkly compelling, illuminated by the light of compassion and tenderness: Donoghue’s best novel since Room (2010)” (starred review). Then our editors join with their reading recommendations for the week, including books by Julie Lee, Margot Harrison, Mary L. Trump, and Lynn Steger Strong. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Marke Bieschke discusses Into the Streets: A Young Person’s Visual History of Protest in the United States (Zest Books, July 7), “an engaging overview to inspire socially minded readers.” From the Pueblo Revolt to 2018’s March for Our Lives, Bieschke provides a vivid chronology of the many movements that shaped the course of our country and a primer for staging your own protest. Then our editors join with their reading recommendations for the week, including books by Lisa Moore Ramée, Sarah Crossan, Joe Sacco, and David Mitchell. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.