Careful conversations with literary minds.
New Books in Literature gathers calm, book-centered conversations with authors and literary editors. Episodes move from plot and publication context into craft, research, place, genre, and the choices that shape a finished work.
PRESS PLAY
New Books in Literature is a patient literary interview channel for people who want to stay close to books after the jacket copy ends. The format is simple and durable. A host or interviewer places a book in context, invites the author to summarize its pressure points, and then lets the conversation widen. Recent episodes range across middle grade fiction, historical fiction, literary magazines, thrillers, and fiction and nonfiction tied to Asia. Sayantani DasGupta's "Theft of the Ruby Lotus" brings in art repatriation, museum heists, and a middle grade adventure shaped by cultural questions. A 2026 release roundup moves through new books on Japan and Taiwan with a readerly sense of sequence and anticipation. Conversations around "Oxford Soju Club" and "American Han" place literature near Asian and Korean American experience without reducing the books to a single theme. Linda Hamilton's "The Fourth Wife" opens onto 1882 Utah Territory, polygamy, religious authority, and women's submission inside historical fiction. Jason Reynolds's "Soundtrack" pushes the discussion toward rhythm, drumming, Questlove, Tracy Chapman, Bill Withers, and the idea that songs, scripts, transcripts, and audio can all be read as literature. The show can be expansive. It is rarely hurried. A guest may spend several minutes explaining how research works in fiction, why rules sometimes need to be broken for the story, or how Philadelphia becomes legible before it appears on the page. Casey Walker's conversation about "Islands" is especially craft-focused, tracing revision, buried connections, and the role of editors in helping a writer see the root system under a story. That editorial patience gives the channel its character. It is warm, but not cozy. It is scholarly, but usually accessible. It favors context, process, influence, and cultural stakes over literary gossip or quick recommendation culture. For PlayNext listeners, it works best as a discovery shelf for serious readers: a way to hear authors think through the architecture, research, and imaginative commitments behind recent books.
Made for: For serious readers, writers, editors, teachers, and library-minded listeners who enjoy patient conversations about contemporary books. It especially suits people interested in how fiction is researched, structured, revised, and argued into being.
What sets it apart: The show gives authors and literary editors time to explain process in detail, from hidden structural links to research decisions and publication context. Its breadth across partner channels also puts literary fiction, historical fiction, Asian writing, middle grade adventure, and magazine work in the same discovery stream.
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Literary conversations reveal how research, memory, place, and editorial choices turn the past into stories.
New Books in Literature treats books as working records of memory, place, and historical imagination. Its conversations let authors and critics stay with the choices behind a text: Jason Reynolds connects rhythm and musical precision to storytelling, while Casey Walker describes…
A story spent a decade on the desk; you hear how its scattered pieces finally connected.
Press play if you want
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Jason Reynolds treats rhythm, timing, and literature as one continuous argument.
The conversation with Jason Reynolds keeps returning to rhythm, drumming, and the precision that lets sound carry meaning. Reynolds reaches for Questlove, Prince, Tracy Chapman, and Bill Withers to show how artists know when to step forward and when to slide out of the way, and…
A thoughtful literary conversation about surrogacy, trust, family obligation, and the research that helps fiction reshape reality.
Surrogacy sits at the center of this episode's discussion of Pinky Swear, where the author looks at Lexi's decision to trust Mara outside the usual contract process.
A close look at how editorial guidance helps a story find its shape.
This conversation with Casey Walker and Emily Everett follows Islands, the story that appears in issue 30 of The Common, and the editorial guidance that helped it settle into place.
Peter Orner traces a Chicago book through archives, family grief, and civic memory.
Emily Hyde's conversation with Peter Orner follows the path from research to bookmaking, with Chicago as both setting and pressure point. Orner begins with a bleak family event: the young daughter of a gossip columnist dying in somewhat mysterious circumstances in 1963, one week…
War literature is treated here as moral chaos, not spectacle.
Ed Simon's conversation treats war literature as a test of moral attention. It argues that action-movie clarity cannot hold the subject, since war brings absurdity, randomness in who survives, and the blunt reality of trying to kill someone unknown.
A story about how revision helps a draft reveal its own structure.
The episode treats Casey Walker's "Islands" as an exercise in revision and editorial shaping. A story that sat on a desk and in a computer for a decade, then came together after the pages were written in a week or two with help from The Common, becomes a case study in how…
A careful conversation that keeps Nemesis morally and structurally alive.
Philip Roth's Nemesis is treated as a live object for close reading, and the discussion moves steadily from framing to interpretation. It gives real weight to Bucky Cantor, Arnie Mesnikoff, Marcia, and the novel's language of hiding, duty, and ordinary life, so the book's…
Great books, taken chapter by chapter, with delight
Book talk with room to wander.
This episode features a panel discussion at the Evo Institute with Bernard Avishai, Igor Webb, and Steven Zipperstein analyzing Philip Roth's novel Nemesis.
Host Holly Gattery interviews author Lindsay Wong about her new novel 'Villain Hitting for Vicious Little Nobodies' released by Penguin Random House Canada.
This episode features an interview with Nova Scotia author Sean Bedell about his 2025 book 'Shoebox' on the New Books Network podcast.
Emily Everett interviews author Casey Walker about his short story 'Islands', published in The Common Magazine.
This episode features an interview with Professor Michelle Hartman about her work on Iman Humaydan Yunis' forthcoming novel 'Songs for Darkness' from Interlink Books.
Holly Gaddery interviews Joanna Cockerline about Still (The Porcupine's Quill, 2025), a Giller Prize longlisted novel about Kayla, who works Leon Avenue in Kelowna while searching for her missing friend Little Zoe.
Su Chang traces The Immortal Woman from the 1965–1975 Cultural Revolution to early-2010s China through Le Mei and her daughter Lin.
On New Books in Literature, Robin Blackburn McBride traces River of Dreams to her great-grandmother’s admission to a mental hospital around 1910.
This episode features an interview with author Sayantani DasGupta about her upcoming middle-grade novel 'Theft of the Ruby Lotus,' which combines art repatriation themes with a museum heist plot.
This episode introduces upcoming 2026 book releases focused on Japan and Taiwan, starting with a discussion of 'Phantom Paradise, Escape from Manchuria' by Kei Enokido.
This episode features an interview with author Jinwoo Park about his book "Oxford Soju Club" published by Dundurn Press in 2025.
This episode features an advertisement for a survey and Acrobat Studio, promoting listener engagement and partnerships for the New Books Network.
This episode features an interview with author Linda Hamilton about her historical fiction novel 'The Fourth Wife', which explores polygamy and women's roles in 1882 Mormon society.
Rebecca Buchanan, host at New Books Network, introduces Jason Reynolds and his novel Soundtrack.
Danielle Girard talks with Deidre Tyler Holtz on New Books Network's New Book Podcast about Pinky Swear, which she says is her 17th novel and arrives about 26 years after her first book.
Emily Everett opens by introducing Casey Walker and his story "Islands." She places it in issue 30 of The Common and notes that Walker's new novel, Mexicali, is forthcoming from Knopf in 2027.
Ed Simon joins New Books Network to discuss a book on writing during the apocalypse and the Great Unraveling.
New Books in Literature's interview with Peter Orner focuses on The Gossip Columnist's Daughter, where Jed Rosenthal chases Karen Cookie Kupcinet's 1963 death and a family rupture tied to Irv and Ethie Kupcinet.
This episode explores why Langston Hughes's translation collection 'Troubled Lands' remained unpublished for nearly a century, featuring a conversation with editor Ricardo Wilson about Hughes's connections to Latin American literature.
This episode features a panel conversation about Philip Roth's novel Nemesis, celebrating his Booker Prize win and exploring under-discussed aspects of his work.