The Book Show on WAMC

Zadie Smith's fourth novel, NW, is a return of sorts to the voices and the northwest London landscape of her 2000 debut, White Teeth. Her tragi-comic new novel follows four Londoners - Leah, Natalie, Felix and Nathan – as they try to make adult lives outside of Caldwell, the council estate of their childhood. From private houses to public parks, at work and at play, their London is a complicated place.

    Michael Connelly started his career as a newspaper reporter, eventually working as a police and crime reporter for The Los Angeles Times. While there, he covered the 1992 riots – a time and place to which he returns in the book, The Black Box, which stars LAPD detective, Harry Bosch.

Previously aired as Book Show #1279.

At the heart of Rilla Askew’s new novel, Kind of Kin, are social and political issues that continue to rend the fabric of America: illegal immigration, conflicting cultures, the abuse of power, and the tension between faith and government.

Askew has written an investigation of how sweeping, agenda-driven legislation affects real, individual lives.

  The Fun Parts: Stories is a hilarious collection of stories from the writer The New York Times called “the novelist of his generation.”

Returning to the form in which he began, Sam Lipsyte, author of the New York Times bestseller The Ask, offers up a book of bold, hilarious, and deeply felt collection of stories, some first published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, or Playboy.

  Ann Hood’s 13th novel is The Obituary Writer.

The story goes back and forth in time between 1919 San Francisco, when obituary writer Vivien Lowe searches for the man she lost in the Great Earthquake of 1906, and 1961 Washington, DC, when Claire, a young wife and mother, struggles to decide whether to follow the man she loves or stay in her secure marriage.

    An extraordinary literary event, All That Is, is a major new novel by the PEN/Faulkner winner and acclaimed master, James Salter.

It is a sweeping, seductive, deeply moving story set in the years after World War II.

    Cheryl Strayed is the author of #1 New York Times bestseller Wild, her essay collection, Tiny Beautiful Things, and the novel Torch.

Wild was chosen by Oprah Winfrey as her first selection for Oprah's Book Club 2.0. It tells Cheryl’s story of hitting the Pacific Crest Trail at age 22, following the death of her mother.

    Manil Suri's new novel, The City of Devi, opens with India and Pakistan on the verge of nuclear war. India is roiled by factional violence between Hindus and Muslims. Bombers strafe citizens, vigilantes settle scores, and terrorists set off dirty bombs around the country as Mumbai boils over with fear and fury. But, at its heart, it is a love story.

  Novelist Meg Wolitzer has written several popular novels including, The Wife, The Ten-Year Nap, and The Uncoupling. Her new novel is an exploration of friendship, coming-of-age, talent and success. The Interestings follows six artistic friends who meet as teenagers one pivotal summer at a camp called Spirit-in-the-Woods.

    Elizabeth Graver’s new novel, The End of the Point , is set in a summer community on Buzzard’s Bay from 1942 to 1999 and traces one family’s journey through the latter half of the 20th Century.

It examines the legacy of family and place and explores what we’re born into and what we pass down.