Each week on The Book Show, host Joe Donahue interviews authors about their books, their lives and their craft. It is a celebration of both reading and writers. Joe holds interesting conversations with a variety of authors including Malcolm Gladwell, Lawrence Wright, and Emily St. John Mandel.
As the son of a librarian, Joe has been part of the book world since childhood. His first job was as a library assistant, during college he was a clerk at an independent book store and for the past 25 years he has been interviewing authors about their books on the radio.
He is also the host of The Roundtable on WAMC Northeast Public Radio, a 3-hour general interest talk show. Notable authors he has interviewed include: Kurt Vonnegut, John Irving, John Updike, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Arthur Miller, Stephen King, Amy Tan, Anne Rice, Philip Roth, E.L Doctorow, Richard Russo, David Sedaris and Maya Angelou.
Joe has won several awards for his interviews, including honors from the Associated Press, the Edward R. Murrow Awards, the New York State Association of Broadcasters, The Headliners, The National Press Club and the Scripps-Howard Foundation.
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Laura Dave continues Hannah Hall’s journey in the sequel to her best-seller “The Last Thing He Told Me.” The latest, “The First Time I Saw Him,” explores not what someone else has hidden – but what the narrator herself may have misunderstood about the story she’s been telling herself for years. -
In his newest novel, "Buckeye," Patrick Ryan explores the ways families hold together even as the past threatens to pull them apart. Moving between generations, Ryan explores how we inherit not just our parents’ habits and hopes, but their unfinished business. -
Karen Russell's latest, “The Antidote,” is a dust bowl novel and a reckoning with a nation’s forgetting that enacts the settler amnesia and omissions passed down from generation to generation. -
In his latest biography, “Mark Twain,” Ron Chernow brings to life the man known as the father of American literature, Mark Twain. Chernow peels back the layers of this complex figure, showing us the man behind classics like “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and “The Innocents Abroad.” -
Ann Packer’s newest novel, “Some Bright Nowhere,” marks a profound return after a decade: it tells the story of Eliot and Claire, married nearly forty years in a quiet Connecticut town, facing the toughest chapter of their lives when Claire’s long-running illness draws toward its end. -
From Susan Orlean, the beloved New Yorker writer and bestselling author of “The Orchid Thief” and “The Library Book,” comes “Joyride” - a masterful memoir of finding her creative calling and purpose.This episode of The Book Show was recorded at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY in an event co-presented by Northshire Bookstore and WAMC on the Road. -
Michael Connelly has long been a master at mapping the evolving landscape of crime and justice in America, and in his latest, "The Proving Ground," he turns his attention to one of the defining questions of the moment: what happens when artificial intelligence crosses dangerous ethical lines—and real people pay the price? -
When Chloe Dalton, a city-dwelling professional with a high-pressure job, finds a newly born hare - endangered, alone and no bigger than her palm - she is compelled to give it a chance at survival. The new book, “Raising Hare,” is the story of their journey together. -
John Irving has long been one of America’s most distinctive and beloved novelists. With his new novel, “Queen Esther,” Irving once again returns to the questions that have animated his career: What shapes a life? How do we carry the burdens of the past? And how does love anchor us through the most unpredictable turns? -
Jeffrey Archer's novels have always balanced suspense with insight into the corridors of power. From “Cain and Abel” to “The Clifton Chronicles,” he investigates ambition, betrayal and redemption on an international scale. His latest, “End Game” is swift and elegant and full of moral complexity.
