WYPL Book Talk

Podcast - William Joyce - Ollie's Odyssey

William Joyce is an extraordinarily talented writer and artist. His illustrations have appeared in multiple publications, including several covers for the New Yorker. He's worked extensively in film and television, and his picture books and novels for younger readers, including the best-selling Guardians of Childhood series, have captured imaginations all around the world. Today we'll be talking about his newest book, Ollie's Odyssey, where a young boy and his favorite stuffed animal become separated, and they must undertake perilous journeys to find each other again.

Podcast - Stuart Gibbs - Spaced Out

Stuart Gibbs is a veteran screenwriter who has moved to the world of fiction for younger readers. He started off with the Last Musketeer series, and is now juggling three different series, Fun Jungle, Spy School, and Moonbase Alpha. Today Stuart and I will talk about the second entry into the Moonbase Alpha mystery series, Spaced Out.

Podcast - Adam Silvera - More Happy Than Not

Adam Silvera's debut novel More Happy Than Not was first published in 2015 to glowing reviews from seemingly every publication, it hit the New York Times Bestsellers list for Young Adult fiction, and also made the New York Times list of the 100 notable books of the year. More Happy Than Not just came out in paperback on SOHO Teen.

Podcast - V. E. Schwab - A Gathering of Shadows

V.E. Schwab writes for the YA market as Victoria Schwab. Her first novel for adults, Vicious, was published in 2013 under the name V.E. Schwab. In 2015 she introduced us to worlds of magic stacked onto London with the book A Darker Shade of Magic. Tor Books has recently published the second book in the series, A Gathering of Shadows, which debuted on the New York Times Best Sellers list.

Podcast - Jeff Crook - The Covenant

Jeff Crook is a veteran writer of fantasy novels, but in 2011 he broke into crime fiction scene with The Sleeping and the Dead, a novel starring a heroin addicted crime scene photographer who got her hands on a haunted camera. 2016 sees the publication of the second book in the series, The Covenant, published by Minotaur.

Podcast - Chris Offut - My Father The Pornographer

Chris Offutt has written short stories, novels, screenplays, as well as three memoirs. In this episode, we'll be talking about the most recent of these memoirs, in which he examines the impact of his own father's literary work, My Father the Pornographer. 

Podcast - Julia Claiborne Johnson - Be Frank with Me

Julia Claiborne Johnson is a former journalist for Glamour and Mademoiselle. She's recently published her hilarious debut novel, Be Frank with Me, in which a publishing industry assistant is dispatched to Los Angeles to keep an eye on a reclusive genius author and her unusual son, Frank.

Podcast - Jesse Holland - The Invisibles

Jesse J. Holland is a political reporter for the Associated Press in Washington. He's written two books, the first, Black Men Built the Capitol: Discovering African-American History in and around Washington, D.C. and today we'll be discussing his latest history title, The Invisibles: The Untold Story of African-American Slaves in the White House, which is published by Lyons Press.

Podcast - Katy Simpson Smith - Free Men

Katy Simpson Smith received rave reviews for her debut novel set in coastal Carolina during the Revolutionary War, The Story of Land and Sea, when it was published in 2014. 2016 welcomes the publication of her second novel, Free Men, set in the 1780s in what would become the state of Alabama.

 

 

Podcast - Rashod Ollison- Soul Serenade

 

Stephen Usery talks to Rashod Ollison about his memoir, Soul Serenade: Rhythm, Blues & Coming of Age Through Vinyl. Ollison, the critic for The Virginian Pilot, and veteran of The Dallas Morning News, The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Baltimore Sun, writes candidly about growing up gay in a working-class African-American family in Arkansas and the music that his father gave him when his parents divorced.

Podcast - Michael Bible - Sophia

Michael Bible's work has appeared in Oxford American, The Paris Review Daily, Al Jazeera America, and ESPN: The Magazine. In this episode, we'll talk about his novella Sophia, where a Mississippi man of god is having all sorts of problems.

Podcast - Bob Mehr - Trouble Boys: The True Story of the Replacements

Bob Mehr is the music writer for The Commercial Appeal. He has also written for the Chicago Reader, Spin, and The Village Voice. Da Capo Press has just published his book, Trouble Boys: The True Story of the Replacements, about the legendary 1980s indie rock band who were known for shambolic performances, incredible songs, and self-destruction.

Podcast - Mark Greaney - Back Blast

Mark Greaney has been at the top of best-seller lists for co-authoring several of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan novels, as well as writing several Ryan novels after Mr. Clancy's passing. However, Mark got his publishing start with his own original series about burned CIA operative, Court Gentry. Back Blast is the fifth installment in the series, which has Gentry returning to America to find out why the CIA wants him dead.

Podcast - Kristin O'Donnell Tubb - John Lincoln Clem

Linda Lloyd talks to Kristin O'Donnell Tubb, writing as E.F. Abbott, who has written a middle-grade historical novel, John Lincoln Clem: Civil War Drummer Boy. It's based on a true story about a twelve year-old who went to war to support his president and preserve the Union.

Podcast - Ed Tarkington - Only Love Can Break Your Heart

Ed Tarkington is a teacher and writer from Nashville whose work has appeared in the Nashville Scene, The Commercial Appeal, The Pittsburgh Quarterly, and The Southeast Review. Algonquin has recently published his debut novel, Only Love Can Break Your Heart.

Ed will be reading from his debut novel on Thursday, February 11 at Crosstown Art Story Booth at 6:30 p.m.

Podcast - Stewart O'Nan - West of Sunset

Stewart O'Nan is known for his many novels like Snow Angels, A Prayer for the Dying, and Last Night at the Lobster, but he's also written a couple of non-fiction books, including one done with Stephen King, Faithful : Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season. Penguin has released his most recent novel in paperback, which mixes in liberal amounts of fact about F. Scott Fitzgerald's last years alive in Hollywood, West of Sunset.

Podcast - Chris Bohjalian - The Guest Room

Chris Bohjalian is prolific, best-selling author having enjoyed much success, commercial and critical, with novels like Midwives, The Double Bind, and The Sandcastle Girls. Doubleday has recently published his seventeenth novel, The Guest Room, about a horrific bachelor party and its effect on one family and also the young women forced into the sex trade far from home.

Podcast - Heidi Pitlor - The Daylight Marriage

Stephen Usery talks to Heidi Pitlor about her second novel, The Daylight Marriage, which is new in paperback. It's the story of a woman who goes missing, and then we see timelines of how her disappearance affects her husband and children, as well as how they became a couple and the events of the day leading up to her going missing.

Podcast - Vickie Fee - Death Crashes the Party

 

Linda Lloyd talks to former Memphian Vickie Fee about debut novel, Death Crashes the Party, the first of the new Liv and Di in Dixie cozy mystery series. Liv, a party planner, and Di, a letter carrier, are best friends who investigate the murder of two men to help clear the names of those closest to them.

Vickie will be signing her book at The Booksellers of Laurelwood in Memphis on Saturday, January 9, 2016 at 2:00 p.m.

Ashton Lee - A Cherry Cola Christmas

 

Linda Lloyd interviews Ashton Lee about his latest installment in the Cherry Cola Book Club series, A Cherry Cola Christmas, in which business opportunities to help save the town, as well as a country superstar are considering coming to Cherico, Mississippi to help the struggling town.