Category: Reading Life

Ep. 234: Tracey Lange on Crafting Compelling Families

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This week my guest is New York Times bestselling author Tracey Lange, author of What Happened to the McCrays?, a poignant story about the resilience of family, the importance of community, and the magic of middle school hockey.

Full of love and hope, What Happened to the McCrays? takes an intimate look at both sides of a failed marriage and two people who must finally confront the awful pain of their past or risk being consumed by it.

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“The novel’s emotional range is impressive, particularly the slow-burn rekindling between its two leads, and snowy, close-knit Potsdam comes to life. Readers in search of a perceptive and rewarding family drama need look no further.”—Publishers Weekly

Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

 

About the Author:

Tracey Lange was born and raised in New York City. She graduated from the University of New Mexico with a degree in psychology before owning and operating a behavioral healthcare company with her husband for fifteen years. She completed the Stanford University online novel writing program, and is the author of We Are the Brennans and The Connellys of County Down. She currently lives in Bend, Oregon with her husband, two sons, and beloved German Shepherd. Learn more: traceylange.com

 

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Happy Reading and Listening,

Laura Szaro Kopinski

ABookishHome.com

*A Bookish Home is an affiliate of Bookshop.org. At no extra cost to you, we receive a small commission if you purchase something through the Bookshop.org links provided.

Ep. 194: Henriette Lazaridis on Transporting Readers to Athens in Last Days in Plaka

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I’m thrilled that Henriette Lazaridis is back this week to discuss her new novel, Last Days in Plaka – think The Talented Mr. Ripley by way of Elena Ferrante–it explores the lies at the heart of an old woman’s identity and the desperation of a young woman’s struggle to belong.

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“A stunning novel about an unlikely friendship that had me utterly enthralled. In luminous prose, Last Days in Plaka lays bare the yearnings of a trio of heartbreakingly human characters in modern-day Athens as they navigate a hot, deserted city haunted by memories and their own obscured agendas. A poignant, surprising read that will make you look more closely, and with greater tenderness, at the world around you.” —Katrin Schumann, author of This Terrible Beauty

 

Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

About the Author:

Henriette Lazaridis is the author of The Clover House (a Boston Globe bestseller), Terra Nova (which the New York Times called “ingenious”), and Last Days in Plaka (publishing April 2024). She earned degrees in English literature from Middlebury College, Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar, and the University of Pennsylvania. Having taught English at Harvard, she now teaches at GrubStreet in Boston. She was the founding editor of The Drum Literary Magazine and runs the Krouna Writing Workshop in northern Greece. Her essays and articles have been published in Elle, Forge, Narrative Magazine, The New York Times, New England Review, The Millions, and Pangyrus, and earned her a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artists Grant. An avid athlete, Henriette trains on the Charles River as a competitive rower, and skis, trail runs, or cycles whenever she can. She writes about athletic and creative challenges at The Entropy Hotel on Substack. Visit her website: www.henriettelazaridis.com.

Browse Books Mentioned On This Episode:

Looking for a book mentioned on the podcast? Want to browse books by past guests? Visit A Bookish Home Podcast’s Bookshop.org page.

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Links: 

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Happy Reading and Listening,

Laura Szaro Kopinski

ABookishHome.com

*A Bookish Home is an affiliate of Bookshop.org. At no extra cost to you, we receive a small commission if you purchase something through the Bookshop.org links provided.

Ep. 193: Sheila Sundar Explores Grief, Motherhood, Ambition, and the Meaning of Home in Habitations

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This week my guest  is Sheila Sundar, author of the stunning debut novel Habitations, which follows a young academic who moves from India to the United States, where she navigates first love, a green card marriage, single motherhood, and more.

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“Sundar’s debut novel is a wondrous mix of quiet heartache and unexpected hope, making it the best kind of literary fiction.… Sundar’s focus on the evolution of Vega’s inner and outer lives through relationships brings a vitally important lens to the thematic preoccupations of roots, home, migrant identity, and motherhood. The crisp plot and uncluttered writing make Habitations a remarkable first novel.”—Booklist

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About the Author:

Sheila Sundar is a professor of English and creative writing at the University of Mississippi. Her writing has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, The Massachusetts Review, The Threepenny Review, and elsewhere. She lives in New Orleans with her husband and their three children. Habitations is her debut novel. Learn more: https://www.sheilasundar.com/

Browse Books Mentioned On This Episode:

Looking for a book mentioned on the podcast? Want to browse books by past guests? Visit A Bookish Home Podcast’s Bookshop.org page.

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Links: 

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Happy Reading and Listening,

Laura Szaro Kopinski

ABookishHome.com

*A Bookish Home is an affiliate of Bookshop.org. At no extra cost to you, we receive a small commission if you purchase something through the Bookshop.org links provided.

Ep. 192: Parul Kapur Explores the Lives of Female Artists in 1950s Bombay with Inside the Mirror

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This week my guest  is Parul Kapur, author of Inside the Mirror, winner of the AWP prize for the novel and named a most anticipated feminist book of 2024 by Ms. Magazine. The book tells the story of two sisters who aspire to become artists in 1950s Bombay, India.

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“With breathtaking lyricism and scorching insight, Kapur captures women in flux brilliantly. This profound book complicates the impact of colonialism and throbs with life. Inside the Mirror is an extraordinary novel.”

—Jennifer Maritza McCauley, author of When Trying to Return Home

 

Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

About the Author:

Parul Kapur was born in Assam, India, grew up in the United States, and lives in Atlanta. She is a fiction writer, journalist, and literary critic whose writing has appeared in a number of publications, including Ploughshares, the New Yorker, and the Paris Review. Kapur holds an MFA from Columbia University and has received fellowships from the Hambidge Center and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts. Learn more: https://www.parulkapur.com/

Browse Books Mentioned On This Episode:

Looking for a book mentioned on the podcast? Want to browse books by past guests? Visit A Bookish Home Podcast’s Bookshop.org page.

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Links: 

Macmillan Audio

Happy Reading and Listening,

Laura Szaro Kopinski

ABookishHome.com

*A Bookish Home is an affiliate of Bookshop.org. At no extra cost to you, we receive a small commission if you purchase something through the Bookshop.org links provided.

Ep. 191: Liza Palmer on Writing The Bear Meets Succession in Family Reservations

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This week my guest is Liza Palmer, author of Family Reservations,  an epic saga about one family’s battle over their culinary legacy  that is sure to have you up late binge reading.

“A beautiful portrait of a fiercely complicated family of women. Oft hilarious, sometimes dysfunctional, and always relatable, this book revels in the messiness of mothers, daughters, and sisters. Reading this exquisite novel made me feel the same way about the Winters that I feel about my own family – which is to say that I loved them and wanted to scream at them in equal measure. I devoured this book. And wish I could devour their recipes!”

—Sarah Watson, creator of The Bold Type

 

Give yourself the gift of a preorder of Family Reservations. You’ll be so excited when it arrives on your doorstep on April 1st!

 

Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

About the Author:

Two-time Emmy nominated, internationally best-selling tea enthusiast who gets to write for Marvel sometimes, Liza Palmer lives in Los Angeles where 95.3% of people call her Lisa. Learn more: https://lizapalmer.com/

Browse Books Mentioned On This Episode:

Looking for a book mentioned on the podcast? Want to browse books by past guests? Visit A Bookish Home Podcast’s Bookshop.org page.

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Links: 

Macmillan Audio

Happy Reading and Listening,

Laura Szaro Kopinski

ABookishHome.com

*A Bookish Home is an affiliate of Bookshop.org. At no extra cost to you, we receive a small commission if you purchase something through the Bookshop.org links provided.

Ep. 190: Melodie Edwards on Creating a Modern Anne Elliot in Her Swoonworthy Persuasion Retelling

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This week my guest is Melodie Edwards, author of Once Persuaded, Twice Shy, a second chance romance and a modern reimagining of Persuasion.

oncepersuaded

“Reading Melodie Edwards is the closest you can come to reading a modern-day Jane Austen. Fans of Austen will find Once Persuaded, Twice Shy a gorgeously romantic homage to one of history’s best second-chance romances and most relatable protagonists. Edwards’ narrative voice is exquisite, her Anne Elliot(t) perfectly rendered, her Wentworth swoonworthy, and her small-town setting (Kellynch Hall exchanged for Kellynch Winery) a place you’ll ache to visit. This gem of a story is the Persuasion update we deserve.”
-Ashley Winstead, author of The Boyfriend Candidate

 

Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

About the Author:

Melodie Edwards is the author of Jane & Edward. She has a BA from the University of Toronto, a master’s degree from McMaster University and Syracuse University (2023), studied comedy writing at the Second City Training Centre, and works in communications. Learn more: https://melodieedwards.com/

Browse Books Mentioned On This Episode:

Looking for a book mentioned on the podcast? Want to browse books by past guests? Visit A Bookish Home Podcast’s Bookshop.org page.

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Links: 

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Happy Reading and Listening,

Laura Szaro Kopinski

ABookishHome.com

*A Bookish Home is an affiliate of Bookshop.org. At no extra cost to you, we receive a small commission if you purchase something through the Bookshop.org links provided.

Ep. 189: Zibby Owens on Disrupting the Publishing Industry in the Fictional World of Blank and Real Life

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This week my guest is bookfluencer extraordinaire, publisher, and author Zibby Owens. She’s here to chat about her delightful new novel Blank, about a wife, mother, and frustrated writer who faces an impossible deadline for turning her life around. This new novel is perfect for fans of Nora Goes Off Script.

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“Leave it to Zibby Owens to write a novel about a lovable woman single-handedly disrupting the publishing industry. Blank explores marriage, parenting, friendship, and the competitive high jinks of the book trade with the perfect amount of wit and light-touch humor. I devoured this book in a single sitting.” -Annabel Monaghan, author of Nora Goes Off Script and Same Time Next Summer

 

Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

About the Author:

Zibby Owens is the author of Bookends: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Literature and the children’s book Princess Charming and is the editor of two anthologies: Moms Don’t Have Time to Have Kids: A Timeless Anthology and Moms Don’t Have Time To: A Quarantine Anthology. Creator and host of the award-winning daily podcast Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books, Zibby is the founder and CEO of Zibby Media, dubbed “the Zibby-verse” by the Los Angeles Times. It includes publishing house Zibby Books, online magazine Zibby Mag, Zibby’s Book Club, retreats, classes, and events. She also owns Zibby’s Bookshop, an independent bookstore in Santa Monica, California. A regular contributor to Good Morning America and other outlets, she loves recommending books as “NYC’s Most Powerful Book-fluencer” (Vulture). A graduate of Yale University and Harvard Business School, Zibby currently lives in New York (with frequent visits to LA) with her husband, Kyle Owens of Morning Moon Productions, and her four children ages nine to sixteen. Follow her on Instagram @zibbyowens and on Substack, where she tells it like it is. Learn more: https://www.zibbyowens.com/

Browse Books Mentioned On This Episode:

Looking for a book mentioned on the podcast? Want to browse books by past guests? Visit A Bookish Home Podcast’s Bookshop.org page.

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Links: 

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Happy Reading and Listening,

Laura Szaro Kopinski

ABookishHome.com

*A Bookish Home is an affiliate of Bookshop.org. At no extra cost to you, we receive a small commission if you purchase something through the Bookshop.org links provided.

Ep. 167: Virginia Pye on on the Literary Women of Gilded Age Boston

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This week, Boston author Virginia Pye discusses The Literary Undoing of Victoria Swann, a historical novel which she calls a love letter to books and authors and to the literary city she adores. It came to be as she imagined being a young woman writing books in Boston’s male-dominated publishing industry of the 19th century.

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“The Bostonians meets Writers & Lovers in Virginia Pye’s gossipy and substantive historical novel about women authors and book publishing. Compelling, fierce, and utterly charming, Victoria Swann is a literary heroine for the ages.”
—Laura Zigman, author of Small World

 

Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

About the Author:

Virginia Pye is an award-winning author of novels and short stories. Her short story collection, Shelf Life of Happiness, (Press 53) won the 2019 Independent Publisher Gold Medal for Short Fiction, and one of its stories was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Virginia’s debut novel, River of Dust, (Unbridled Books), was an IndieNext Pick and a 2013 Finalist for the Virginia Literary Award. Her second novel, Dreams of the Red Phoenix, (Unbridled Books), was named a Best Book of 2015 by the Richmond Times Dispatch. Virginia Pye grew up in Cambridge, MA and moved back after thirty-five years living up and down the East Coast. Learn more: https://www.virginiapye.com/

 

Browse Books Mentioned On This Episode:

Looking for a book mentioned on the podcast? Want to browse books by past guests? Visit A Bookish Home Podcast’s Bookshop.org page.

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Happy Reading and Listening,

Laura Szaro Kopinski

ABookishHome.com

*A Bookish Home is an affiliate of Bookshop.org. At no extra cost to you, we receive a small commission if you purchase something through the Bookshop.org links provided.

Ep. 166: Vibhuti Jain on the Path to Debut and the Importance of Distance from her Setting and Character

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Today my guest is Vibhuti Jain, author of Our Best Intentions, a gripping debut about an immigrant family that gets caught in the middle of a criminal investigation, perfect for readers of Everything I Never Told You.

ourbestintentions

“Our Best Intentions, the lyrical debut by Vibhuti Jain, is equal parts suspense and the best kind of literary fiction. Centered on the assault of a wealthy teen by a Black classmate, this novel is a heartbreaking story of class, family, and the tragedy that often occurs when the two intersect.” — Julie Clark, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Flight and The Lies I Tell

 

Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

About the Author:

Vibhuti Jain lives with her husband and daughter in Johannesburg, South Africa, where she works in international development. She began her career as a corporate lawyer in New York City. She holds degrees from Yale University and Harvard Law School. She grew up in Guilford, Connecticut. Our Best Intentions is her first novel. Learn more: https://www.vibhutijain.com/

 

Browse Books Mentioned On This Episode:

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Happy Reading and Listening,

Laura Szaro Kopinski

ABookishHome.com

*A Bookish Home is an affiliate of Bookshop.org. At no extra cost to you, we receive a small commission if you purchase something through the Bookshop.org links provided.

Ep. 147: Deepa Varadarajan on Late Bloomers, Second Acts, and Persistence on the Publishing Journey

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Today my guest is Deepa Varadarajan, author of Late Bloomers, a witty, big-hearted debut in which an Indian American family is turned upside down when the parents split up thirty-six years into their arranged marriage​.

 

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“Equal parts funny and heartbreaking, Late Bloomers is a charming story about starting over, stumbling, and finding yourself at any age.”—Jennifer Close, author of Marrying the Ketchups

 

Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

 

About the Author:

Deepa Varadarajan lives in Atlanta with her husband and two children. She is a legal academic and a graduate of Yale Law School. She grew up in Texas and received her BA from the University of Texas at Austin. Her short fiction has appeared in The Georgia Review and Colorado Review, and her legal scholarship has appeared in The Yale Law Journal and many other publications. Late Bloomers is her first novel. Learn more: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/705450/late-bloomers-by-deepa-varadarajan/

 

Browse Books Mentioned On This Episode:

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Happy Reading and Listening,

Laura Szaro Kopinski

ABookishHome.com

*A Bookish Home is now an affiliate of Bookshop.org. At no extra cost to you, we receive a small commission if you purchase something through the Bookshop.org links provided.