Sam Sacks writes the weekly fiction column for the Wall Street Journal’s book review, one of the most comprehensively interesting book sections in the media today. Sam has fascinating taste and he does a great job finding books that most people won't have heard of—and on today’s episode he shares some of the best books he has read so far this year. We hope you’ll find a favorite new book during this episode!

The Goldberry Books podcast is produced by Goldberry Books. Please stop on by the shop to check out what we have to offer or shop online through Bookshop.org, here.

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Tess Gunty is an award-winning novelist based in Los Angeles, whose fascinating (and acclaimed) debut novel, The Rabbit Hutch, was recently published by Knopf (North America) and Oneworld (UK & Commonwealth) and is a finalist for the National Book Award. For this week’s episode she chatted with David about her creative approach, the books that inspire her most, and much, much more. Here’s to long TBR lists!

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Sports writer, Tyler Dunne has written “the definitive guide to the real men of the gridiron: NFL tight ends”. It’s called The Blood and Guts: How Tight Ends Save Football and it’s available wherever books are sold. This week, Ty joins Bibliography to chat about the state of the NFL, his favorite sports books, and more.

You can grab a copy of the book here.

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Scott Avett is perhaps best known for his work in the acclaimed and much-loved band, The Avett Brothers, but he’s also a very accomplished visual artist who has two exhibitions running concurrently this fall.

Scott Avett: Purpose at Random, is showing at the SOCO Gallery in Charlotte, NC until November 2. You can learn more about this show here. Meanwhile, Scott Avett: After the Fact is at the Greenville Museum of Art from October 7 until January 21, 2023. Click here for tickets to this show.

Recently, Scott joined the show to discuss some of his favorite books, his ongoing journey as an artist, the question of truth in art, his affection for the mystics, the role of books in his home, and much, much more.

Thanks for checking out our show—and happy reading!

The Exhibitions

Scott Avett: Purpose at Random, is showing at the SOCO Gallery in Charlotte, NC until November 2. You can learn more about this show here.

Scott Avett: After the Fact is at the Greenville Museum of Art from October 7 until January 21, 2023. Click here for tickets to this show.

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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goldberrybooks.substack.com

Sam Sacks writes the Fiction Chronicle for the Wall Street Journal Book Review, one of the best sections in the world of book criticism. He is eloquent in his defense of good books, tactful in his criticism of bad ones, and always interesting in his taste. In this episode, he joins David to chat about several stand-out novels that have been published so far in 2022.

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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goldberrybooks.substack.com

Edoardo Ballerini has been in your head—or at least there’s a good chance he has if you listen to audio books. Having narrated more than 350 books (including classics by Dante, Dostoevsky, Eliot, Camus, and others and books by a plethora of popular modern writers like Amor Towles, Jess Walter, Isabel Allende), Ballerini is one of the superstars of the audio book world. So on this episode of Bibliography we talked about how he jumped into that line of work, how he prepares to narrate a book, and how the experience has impacted his reading life.

Of course, Ballerini is also successful television and movie actor, the son of a poet, and a parent of multiple children, so we chatted about the books that have been staples of his life over the years in each of these roles.

We hope this conversation helps you find a great book to add to your TBR list. Happy listening!

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You know that classic question, if you could have a dinner party with anyone dead or alive, who would it be? Well, Alissa Wilkinson’s new book, Salty: Lessons on Eating, Drinking, and Living from Revolutionary Women, is her fascinating and perhaps a tad unconventional answer to that question. She has gathered a hypothetical table of women who challenged norms and defied conventional wisdom: Ella Baker, Alice B. Toklas, Hannah Arendt, Octavia Butler, Agnes Varda, Elizabeth David, Edna Lewis, Maya Angelou, and Laurie Colwin. And she explores the ways food managed to root these women into their various callings. As the book jacket describes, “Salty is Alissa Wilkinson's invitation to you. Join these sharp, empowered, and often subversive women and discover how to live with courage, agency, grace, smarts, snark, saltiness, and sometimes feasting--even in uncertain times.”

Salty is out this week from Broadleaf Books so it seemed like a good time to chat about some of the best food writing out there. So, in addition to sharing some of her favorite books, Alissa also shared her Mount Rushmore list of the best very books of food writing.

Alissa Wilkinson is a senior culture reporter and critic at Vox.com, where she writes about film, TV, and culture, often where they intersect with media, religion, and rhetoric. She is also an associate professor of English and humanities at The King's College in New York City, where since 2009 she has taught courses on criticism, cinema studies, literature, and cultural theory.

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“Christopher Beha is one of the most talented young writers at work today.” —Jess Walter, author of Beautiful Ruins

This episode’s guest is Chris Beha, author of one of my favorite recent novels, The Index of Self Destructive Acts, which was nominated for the 2020 National book award and is one of the best books about people talking about ideas.

Beha is also the author of a memoir, The Whole Five Feet, and the novels Arts & Entertainments and What Happened to Sophie Wilder. Plus, he is the editor of Harper’s Magazine, one of the most consistently interesting and thoughtful periodicals available right now.

A while back he joined me to talk about the books he loves the most, including titles by Beverly Cleary, Muriel Spark, Leo Tolstoy, and others. I have been saving it for summertime because I think Index is a great book for this time of year. Thanks for tuning in.

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David McCloskey knows spy fiction. Having been a CIA analyst in a former life, he knows what makes a spy novel realistic and as a novelist he knows what makes the drama work. His 2021 novel, Damascus Station, is one of my favorite books of recent vintage precisely because it blends the two so beautifully. So on this episode of Bibliography, McCloskey joined the show to discuss some of his favorite books in the genre—new and old—as well as several other books that have defined his reading life over the years. Careful: You’re TBR list is about to get longer.

Thanks for listening!

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Megan Kate Nelson is an expert in the history of the American Civil War, the U.S. West, and popular culture. In fact, she’s such an expert that in 2021 she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History for her book, The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the Wes. Her new book, out this Spring, is called Saving Yellowstone and is about the historical context in which Yellowstone was discovered, preserved, and established as a national park.

As her website puts it, it is “a narrative of adventure and exploration, Saving Yellowstone is also a story of Indigenous resistance, the expansive reach of railroad, photographic, and publishing technologies, and the struggles of Black southerners to bring racial terrorists to justice. It reveals how the early 1870s were a turning point in the nation’s history, as white Americans ultimately abandoned the higher ideal of equality for all people, creating a much more fragile and divided United States.”

Recently Megan joined Bibliography to chat about the books she loves, the challenges of writing history, and much more. So if you love books of history, national parks, and adding to your to-be-read list be sure to tap that play button.

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Austin Kleon is an enthusiast, a man of joy, who takes great pleasure in contemplating the creative process and who has built a loyal following by sharing his love for books, music, movies, comics, journaling, notebooks, brush-pens, and so much more. He’s a man with eclectic tastes that are both curated and wide-ranging, and so he is an ideal guest for a podcast like this. Kleon joined the show recently to discuss his life in books, his own book writing process, books he reads with his kids, and much more.

Be sure to check out his Substack newsletter at austinkleon.substack.com. You’ll get a joyful dose of all that enthusiasm a few times a week.

And, of course, thanks for listening!

Books Mentioned in this episode:

* Lynda Barry, What It Is

* Anne Patchett, These Precious Days

* James Kochalka, The Cute Manifesto

* Lewis Hyde, The Gift

* Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics

* Journal of Henry D. Thoreau

* Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing

* Alan Jacobs, Breaking Bread with the Dead

* Peanuts comincs

* Calvin and Hobbes comics

* Tove Jansson, History of Moomins

* Jack Kirby comics

* Liana Finck, Passing for Human

* Kristin Radke, Seek You

* James Marshall, George and Martha books

* Jon Klassen’s hat books

* Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy

* Alan Taylor’s Assassin’s Cloak

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This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit closereads.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goldberrybooks.substack.com