Check This Out with Rachel Barenbaum

Ep. 130 NHPR Alison Espach: THE WEDDING PEOPLE

It's a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn, the only guest who isn’t there for the big event.

A novel about depression, love, the ways women make themselves small, and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.

Ep. 129 NHPR Yael Van der Wouden: THE SAFEKEEP

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, this is a story of desire, suspicion, and obsession between two women staying in the same house in the Dutch countryside during the summer of 1961. An exploration of the legacy of WWII and the darker parts of our collective past.

Ep. 128 NHPR NH Librarians Recommend Their Favorite Books of 2024

A special Check This Out episode featuring three librarians from around the state chatting about their favorite books of the year and offering suggestions for this holiday reading season.

We also discuss how librarians feel about audiobooks — does it count as reading? Plus, the explosion of "Young Adult" titles and whether the name should be changed, how libraries decide which books to put on their shelves, and the pros and cons of self-publishing.

Ep. 127 NHPR Cherry Lou Sy: LOVE CAN'T FEED YOU

A beautiful, tender, yet searing debut novel about intergenerational fractures and coming of age, following a young woman who immigrates to the United States from the Philippines and finds herself adrift between familial expectations and her own desires.

Ep. 126 NHPR Ferdia Lennon: GLORIOUS EXPLOITS

An unlikely production of Euripides in a prison quarry, set in ancient Greece with a contemporary Irish accent. As funny as it is moving, the novel is an ode to the power of art in a time of war and brotherhood in a time of enmity.

Ep. 125 NHPR Elizabeth Gonzalez James: THE BULLET SWALLOWER

Based on (mostly) true events, "The Bullet Swallower" is a magical realism western about violence and revenge, a story that asks who pays for the sins of our ancestors, and whether it is possible to be better than our forebears.

Ep. 124 NHPR Sarah Brooks: THE CAUTIOUS TRAVELLER'S GUIDE TO THE WASTELANDS

In this historical fantasy novel, a group of passengers set out on the Trans-Siberian Express train, in a journey across a magical landscape known as “the Wastelands.” Can they trust each other even as the rules seem to be changing?

Ep 123 NHPR Essie Chambers: SWIFT RIVER

The third season of in-depth author interviews continues with Essie Chambers, author of "Swift River."

Longlisted for The Center for Fiction 2024 First Novel Prize, there’s a lot to unpack in this novel. Sixteen year old Diamond is the only Black person in the town of Swift River, stuck in a town she hates it as much as it hates her.

Her mother is a drug addict who can’t pay the bills, and making things even worse, Diamond is buried in an obese body she can’t escape, a symbol of the generational trauma that weighs on her every single day.

"Swift River" focuses on three generations of women in one family, the trauma they endure and pass on.

It also shows us the hope Diamond holds for her future, and a historic setting in a northern ‘sundown town,’ a town where Black people are only allowed to pass through during the day.

Ep. 122 NHPR Morgan Talty: FIRE EXIT

Set around Maine’s Penobscot Reservation, a novel about one man’s family, divided, like the river that separates him from his childhood home. The novel is about belonging, the shifting nature of memory - and bloodlines. Shortlisted for The Center for Fiction 2024 First Novel Prize.

Ep. 121 NHPR Marjan Kamali: THE LION WOMEN OF TEHRAN

A heartfelt epic about friendship, betrayal, and redemption during three transformative decades in Iran.