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Chad Harbach’s novel The Art of Fielding is the next pick for the Leonard Lopate Show Book Club! It which was named one of 2011’s best books by the New York Times and The New Yorker.  Set at a midwestern college where a star shortstop has transformed the school’s baseball team, it follows five characters grappling with the consequences of one wild throw.

Pick up a copy of and then tune in on Thursday, June 28th, when Chad Harbach answers your questions about the novel.
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Edward St. Aubyn talks about his latest novel, At Last, which begins as friends, relatives, and foes trickle in to pay final respects to his returning character Patrick’s mother, Eleanor.

John Irving, author of The World According to Garp, talks about his newest novel, In One Person.

EVENT: Irving will read from In One Person at the 92nd St. Y on May 13, 2012 at 8pm. More information here.  

Christopher Buckley discusses his new novel, They Eat Puppies, Don’t They?, a political satire about lobbying, the media, weapons manufacturing, and our relationship with China.

Teju Cole's debut novel, Open City, is about a young Nigerian doctor who wanders around Manhattan reflecting on his relationships, recent breakup, and his past. Although it's set in busy, crowded New York City, the novel explores themes of isolation, dislocation, and identity. The New Yorker called Open City "Beautiful, subtle—and original...A prismatic debut," and it was awarded the 2012 PEN/Hemingway Award.

Actor and writer Michael Tucker discusses his debut novel, After Annie, a tale about love and the theater. It tells the story of a man off the rails after his wife’s death, battling through the middle-aged wilderness days he hoped never to face alone.

Annalena McAfee discusses her novel The Spoiler, set in London in the late 1990s during the height of the newspaper wars. The story is about two women at different times in their careers: One, a legendary war correspondent now in her eighties, is determined to hide the dark details of her personal life from the other, a young feature writer for a newspaper gossip magazine.

Peter Behrens discusses his new novel, The O’Briens, a family story that spans half a century. It begins with Joe O’Brien, the grandson of a potato-famine emigrant, and a backwoods boy, railroad magnate, and patriarch. The novel tells the story of a man, a marriage, and a family.

Lionel Shriver discusses her new novel, The New Republic, about a disgruntled New York corporate lawyer who becomes a foreign correspondent in a Portuguese province where a homegrown terrorist movement has sprung up. He thinks he is replacing the larger-than-life reporter he longs to emulate, who has disappeared, but all is not as it seems when the terrorist incidents dry up after that reporter’s disappearance.

Ellen Ullman talks about her new novel, By Blood, set in San Francisco in the 1970s. A disgraced professor takes an office in a downtown office building and listens in on the conversations next door between a psychologist and one of her patients. The professor is pulled into the patient’s questions of her own identity.

Louis Begley talks about his latest novel, Schmidt Steps Back. It picks up 13 years after his last novel leaves off, on New Year’s Eve 2008, the dawn of the age of Obama. Schmidt’s affection for the young president-elect is boundless, and as he imagines a better day for his country, he dares to hope there’s one for him too.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta talks about his novel, Monday Mornings. The story follows five surgeons at Chelsea General Hospital in Massachusetts who discuss their bad outcomes at something known as the Morbidity and Mortality conference. The novel is about what they learn from their mistakes, both professional and personal.

Jackie Collins discusses her newest novel, Goddess of Vengeance, which brings back her heroine Lucky Santangelo, who runs a high-profile casino and hotel in Las Vegas. She has a movie star husband, two children, and believes she has it all, but billionaire businessman Armand Jordan is determined to take it all away.

Edward St. Aubyn talks about his latest novel, At Last, which begins as friends, relatives, and foes trickle in to pay final respects to his returning character Patrick’s mother, Eleanor.

February’s Leonard Lopate Show Book Club selection is Téa Obreht’s critically acclaimed novel, The Tiger’s Wife. It tells the story of Natalia, a young doctor in an unnamed Balkan country still recovering from war, who starts investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of her grandfather who raised her. As she investigates his death, the complexities of life, war, and her grandfather’s life come to light.

Margot Livesey talks about her new novel, The Flight of Gemma Hardy . Set in Scotland and Iceland in the 1950s and 1960s, the novel is a captivating homage to Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre.

Adam Johnson describes his latest novel, The Orphan Master’s Son, which follows a young man’s journey through the icy waters, dark tunnels, and spy chambers of North Korea, the world’s most mysterious dictatorship. Part thriller, part story of innocence lost, part story of romantic love, the novel is a portrait of a world hidden from view: a North Korea rife with hunger, corruption, and casual cruelty but also camaraderie, beauty, and love.

Robert Harris talks about his international bestselling novel, The Fear Index, which gives a glimpse into an all-too-recognizable world of greed and panic.

Elmore Leonard talks about bringing back U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, the hero of Pronto, Riding the Rap, and the hit FX series Justified, in his latest novel,  Raylan.

Alex Gilvarry discusses his debut novel, From the Memoirs of a Non-enemy Combatant, a story in which high fashion and homeland security clash. A flamboyant fashion designer named Boyet unexpectedly winds up in Gitmo, locked away indefinitely on suspicion of being linked to a terrorist plot.