Check This Out with Rachel Barenbaum Rachel Barenbaum

Rachel Barenbaum interviews author Leo Vardiashvili’s about his debut novel“Hard By a Great Forest” – a story about a man who fled the Republic of Georgia in the midst of war. It’s a unique tale about the traumas of war and the lasting effects of those families driven not just to survive, but to remember, love and live.

Rachel Barenbaum interviews author Maura Cheeks who talks about her new novel Acts of Forgiveness. Set in a speculative America, readers navigate a world where the government has approved reparation payments for black Americans – but only if they can prove they are descended from slaves.

Vauhini Vara's story collection, THIS IS SALVAGED, has been named by The New Yorker, Publisher’s Weekly, Vox, and the New York Public Library as one of the best books of the year.

Host Rachel Barenbaum sits down with her colleagues from the Howe Library in Hanover, New Hampshire to discuss their favorite reads from 2023.

This week on Check This Out, host Rachel Barenbaum sits down with Emma Törzs, author of "Ink Blood Sister Scribe." Törzs' debut novel will soon be available in 13 languages. It's a fast paced, magical book about two estranged half-sisters tasked with guarding their family's library of magical books. They work together along with a stranger, a magical scribe, to unravel a deadly secret at the heart of their collection. It's a tale of familial loyalty and betrayal and the pursuit of magic and power.
Törzs says swaths of the story were inspired by her family’s Hungarian roots, and by what it took for them to survive the Holocaust.

Episode 109. You may know Ayana Mathis from her debut novel, The Twelve Tribes of Hattie. Published 11 years ago, the excitement and noise around that debut took up all the space and energy Mathis had to write fiction. Her new second novel is called The Unsettled. It’s a mother-daughter-son story that braids two narratives - one from the south and one from the north.