Books on the Bed

Matt Sawyer
  • 5.0 (6)
  • Books

Inspired by a visit to Tuskegee, Alabama in April of 2021, I’m traveling through the country asking our hosts, ”If I came to your town and stayed at your house, what books would you put on my bed?” Each host will share 6 books for me to carry with me on the journey of my life. As we go, we’ll build a digital library for you to explore and find the stories that will part a curtain between us, make your heart shift, and change your life.

  1. Aug 27

    Joanna Pearson

    This week we visit with Joanna Pearson in Carrboro, NC.  Joanna Pearson’s newest book, MORE HAPPY LOVE, a story collection, is forthcoming with Bloomsbury in May 2027, and her second novel, JUSTINE, (currently in progress!) will be published by Bloomsbury thereafter. Her debut novel, BRIGHT AND TENDER DARK (Bloomsbury, 2024), was an Indie Next Pick, an Amazon Editors’ Pick, and longlisted for the Crook’s Corner Book Prize. Her second story collection, NOW YOU KNOW IT ALL (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2021), was chosen by Edward P. Jones for the 2021 Drue Heinz Literature Prize and named a finalist for the Virginia Literary Awards. Her first story collection, EVERY HUMAN LOVE (Acre Books, 2019) was a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Awards, the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for Fiction, and the Foreword INDIES Awards. Originally from western North Carolina, she now lives with her husband and two daughters near Chapel Hill, where she works as a psychiatrist. Joanna's Books on the Bed: The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor Bobcat and Other Stories by Rebecca Lee Collected Stories by Shirley Hazzard (Edited by Brigitta Olubas; Foreword by Zoë Heller) A Lucky Man: Stories by Jamel Brinkley (Interlude) Jenny, The Halloween Spy by Lillie Patterson After the Funeral and Other Stories by Tessa Hadley The Giant's House by Elizabeth McCracken   Matt's Gifts for Joanna: The Strange Beautiful by Carla Crujido From the Hilltop by Toni Jensen Monday, Monday by Elizabeth Crook

  2. Jul 23

    Lily Meyer

    This week we visit with Lily Meyer in Washington, D.C.  Lily Meyer is a translator, a critic, and the author of the novels The End of Romance (Viking, 2026) and Short War (Deep Vellum, 2024). She is a staff writer at The Atlantic. Her stories and translations can be found in The Dial, The Drift, The Sewanee Review, The Southern Review, and many other journals. BUY AND READ THE END OF ROMANCE! For more on Lily and her novels and translations: lilyjmeyer.com Lily's Books on the Bed: Enemies, A Love Story by Isaac Bashevis Singer Nemesis by Philip Roth Ninth Street Women: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art by Mary Gabriel Lost in the City: Stories by Edward P. Jones Soldados la Salamina by Javier Cercas More Taste Than Time by Abby Mandel   Matt's Gifts for Lily: The Longest Way to Eat a Melon by Jacquelyn Zong-Li Ross Skin Contact by Elisa Faison The Serpent of Stars by Jean Giono

  3. Jul 12

    Reena Shah

    This week we visit with Reena Shah on Roosevelt Island in New York City.  Reena Shah is the author of Every Happiness, her debut novel. Her work has been featured in the Masters Review, Electric Literature, Joyland, BBC, the American Prospect, National Geographic, and the Guardian, among other publications. She has been awarded fellowships and residencies from the Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies, Millay Arts, Tin House, Sustainable Arts Foundation, Cuttyhunk Island Residency, and the Fulbright Foundation. She received an MFA in fiction from the Michener Center for Writers, where she won the Keene Prize for Literature. For many years she was a kathak dancer in New York and India. She now lives on Roosevelt Island, NY with her family and teaches in a public school. BUY AND READ EVERY HAPPINESS! For more on Reena: reenadshah.com Reena's Books on the Bed: Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag The Story of a Brief Marriage by Anuk Arudpragasam We the Animals by Justin Torres Carryout by Hasan Dudar We Pretty Pieces of Flesh by Colwill Brown Make Your Way Home by Carrie R. Moore   Matt's Gifts for Reena: Under Water by Tara Menon But Where's Home? by Toni Ann Johnson A Good Country by Laleh Khadivi

  4. Jul 2

    Helen Whybrow

    This week we visit with Helen Whybrow at Knoll Farm in Fayston, Vermont.  Helen Whybrow is the author of The Salt Stones: Seasons of a Shepherd's Life (Longlisted for the National Book Award & Winner of the Vermont Book Award), A Man Apart: Bill Coperthwaite’s Radical Experiment in Living and Dead Reckoning: Great Adventure Writing from 1800–1900. She is also the editor of many anthologies, including Hearth: A Global Conversation on Community, Identity, and Place and Coming to Land in a Troubled World. Her writing has appeared in Cagibi, Hunger Mountain, EatingWell, and Orion. She is a visiting professor at Middlebury College and has taught at the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference. She lives in the Green Mountains of Vermont, where she shepherds a two-hundred-acre organic farm. BUY AND READ THE SALT STONES - Paperback and Audio release August 4th! For more on Helen and Knoll Farm: knollfarm.org Helen's Books on the Bed: The Serpent of Stars by Jean Giono IWÍGARA: The Kinship of Plants and People by Enrique Salmón Sprout Lands: Tending the Endless Gift of Trees by William Bryant Logan Rehearsing with Gods: Photographs and Essays on the Bread & Puppet Theater by Ronald T. Simon and Marc Estrin House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape by Lauret Savoy   Matt's Gifts for Helen: Land, Language, and Women by Julie L. Reed On Wholeness: Anishinaabe Pathways to Embodiment and Collective Liberation by Quill Christie-Peters Dispatches from Pluto: Lost and Found in the Mississippi Delta by Richard Grant

  5. Jun 18

    Elisa Faison

    This week we visit with Elisa Faison in Carrboro, North Carolina.  Elisa Faison is a writer and freelance editor living in Carrboro, North Carolina with her partner and two-year-old twins. Her debut novel SKIN CONTACT will be published on June 23, 2026. She has published stories in The Missouri Review, Electric Literature, Smokelong Quarterly, and more. Her story “Motherlove” was the recipient of the 2024 Peden Prize, awarded by The Missouri Review and judged by Rachel Yoder. Her story “Group Sex” was the third most-read story in Electric Literature in 2023. Elisa formerly worked as a bookseller at Flyleaf Books and the book reviews editor of The Carolina Quarterly. She holds a PhD in English from The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where she specialized in twenty-first century climate change novels. ORDER AND READ SKIN CONTACT! For more on Elisa: elisafaison.com/ Elisa's Books on the Bed: A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore Girlhood by Melissa Febos The Lover by Lily King Ulysses by James Joyce Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason Matt's Gifts for Elisa: The End of Romance by Lily Meyer The Computer Room by Emma Ensley Strange as This Weather Has Been by Ann Pancake

  6. May 24

    Jacquelyn Zong-Li Ross

    This week we visit with Jacquelyn Zong-Li Ross in Vancouver, British Columbia.  Jacquelyn Zong-Li Ross is a writer and editor based in Vancouver, the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Her fiction, poetry, essays, and art criticism have appeared in BOMB, C Mag, The Ex-Puritan, Fence, Mousse, and elsewhere, as well as in the chapbooks Mayonnaise and Drawings on Yellow Paper (with Katie Lyle). By day, she works as an editor at The Capilano Review. By night, she drafts suspended scenarios and propositions. The Longest Way to Eat a Melon, her debut collection of fictions, was published by Sarabande Books in 2025. She is at work on a novel. BUY AND READ THE LONGEST WAY TO EAT A MELON For more on Jacquelyn: jacquelynzross.com Jacquelyn's Books on the Bed: Three Steps on the Ladder of Writing by Hélène Cixous The Importance of Being Iceland by Eileen Myles The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli Pure Colour by Sheila Heti lettuce lettuce please go bad by Tiziana La Melia The Cloud Notebook by Ada Smailbegović Matt's gifts for Jacquelyn: Little Bird by Claudia Ulloa Donoso (translated by Lily Meyer) Undermajordomo Minor by Patrick deWitt Temporary by Hilary Leichter

  7. Apr 26

    Alison Lyn Miller

    This week we visit with Alison Lyn Miller in Athens, Georgia. Alison Lyn Miller grew up in Hartwell, Georgia, and worked as a magazine editor in New York City and Dallas before moving to Athens, Georgia, in 2017. In 2020, she started reporting and writing about independent professional wrestlers around the state and published pieces in Sports Illustrated and Gravy. Her first book, Rough House (W.W. Norton, Jan. ’26), set in Georgia’s small-town professional wrestling scene, explores themes of escapism, self-actualization, performance and violence, and reveals the depth of an often-dismissed American pastime. She has written for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Washington Post, and Garden & Gun, among others, and has been awarded residencies at the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts & Science (2023) and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (2024). She is 2021 graduate of the Narrative Nonfiction MFA program at The University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism & Mass Communication. BUY AND READ ROUGH HOUSE For more on Alison: alisonlynmiller.com Alison's Books on the Bed: The Last Cowboys: A Pioneer Family in the New West by John Branch The Last Fine Time by Verlyn Klinkenborg The Library Book by Susan Orlean The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel Hiroshima by John Hersey Dirtbag Queen: A Memoir of My Mother by Andy Corren Matt's Gifts for Alison: Bookshop Cats by Daphne Du Meowier They Said They Wanted Revolution by Neda Toloui-Semnani A Race to the Bottom of Crazy: Dispatches from Arizona by Richard Grant Gene Smith's Sink: A Wide-Angle View by Sam Stephenson

  8. Mar 8

    Alice Martin

    This week we visit with Alice Martin in Waynesville, North Carolina. Alice Martin is a writer, reader, and teacher from North Carolina. She holds a PhD in Literature from Rutgers University and works as an Assistant Professor of English Studies at Western Carolina University, where she teaches fiction writing and American literature. She lives outside of Asheville, North Carolina with her husband, her son, and too many typewriters. Westward Women is her debut novel. For more on Alice: alicejmartin.com BUY WESTWARD WOMEN Alice’s Books on the Bed: The Extraordinary Work of Ordinary Writing: Annie Ray's Diary by Jennifer Sinor Envelope Poems: Poetry by Emily Dickinson (edited by Jen Bervin and Marta Werner) If I Had Two Wings: Stories by Randall Kenan The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood Bad Behaviour by Mary Gaitskill The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter Matt’s Gifts for Alice: The Night Journal by Elizabeth Crook Call It Horses by Jessie van Eerden Girl’s Girl by Sonia Feldman (forthcoming June 2nd)

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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
6 Ratings

About

Inspired by a visit to Tuskegee, Alabama in April of 2021, I’m traveling through the country asking our hosts, ”If I came to your town and stayed at your house, what books would you put on my bed?” Each host will share 6 books for me to carry with me on the journey of my life. As we go, we’ll build a digital library for you to explore and find the stories that will part a curtain between us, make your heart shift, and change your life.

Information

  • Creator
    Matt Sawyer
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    43
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2024
  • Show Website
    Books on the Bed

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