FictionMatters

Sara Hildreth
  • 5.0 (5)
  • Books
  • Updated Biweekly

Book recommendations from avid readers and your favorite writers. fictionmatters.substack.com

  1. Jul 27

    Books That Matter: Laura McGrath on THE WIFE by Meg Wolitzer

    Welcome to Books That Matter. In this series, I’ll speak with writers I admire to learn about their lives as readers and deep dive into a book that matters to them. Laura B. McGrath is Assistant Professor of English at Temple University, National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, and author of Middlemen: Literary Agents and the Making of American Fiction. Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Nation, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and Public Books. She also writes the popular publishing substack, TextCrunch. In today’s episode, Laura joins me to talk about Meg Wolitzer’s The Wife. I absolutely loved reading this book and it is a novel that absolutely must be discussed so I was thrilled to get the chance to deep dive into it with Laura. We talked about what makes a good publishing novel and how this particular book illuminates gender disparities in the literary world, while saying something much broader about what it means to be a woman and a wife. Of course we also we dive into Laura’s book Middlemen, which is all about the unique role literary agents play in the contemporary American publishing landscape. This book is the very definition of a rich text. I found Laura’s discoveries fascinating and I think any reader of contemporary fiction will as well. While we do talk about the end of The Wife, we save that for the last few minutes of our conversation and give ample warning before we we into spoilers! You can find Middlemen on Bookshop.org or wherever you get your books! This is a peek behind the curtain of a very opaque industry and if you love books, I think you’ll find it extremely interesting. Connect with Laura: Website | Instagram | Substack | Middlemen on Bookshop This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fictionmatters.substack.com/subscribe

  2. Jul 20

    Books That Matter: Sarah Wang on THE TOPEKA SCHOOL by Ben Lerner

    Welcome to the FictionMatters Podcast. I’m your host Sara Hildreth and this is Books That Matter. In this series, I’ll speak with writers I admire to learn about their lives as readers and deep dive into a book that matters to them. Sarah Wang is the author of New Skin (Little Brown, 2026), which was named a best book by NPR, Apple Books, and was featured in Marie Claire, Harper’s Bazaar, People, and Bloomberg. She has written for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and the London Review of Books. Wang is a MacDowell Fellow, a Center for Fiction Emerging Writer Fellow, a PEN America Writing for Justice Fellow, a Sewanee Writer’s Conference Tennessee Williams Scholar, a Tin House Scholar, and the winner of a Barbara Deming Award. She teaches creative writing at Barnard College. In today’s episode, Sarah joins me to talk about Ben Lerner’s The Topeka School. I loved this book, and processing my reading with Sarah made it all the richer. We delved into the mind-bending world of psychoanalytic theory and speculated on what the book is saying about language, masculinity, and trauma. Then we dive into Sarah’s debut novel New Skin. This book is the very definition of a rich text. I was thrilled to get to ask Sarah all of my questions, but also appreciated the questions she asked me about my experience reading her book. While we do get into some specifics about The Topeka School, we don’t include any spoilers for New Skin and you can listen to the episode without yet having read either book. You can find New Skin in your favorite bookshop now! This is a highly original debut that I hope more readers will pick up! Connect with Sarah: Website | Instagram | New Skin on Bookshop | New Skin on Libro.fm This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fictionmatters.substack.com/subscribe

  3. Jul 6

    Books That Matter: Shannon Sanders on JAZZ by Toni Morrison

    Welcome to the FictionMatters Podcast. I’m your host Sara Hildreth and this is Books That Matter. In this series, I’ll speak with writers I admire to learn about their lives as readers and deep dive into a book that matters to them. Shannon Sanders is the author of The Great Wherever (Holt, July 2026) and the linked short story collection Company (Graywolf, 2023), which won the 2024 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes’ Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, was named one of the best books of 2023 by Publishers Weekly and Debutiful, and was shortlisted for the 2024 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous publications, including One Story, The Sewanee Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, and Electric Literature, and has received a PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. She lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, with her husband and three sons. In today’s episode, Shannon joins me to talk about Toni Morrison’s Jazz, and I felt honored to unpack this complicated and beautifully rendered novel with her. Then we dive into Shannon’s new novel The Great Wherever, which is out Tuesday, July 7th, and yes that is tomorrow if you’re listening to this episode the day it drops. I had the great privilege of reading an early copy of The Great Wherever and I have to say it’s one of the best family novels I’ve read in a long time and I loved the originality Shannon brings to the narrative structure. While we do get into some specifics about Jazz, we don’t include any spoilers for The Great Wherever and you can listen to the episode without yet having read either book. You can find The Great Wherever in your favorite bookshop on July 7th. I also have to give a strong push for Company, Shannon’s linked short story collection which was one of my favorite books of 2023. Aubrey’s family appears in Company as well so if you fall in love with them, you need to pick a copy of that as well! * The Great Wherever by Shannon Sanders * The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin * The Wayside School Series by Louis Sachar * Holes by Louis Sachar * The Babysitters Club by Ann M. Martin * Mary Downing Hahn * The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald * Lord of the Flies by William Golding * Toni Morrison * Octavia Butler * Chinua Achebe * Agatha Christie * The God of the Woods by Liz Moore * Tana French * Company by Shannon Sanders * Jamel Brinkley * Deesha Philyaw * Pemi Aguda * Three Women by Lisa Taddeo * Ghost Lover by Lisa Taddeo * The Final Revival of Opal and Nev by Donnie Walton * Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi * Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn * Ann Patchett * Jonathan Franzen * Jazz by Toni Morrison * Beloved by Toni Morrison * Paradise by Toni Morrison * On Morrison by Namwali Serpell * The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison * Corregidora by Gayl Jones * Kindred by Octavia E. Butler * Dominion by Addie E. Citchens * The Love Songs of W. E. B. Du Bois by Honoree Fannone Jeffers * The World Doesn’t Require You by Rion Amilcar Scott * The Devil Three Times by Rickey Fayne *This post contains affiliate links. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fictionmatters.substack.com/subscribe

  4. Jun 22

    🎉📚Best Books of 2026 (so far) with Liz Hein

    Welcome to the FictionMatters podcast. Today I’m talking about the best books of the year (so far) with my co-host Liz Hein. This year’s reading has been strange for me, but I feel very excited about the books Liz and I are sharing as well as the books we have to look forward to in the back half of the year. As always, I would love to hear your favorite books of the year so far! Drop your favorites in the comments below! Books & Links * Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash * Seek Immediate Shelter by Vincent Yu * Canon by Paige Lewis * Exit Party by Emily St. John Mandel * Ply by Hernan Diaz * Under Story by Chloe Benjamin * Ruins by Lily Brooks Dalton * Cleo Dang Would Rather Be Dead by Mai Nguyen * Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke * The Things We Never Say Elizabeth Strout * Strangers by Belle Burden * Adult Braces by Lindy West * The Rise of Ragebait Lit by Maris Kreizman * James by Percival Everett * Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman * John of John by Douglas Stuart * The Watch Podcast * 18:40 Brawler by Lauren Groff * 22:06 Kin by Tayari Jones * The Deserters by Mathias Ennard * 26:04 Medium Rare by A. Natasha Joukovsky * The Portrait of a Mirror by A. Natasha Joukovsky * 28:46 Whistler by Ann Patchett * Tom Lake by Ann Patchett * 32:18 Departures by Julian Barnes * The Möbius Book by Catherine Lacey * 35:14 Vigil by George Saunders * Lincoln and the Bardo by George Saunders * 38:51 Transcription by Ben Lerner * Audition by Kate Kitamura * 41:14 Land by Maggie O’Farrell * Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy * 46:16 She Who Remains by Renee Karabash * The Remembered Soldier by Anjet Daanje ***This post contains affiliate links. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fictionmatters.substack.com/subscribe

    🎉📚Best Books of 2026 (so far) with Liz Hein

  5. Apr 27

    Books That Matter: Rob Franklin on CRUSH by Richard Siken

    Welcome to the FictionMatters Podcast. I’m your host Sara Hildreth and this is Books That Matter. In this series, I’ll speak with writers I admire to learn about their lives as readers and deep dive into a book that matters to them.Today, I’m joined by Rob Franklin. Rob Franklin is the author of Great Black Hope, which was published in June 2025. A national bestseller, his debut novel was nominated for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, the Barnes and Noble Discover Prize, the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, and the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence — it was named a “Best Book of the Year” by TIME, Vogue, NPR, and Vanity Fair, among others. A co-founder of Art for Black Lives, Franklin holds a BA from Stanford University and an MFA from NYU’s Creative Writing program. He teaches writing at School of Visual Arts and edits fiction for Joyland. He lives in New York. In this episode, Rob and I discuss Richard Siken’s debut poetry collection, Crush. Not only was this my first time reading Crush, I had never even heard of it before Rob’s recommendation. I found this collection to be urgent and astonishing. I’m so grateful to Rob for bringing it to my attention and for this fascinating discussion about poetic language, the development of taste, and the interplay between writer, reader, and text. I hope you love this conversation and that getting to know Rob as a reader encourages you to go pick up Great Black Hope–it’s an excellent summer read! Books and Links * Crush by Richard Siken * The Perks of being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky * Claudia Rankine * Citizen by Claudia Rankine * Mark Doty * Terrance Hayes * Lighthead by Terrance Hayes * Ben Lerner * Zadie Smith * Katie Kitamura * Raven Leilani * Transcription by Ben Lerner * Open City by Teju Cole * Donna Tartt * Joan Didion * Hilton Als * White Girls by Hilton Als * Bluets by Maggie Nelson * “You Are Jeff” by Richard Siken * True Grit by Charles Portis (Audiobook read by Donna Tartt) * The Secret History by Donna Tartt * Edmund White * Audition by Katie Kitamura * Mary Oliver * W.H. Auden * Chloe’s Scene by Jay McInerney * What I Saw at Taylor Swift’s Delirious Eras Tour by Taffy Brodesser-Akner * How Goop’s Haters Made Gwyneth Paltrow Company Worth $250 Million by Taffy Brodesser-Akner * Another Country by James Baldwin *This post contains affiliate links. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fictionmatters.substack.com/subscribe

  6. Apr 13

    Books That Matter: Nora Lange on A LIFE'S WORK by Rachel Cusk

    Welcome to the FictionMatters Podcast; this is Books That Matter. In this series, I’ll speak with writers I admire to learn about their lives as readers and deep dive into a book that matters to them. Today, I’m joined by Nora Lange. Nora’s debut novel Us Fools was awarded the The Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction, named a best book of 2024 by The Boston Globe and NPR, a Los Angeles Times bestseller, and a New York Times Editors’ Choice pick. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, The Believer, BOMB, Hazlitt, and elsewhere. She has received fellowships from Brown University and is a fellow at USC’s Los Angeles Institute of the Humanities. She recently moved to Salt Lake City with her family. In this episode, Nora and I discuss Rachel Cusk’s classic motherhood memoir, A Life’s Work as well as Nora’s new short story collection, Day Care, which published on April 7th Additionally, we both get a little personal about how motherhood has impacted our creative lives and Nora shares how her recent reads are all connecting back to her current work in progress. Books and Links * Day Care by Nora Lange * When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamín Labatut * Philip Roth: The Biography by Blake Bailey * The Dry Heart by Natalia Ginzburg * A Life’s Work by Rachel Cusk * All Fours by Miranda July * Live Flesh movie directed by Pedro Almodóvar * How Pregnancy and Childrearing Alter Our Perception of Time and Aging (Lit Hub) * The King’s English Bookshop * Us Fools by Nora Lange * Joan Didion Connect with Nora * Website * Instagram * Order Day Care *This post contains affiliate links This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fictionmatters.substack.com/subscribe

  7. Feb 25

    Olympic Figure Skating Debrief

    Your girls are back! This Olympics was too dramatic to keep our commentary in the group chat so we’re back on mic to debrief it all. We chat through every event sharing our highlights and heartbreaks as well as answering some of your questions along the way. Plus we give some tips on how to keep up with the world of figure skating in between Olympic Games. You can follow Layne Fargo on Instagram and Substack. If you’re currently experiencing ice dance withdrawal, get yourself a copy of The Favorites and then read all about The Ice Queens, coming in 2027. You can follow Denne Michele Norris on Instagram and keep up with her work at Electric Literature through their IG and website. Her debut novel When the Harvest Comes is out now and will release in paperback in April. Read, Watch, Listen * The Nice Capades * The Runthrough * The Runthrough Ice Dance Lore Part 1 * Surya Bonaly’s 1998 Olympic free skate * Ryan Bradley’s celebratory backflip * Ilia and Adam’s synchronized backflips * Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier free dance * Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnak free dance * Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko free dance * Adam Siao Him Fa Olympic short program * Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara free skate * Alysa Liu Olympic free skate * Amber Glenn Nationals short program * So You Want to Watch Figure Skating This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fictionmatters.substack.com/subscribe

    Olympic Figure Skating Debrief

  8. Feb 23

    Books That Matter: Alli Hoff Kosik on PREP by Curtis Sittenfeld

    Welcome to the FictionMatters Podcast. This is Books That Matter. In this series, I’ll talk with writers about reading to learn about their tastes, their habits, and the books that matter to them. Today, I’m joined by Alli Hoff Kosik. Alli is a full-time writer and editor. For seven years, she independently produced and hosted The SSR Podcast. Alli holds an MFA from Temple University and lives in Philadelphia with her family. Her debut novel Too Blessed to Stress comes out March 3rd. Alli has long been one of my favorite readers on the internet. Her fun and thoughtful examination of middle grade classics in the SSR Podcast is a wonderful example of conversational criticism and how every book, no matter the genre or intended audience, can be read with care and insight. Today, we get to apply that same framework to one of Alli’s favorite novels, Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld. Then, she shares a bit about her own debut novel, Too Blessed to Stress. Kiley Reid calls Alli’s debut “a delightful satire full of tenderness and heart” and I couldn’t agree more. Watching Alli make the leap from public reader to published author has been incredible and I highly recommend listening to her Behind the Scenes of Too Blessed to Stress podcast all about her process. Too Blessed to Stress is out March 3rd, and you can preorder it now from Bookshop.org or your favorite indie bookstore. Books and Links * Too Blessed to Stress by Alli Hoff Kosik * The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy * What a Time to Be Alive by Jade Chang * The Wangs Vs. The World by Jade Chang * Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld * The Catcher in the Rye by J.D.Salinger * Bloomability by Sharon Creech * American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld * The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer * Under the Influence by Noelle Crooks * Workhorse by Caroline Palmer * Kylie Reid Connect with Alli * Instagram * Is This a Thing? * Getting It Alli Together * Pre-Order Too Blessed to Stress *This post contains affiliate links. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fictionmatters.substack.com/subscribe

See All (24)

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
5 Ratings

About

Book recommendations from avid readers and your favorite writers. fictionmatters.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Sara Hildreth
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    24
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Sara Hildreth
  • Show Website
    FictionMatters

You Might Also Like