Category: 3-BookTalkSometimeCommentary

Harriett Gilbert talks to Khaled Hosseini about his book The Kite Runner.

Best-selling English writer Sebastian Faulks talks about his heart-rending novel of love and war, Birdsong.

Slate's Audio Book Club. Stephen Metcalf, Troy Patterson, and Katie Roiphe discuss the novel Beautiful Children, by Charles Bock. We recommend, but don't insist, that you read the book before listening to this audio program.

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Best-selling American author Jane Smiley discusses A Thousand Acres, her ambitious re-imagining of Shakespeare's King Lear transposed onto an Iowan farmstead, which won the Pulitzer Prize.

Slate's Audio Book Club. Stephen Metcalf, Julia Turner, and Jacob Weisberg discuss the novel All the King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren. We recommend, but don't insist, that you read the book before listening to this audio program.

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American crime writer Patricia Cornwell talks about Post Mortem, the first novel in her celebrated Kay Scarpetta series.

Slate's Audio Book Club. Stephen Metcalf, Katie Roiphe, and Julia Turner discuss Eat Pray Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert. We recommend, but don't insist, that you read the book before listening to this audio program.

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Irish writer Edna O'Brien discusses The Country Girls, her novel about adolescence set in 1950's Ireland.

Slate's Audio Book Club. Meghan O'Rourke, Katie Roiphe, and James Surowiecki discuss the novel Tree of Smoke, by Denis Johnson. We recommend, but don't insist, that you read the book before listening to this audio program.

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Italian author Umberto Eco discusses his novel The Name of the Rose, set in a 14th Century Franciscan monastery and answers questions from an invited audience.

(Photo: Umberto Eco)