Join us this spring for Season 6 of Check This Out and more in-depth conversations with emerging authors.
Host Rachel Barenbaum and her guests delve deep into the characters and themes as well as the writing process itself.
Rachel has an uncanny knack for spotting future superstars long before they hit the bestseller lists.
Check This Out has featured over 20 authors over the last year and more than half of them are now up for major literary awards. Of the remaining authors, three became major bestsellers and two were chosen for national book clubs.
Sizzling Summer Recommendations - July 4
We’ve gathered together some favorite authors and booksellers to offer their suggestions for summer reading, including Sarah MacLean, Chris Bohjalian, Jayne Allen, Katherine Center, and Zibby Owens. In addition, host and author Rachel Barenbaum will have some books from New England authors to recommend.
Check This Out airs Saturdays at 3 p.m. beginning April 11, 2026 on NHPR and NHPR.org.
Check This Out is proud to partner with The PEN/Faulkner Foundation to champion new voices in literature.
Listen to all the back episodes on NHPR.org or download the show as a podcast!
Subscribe to the NHPR Books podcast: Apple | Spotify | Amazon
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Some favorite authors offer their suggestions for summer reading, plus host Rachel Barenbaum has some books by New England authors to recommend. -
This debut novel is about an itinerant Singaporean ex-con hiding from her past in different countries. And on our Book Biz segment, author Katherine Center reflects on her 20-year publishing career. -
The debut novel "Homebound'" features four lives entangled across time by a computer game, saved to a floppy disk in the 1980s. And on our Book Biz segment, the boom in audiobooks. -
An unsettling debut novel blending romance, horror, and fairy tale elements, with nods to Frankenstein, plus, in our Book Biz segment, the future of literary criticism. -
A viral dystopian romance set in a corrupt surveillance state, following a mercenary who botches the assassination of the president’s son.And on the Book Biz segment, the romance genre as the engine of publishing. -
A sweeping family saga that traces the intertwined lives of three generations of women, moving from war-torn Germany and Ireland to coastal Maine. -
In this debut novel, we meet a Nigerian-American family set on a crash course towards each other. Plus, on our Book Biz segment, the role of agents in publishing today. -
In this romantasy set in a Roman-inspired world ruled by vampires, a young woman faces a deadly competition where survival depends on mastering forbidden powers. -
Through intertwining narratives, the novel follows a cast of characters in Pakistan, taking us from the chaotic cities to lawless feudal countryside. And in the Book Biz segment, how A.I. is affecting publishing. -
This historical novel takes us to Poland in the late 1930s, where two young Jewish women must work together to find a missing teacher while storm clouds gather around them.
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