Welcome to One Bright Book! Join our hosts Dorian, Rebecca, and Frances as they discuss their most anticipated books of 2026 with Sam Sacks, prominent book critic for The Wall Street Journal, writing the weekly “Fiction Chronicle,” and a founding editor of Open Letters Monthly.

For our next episode, we will discuss The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope. We would love to have you read along with us, and join us for our conversation coming to you in late January.

Want to support the show? Visit us at Bookshop.org or click on the links below and buy some books!

Books mentioned:

• The Disappearing Act by Maria Stepanova, translated from the Russian by Sasha Dugdale
• In Memory of Memory by Maria Stepanova, translated from the Russian by Sasha Dugdale
• Opus Siniestra by Leonora Carrington
• On the Calculation of Volume, Book IV by Solvej Balle, translated from the Danish by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell
• Incompleteness: New and Selected Essays, 1999-2023 by Amit Chaudhuri
• In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin
• This Is Where the Serpent Lives by Daniyal Mueenuddin
• Now I Surrender by Alvaro Enrique, translated from the Spanish by Natasha Wimmer
• You Dreamed of Empires by Alvaro Enrique, translated from the Spanish by Natasha Wimmer
• The Palm House by Gwendoline Riley
• My Phantoms by Gwendoline Riley
• First Love by Gwendoline Riley
• Ambivalence by Brian Dillon
• Transcendence for Beginners by Clare Carlisle
• Animal Joy by Nuar Alsadir
• Here Where We Live Is Our Country by Molly Crabapple
• Down Time by Andrew Martin
• Early Work by Andrew Martin
• Cool for America by Andrew Martin
• On Morrison by Namwali Serpell
• The Witch by Marie Ndiaye, translated from the French by Jordan Stump
• That Time of Year by Marie Ndiaye, translated from the French by Jordan Stump
• Twenty Minutes of Silence by Helene Bessette, translated from the French by Kate Briggs
• Lilli Is Crying by Helene Bessette, translated from the French by Kate Briggs
• The Queen of Swords by Jazmina Barrera, translated from the Spanish by Christina MacSweeney
• The Week of Colors by Elena Garro, translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell
• Nonesuch by Francis Spufford
• Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford
• The Child That Books Built: A Life in Reading by Francis Spufford
• The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
• A Marsh Island by Sarah Orne Jewett
• The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope

Welcome to One Bright Book! Rebecca and Frances move out of the picture for this bonus episode where Dorian gets a chance to finally discuss VANITY FAIR by William Makepeace Thackeray with his one time professor and always friend, Rohan Maitzen. A rare and special opportunity to revisit the book from the syllabus that he blew off reading. “You can never entirely escape your sins!” Ready for some time well-spent in the 19th century?

Find Rohan’s blog Novel Readings here.

Want to support the show? Visit us at Bookshop.org or click on the links below and buy some books!

Books mentioned:

• Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
• David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
• Middlemarch by George Eliot
• North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
• The Warden by Anthony Trollope
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
• The Heart of Midlothian by Sir Walter Scott
• The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
• Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
• Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
• The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
• Villette by Charlotte Bronte
• Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

Special thanks to Fred the Cat for the special background symphony

Welcome to One Bright Book! Join our hosts Frances, Dorian, and Rebecca as they discuss THE STONE DOOR by Leonora Carrington, and chat about their current reading.

For our next episode, we will discuss I WHO HAVE NEVER KNOWN MEN by Jacqueline Harpman, translated from the French by Ros Schwartz, with an afterword by Sophie Mackintosh. We would love to have you read along with us, and join us for our conversation coming to you sometime this fall. Yes, that time frame is vague but we like to be truthful.

Want to support the show? Visit us at Bookshop.org or click on the links below and buy some books!

Books mentioned:

• The Stone Door by Leonora Carrington
• The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington
• Surrealist Women’s Writing: A Critical Exploration edited by Anna Watz
• A History of the Surrealist Novel edited by Anna Watz
• Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
• The Awakening by Kate Chopin
• A Marsh Island by Sarah Orne Jewett
• Crooked Cross by Sally Carson
• The Dance and the Fire by Daniel Saldana Paris, translated from the Spanish by Christina Macsweeney
• Sea Now by Eva Meijer, translated from the Dutch by Anne Thompson Melo
• I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman, translated from the French by Ros Schwartz

Welcome to One Bright Book! Join our hosts Rebecca, Frances, and Dorian as they discuss THERE’S ALWAYS THIS YEAR: ON BASKETBALL AND ASCENSION by Hanif Abdurraqib, and chat about their current reading.

For our next episode, we will discuss MIAOW by Benito Pérez Galdós, translated from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa. We would love to have you read along with us, and join us for our conversation coming to you sometime in August. Maybe. It’s summer, people!

Want to support the show? Visit us at Bookshop.org or click on the links below and buy some books!

Books mentioned:

• There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension by Hanif Abdurraqib
• They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib
• Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest by Hanif Abdurraqib
• A Fortune For Your Disaster by Hanif Abdurraqib
• A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance by Hanif Abdurraqib
• Be Holding: A Poem by Ross Gay
• Sad Tiger by Neige Sinno, translated from the French by Natasha Lehrer
• Theory and Practice by Michelle de Kretser
• Attila by Aliocha Coll, translated from the Spanish by Katie Whittemore
• Attila by Javier Serena, translated from the Spanish by Katie Whittemore
• Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell
• A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
• Miaow by Benito Pérez Galdós, translated from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa

You might also be interested in:

Beyond the Zero Podcast: Katie Whittemore speaking about her translations of Attila by Alicocha Coll and Attila by Javier Serena

Welcome to One Bright Book! Join our hosts Frances, Dorian, and Rebecca as they discuss THE COUNTRY OF THE POINTED FIRS by Sarah Orne Jewett, and chat about their current reading.

For our next episode, we will discuss There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension by Hanif Abdurraqib. We would love to have you read along with us, and join us for our conversation coming to you in early July.

Want to support the show? Visit us at Bookshop.org or click on the links below and buy some books!

Books mentioned:

• The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett
• A Marsh Island by Sarah Orne Jewett
• Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
• O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
• Willa Cather: Double Lives by Hermione Lee
• Toast: The Story of a Boy’s Hunger by Nigel Slater
• Nadja by André Breton, translated from the French by Mark Polizzotti
• The Little Drummer Girl by John le Carré
• Audition by Katie Kitamura
• Audition by Pip Adam
• Animal Stories by Kate Zambreno
• One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad
• My Heresies by Aline Stefanescu
• There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension by Hanif Abdurraqib

Under Development:

The band t-shirts for Misguided Aspic

Welcome to One Bright Book! Join our hosts Dorian, Frances, and Rebecca as they discuss O PIONEERS! by Willa Cather, and chat about their current reading.

For our next episode, we will discuss The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett. We would love to have you read along with us, and join us for our conversation coming to you in early June.

Want to support the show? Visit us at Bookshop.org or click on the links below and buy some books!

Books mentioned:

• O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
• My Antonia by Willa Cather
• The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather
• A Lost Lady by Willa Cather
• Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
• Ayesha at Last by Uzma Jalaluddin
• Hana Khan Carries On by Uzma Jalaluddin
• Much Ado About Nada by Uzma Jalaluddin
• Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood
• The Selected Letters of Willa Cather
• Chasing Bright Medusas by Benjamin Taylor
• Willa Cather: Double Lives by Hermione Lee
• The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett

You might also be interested in:

Welcome to One Bright Book! Join our hosts Rebecca, Dorian, and Frances as they discuss THE TREES by Percival Everett, and chat about their current reading.

For our next episode, we will discuss O Pioneers! by Willa Cather. We would love to have you read along with us, and join us for our conversation coming to you in late April.

Books mentioned:

• The Trees by Percival Everett
• James by Percival Everett
• Erasure by Percival Everett
• God’s Country by Percival Everett
• Sonnets for a Missing Key by Percival Everett
• The Sellout by Paul Beatty
• Scaffolding by Lauren Elkin
• On the Calculation of Volume, Volume 1 by Solvej Balle, translated from the dutch by Barbara J. Haveland
• Solenoid by Mircea Cărtărescu, translated from the Romanian by Sean Cotter
• Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa, translated from the Japanese by Polly Barton
• Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami, translated from the Japanese by Asa Yoneda
• Eurotrash by Christian Kracht, translated from the German by Daniel Bowles
• On a Woman’s Madness by Astrid Roemer, translated from the Dutch by Lucy Scott
• Herman Melville: A Biography, Volume 1, 1819-1851 by Hershel Parker
• Partners in Crime by Agatha Christie
• The Parisian by Isabella Hammad
• O Pioneers! By Willa Cather

You might also be interested in:

I’m Getting Out of Her by Leo Robson – https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n21/leo-robson/i-m-getting-out-of-here

TomorrowTalks with Percival Everett: The Trees – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irzJhamPVJw