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Charlie Sheen is an actor perhaps known just as well for his off-screen antics as his on-screen performances. In his new memoir, The Book of Sheen, Charlie is finally coming clean on what was going on during his years of hard drugs, public divorces, and on-set disputes that came to define his later career and reputation. These days, humility, gratitude, and sobriety have come to replace his meme-able bravado. Sitting on stage with ...

Recently, the Podcrushed crew was joined by author and actor Tembi Locke. She takes them from her whirlwind childhood to her life today as a bestselling writer and performer. They talk about the heart behind her memoir From Scratch and her new audiobook Someday, Now, the rituals and traditions that keep us grounded, and why midlife can feel a lot like adolescence (in the best way). It’s a rich conversation on grief, creativit...

“Sometimes I feel that I’m not going to write again,” says Arundhati Roy, “but then it becomes harder to keep quiet than to write it.” Few writers have bridged the personal and political as powerfully as Arundhati Roy. With her first memoir, fittingly titled Mother Mary Comes to Me, she turns to her turbulent relationship with her late mother, Mary Roy, a pioneering feminist who reshaped Indian law. Th...

The hilarious Jen Hatmaker (New York Times–bestselling author and host of the podcast For the Love) joins Elise Loehnen on Pulling The Thread to chat, in part, about her new memoir Awake. They talk about the moment in Jen’s life when everything seemingly dissolved (including her marriage of 26 years and her relationship to the church) and the much deeper awakening that she entered from there, when she truly started to r...

Right after turning forty, Steve Grove packed up his life in Silicon Valley and moved back to his home state of Minnesota. He is now the publisher and CEO of the Star Tribune newspaper, embarking on a reinvention for that longstanding publication that parallels his own. As he navigates all of it, Grove’s journey becomes not just about changing careers or moving home—it’s about rediscovering purpose.

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Great Black Hope opens on Labor Day weekend in the Hamptons, when police officers descend and arrest a young Black man named Smith for cocaine possession. In the blink of an eye, his life transforms from charmed to a nightmare. As he struggles to adjust to his changed reality, while also mourning the loss of his best friend from an overdose, he confronts issues of race, class, addiction, and much more, in this propulsive, beautiful...

Kostya has a truly unique gourmet talent – he experiences vivid aftertastes, which he identifies (with some help from a ghost and a psychic) as tastes that are coming from the dead. Aftertaste, the buzzy debut novel by author Daria Lavelle, is like a mashup of the food-centric magical realism in Like Water For Chocolate and a restaurant memoir like Sweetbitter.

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My Friends, the highly anticipated new book from beloved Swedish novelist Fredrik Backman, delivers on all you’d expect from a Backman novel – richly drawn characters, poignant emotions, and clever turns of phrase. The book consists of two parallel narratives, united by a painting, and features a vivid set of teenage characters that bring to life the power of transformative friendships.

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 In 2019, podcast executive Jonathan Hirsch was suddenly thrust into what’s known as the “sandwich generation” – that group of adults simultaneously caring for their children and their parents. And in this compelling new memoir, we learn that in caring for his father, Hirsch not only had the usual set of responsibilities associated with an aging person who is struggling with dementia – he also was...

 Maddy Banks is a college student. An aspiring standup comic. And she has bipolar disorder. Lisa Genova, the author of this audiobook, is a Harvard-trained neuroscientist as well as a best-selling author, and many of her books tackle complex mental health issues in a human, accessible way, which really sets this story apart from so many other coming-of-age stories.

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42-year-old Valerie Gillis, also known by the trail name “Sparrow,” is an experienced Appalachian Trail hiker who has vanished within 200 miles of her final destination. Lt. Bev, a state game warden in Maine, is leading the search for Valerie – and receiving unexpected support from Lena, a 76-year-old birdwatcher who becomes an armchair detective following the search. As the search progresses and the mystery deepe...

DESCRIPTION: At the very beginning of her new book, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reflects on watching Joni Mitchell perform at age 80, after her brain aneurysm. To borrow from the lyrics of the song Hillary recalls Mitchell performing, this book is Hillary’s attempt to “look at life from both sides now,” as she continues to gain perspective on her remarkable life and marriage of nearly 50 years to for...

Sweet Fury, the new thriller by Sash Bischoff, comes with a heavy dose of both Hollywood glamour and shocking darkness. It tells the story of actress Lila Crayne, a beloved movie star who teams up with her filmmaker fiance to adapt F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender Is the Night with a modern, feminist twist. As the project progresses, Lila sees a therapist to help her dig into the trauma of her past – and before long, things...

Actress Ione Skye was part of one of the most iconic scenes in 80s film history: being serenaded by John Cusack with a boombox in the movie Say Anything. But her life history is so much more than that, full of complicated relationships (of the romantic and parental variety) and career ups and downs. In this self-narrated memoir, she’s saying it all.

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New Nigeria County is a satirical new audio original from Simon & Schuster Audio about an affluent Black community suddenly struck with internal drama that turns the typical tropes of race, crime, and casual stereotyping on their head. This full cast audio production is a quick listen at only about 3 and a half hours – but that short run is packed with humor and sharp political observations.

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Joan Didion and Eve Babitz. The cool girls of Los Angeles in the 1970s – authors, writers, journalists, artists, and, ultimately, cultural icons. Shortly after Babitz’s death, journalist Lili Anolik was granted access to a treasure trove: boxes of personal papers and letters discovered among the clutter in Babitz’s decrepit apartment, many of which were unsent correspondence addressed to Didion.Using these letters...

This debut novel, recently selected as a pick for Reese’s Book Club, has been compared to recent hit suspense books such as The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and First Lie Wins. It quickly became a favorite of our team, with its multilayered narrative, complex main character, and expertly narrated full-cast production. 

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Actress Bethany Joy Lenz is best known for her nine-year run on the early 2000s WB teen classic TV show, One Tree Hill. But in her deliciously juicy new memoir, read by Lenz herself and featuring a few fun cameos from her One Tree Hill days, we see an unexpected side of her – and learn about her life entangled in a religious cult’s control for nearly a decade.

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In Creation Lake, a best-seller since its buzzy debut in late 2024, author Rachel Kushner turns the conventions of espionage novels on their head, while still honoring many of those who came before her in the world of spy noir. Kushner is one of the most-honored living authors, and this shifty tale of infiltrating a French anarchist collective may be her best yet. 

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