Slate Books
For readers who are listeners, for listeners looking for something to read—this feed includes book discussions and conversations with authors from across the Slate Podcast network.
Episodes
December 20, 2025 • 32 mins
David Plotz talks with Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales about his new book The Seven Rules of Trust: A Blueprint for Building Things That Last. They discuss how Wikipedia’s culture of assuming good faith and shared purpose became a model for building trustworthy digital communities — and what lessons that holds for companies, social media, and politics today.
Wales reflects on how to maintain trust in polarized times, the challe...
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December 16, 2025 • 59 mins
After the blockbuster success of her first book, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, Samin Nosrat felt pressure to follow it up with something big. But when depression and grief hit, she was forced to slow down and accept help (and cooking) from people around her.
In this episode, Samin talks about getting "chef 911" texts from friends on Thanksgiving, new romance, and finding happiness outside of success.
Samin’s new cookbook is Good Things:...
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December 9, 2025 • 64 mins
The British poet Raymond Antrobus was six years old when his parents and doctors realized that his ears couldn’t recognize a whole range of sounds. He was fitted with hearing aids and began a life of straddling the Deaf and hearing worlds, going to speech therapy and reading lips, learning British sign language, and attending both Deaf and hearing schools. By necessity, Raymond became an expert in communication and miscommunication...
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November 25, 2025 • 30 mins
It wasn’t long after Melody Warnick moved to Blacksburg, Va., that she realized its nickname—“Bleaksburg”—wasn’t a joke. Feeling stuck, she devised a research-based experiment to acclimate to her new city. On this episode: Melody explains how she went from hating Blacksburg to loving it (and how you can deepen your connection to the place where you live).
Listen to part one of our conversation here: How to Move to a New City.
I...
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November 18, 2025 • 39 mins
Kerry is ready to leave rural Virginia and move to a walkable, vibrant city. The only problem? She can’t decide which walkable, vibrant city is right for her. On this episode, How To!’s Courtney Martin brings on Melody Warnick, author of This Is Where You Belong and If You Could Live Anywhere. Melody asks Kerry what she’s really seeking in a new place—and introduces a process that can help make such an important decision.
Next wee...
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November 15, 2025 • 65 mins
John Dickerson talks with journalist and author Andrew Ross Sorkin about his new book 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History and How It Shattered a Nation. Recorded live at the 92nd Street Y in NYC, their conversation explores how a decade of optimism, leverage, and moral hazard culminated in the financial collapse that defined modern capitalism.
Sorkin details how figures like banker Charles “Sunshine Charlie” M...
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October 25, 2025 • 55 mins
Bulldozers and bulwarks are the twin themes of this week’s show, as Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Joyce White Vance, a longtime federal prosecutor and clarion voice in defense of the rule of law, despite its flaws. As Pam Bondi’s Justice department chases down the President’s opponents, Congress walks away from its constitutional duties, and the highest court in the land struggles to find a presidential demand too outrageous to rubb...
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October 21, 2025 • 43 mins
If you recently lost your job—or think you might lose it soon—Laura Brown and Kristina O'Neill are here to help! On this episode of How To!, Carvell Wallace talks to the authors of All the Cool Girls Get Fired about what to do when you get the ax—and how to turn termination into a real opportunity.
If you liked this conversation, check out the Slate podcast Death, Sex & Money’s recent episode on “Why Job Hunting Feels So Grim Lat...
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October 21, 2025 • 61 mins
Christine Brown Woolley grew up in Utah with a dad and two moms, in a polygamist community called the Apostolic United Brethren. When she became an adult, she joined a polygamist marriage as a third wife, helped raise more than a dozen kids, and became co-star of the TLC reality show Sister Wives.
Fast forward to 2025, and she has left her marriage and her polygamist faith. This week, she talks to Anna about the pros and cons of ...
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October 18, 2025 • 30 mins
Emily Bazelon talks with Yale law professor John Witt about his new book The Radical Fund: How a Band of Visionaries and a Million Dollars Upended America. They explore the remarkable story of the Garland Fund—a small 1920s foundation that bankrolled early work by A. Philip Randolph, and others who would go on to shape the civil rights and labor movements.
Witt traces how the fund connected race and class politics, supported the...
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October 14, 2025 • 47 mins
Contemporary women are primal-screaming and hitting rage rooms, but are these really the solutions to our personal and political anger? On this episode of How To!, Courtney Martin talks with Soraya Chemaly, journalist and author of Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger, about her own recent upsurge of anger. Soraya explains how to identify, understand, and harness what’s bottled up inside you—and use it for change.
If you l...
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October 14, 2025 • 52 mins
In the new movie Sovereign, actor Nick Offerman plays an extremist who doesn’t believe in the legitimacy of the Federal government. In real life, Nick comes from a small-town political family. His father is the mayor of Minooka, Illinois, and his uncle is on the village board. In this episode Nick talks about choosing roles, how he’s different from his family, his love of teaching woodworking and the profound influence of poet Wend...
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September 23, 2025 • 45 mins
In this mailbag episode of How To!, we get an update from Elizabeth, the 43-year-old listener who contacted us for advice on her plan to have sex for the first time. Then, co-hosts Courtney Martin and Carvell Wallace get listeners’ takes on our most talked-about episodes of the year—and the staff holds an impromptu idea meeting for upcoming episodes.
Links Mentioned:
My Old Books
Do you have a problem that needs solving? Send u...
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September 20, 2025 • 24 mins
Emily Bazelon talks with author and Yale professor Judith Resnik about her new book, Impermissible Punishments: How Prison Became a Problem for Democracy. They discuss the history of the prison system’s use of punishments like whipping, how the practice came to an end, and more.
Tweet us your questions @SlateGabfest or email us at gabfest@slate.com. (Messages could be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)
...
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September 16, 2025 • 55 mins
When Megan Greenwell was 34 she landed a coveted job in journalism as the editor-in-chief of the sports and culture blog, Deadspin. Just over a year later a post about why she was resigning went viral – a private equity firm had bought Deadspin’s parent company, and was seeking "a quick cash-out rather than the growth that comes from a well-run business."
Her experience led her to spend six years investigating the industry for her...
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September 2, 2025 • 58 mins
When comedy writer Tamara Yajia talks about her childhood, she’s sometimes unsure what tone to strike. Her new memoir Cry for Me Argentina: My Life as a Failed Child Star depicts a very fun nuclear family with parents and grandparents who are loud, crass, and sex-positive. There are hilarious moments and situations that seem wildly inappropriate.
In this week’s episode, Tamara tells Anna about the ups and downs of her childhood, w...
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August 27, 2025 • 44 mins
On today’s episode, host Candice Lim tells Kate Lindsay about two recent BookTok conventions that went off the rails. While the first convention become known as the “Fyre Fest” of BookTok, the other faced troubling allegations of sexual assault against an employee. Is BookTok or social media to blame for how often attempts to bring a fandom together end up shattering the community apart?
Get more of ICYMI with Slate Plus! Join fo...
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August 16, 2025 • 40 mins
Political Gabfest host Emily Bazelon talks with Jonathan Mahler about his new book, The Gods of New York. They discuss the unraveling of Mayor Ed Koch’s New York City; how the city’s current mayoral race is mirroring the past; and more.
Tweet us your questions @SlateGabfest or email us at gabfest@slate.com. (Messages could be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)
Podcast production by Cheyna Roth.
Learn mo...
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August 6, 2025 • 45 mins
Kate Lindsay and Candice Lim discuss the latest in Labubu-land, from a TikTok blackface controversy to leaving one on an iconic anti-capitalist’s grave. Then, they dive into the growing trend of fanfiction getting a big marketing push from the publishing world. From Ali Hazelwood’s The Love Hypothesis starting as Reylo fanfic to Julie Soto basing her latest novel on a Dramione ship, traditional publishing is reaching into the chann...
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August 5, 2025 • 59 mins
Evan Osnos has spent nearly his whole life observing the habits, values, and norms of the wealthy elite, from his childhood in suburban Connecticut to the years he spent reporting on the mega-yachts and underground bunkers of the U.S.’s richest citizens.
This week, he talks to Anna about his new book The Haves and Have-Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultrarich, and they get specific about what the most powerful people in the world valu...
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