A Book Club Podcast: Ayad Akhtar, Junot Diaz, Gary Shteyngart

The Leonard Lopate Show | Nov 4, 2017

On Wednesday, we announced the launch of our Facebook book club, a place where we can have meaningful conversations with you, our audience members, about books! And so for this week’s Bonus Weekend Podcast, we’ve decided to share some of our favorite book club segments from over the years, segments that have just as much relevance today as they did when we aired them. In July, 2013, Leonard spoke with Ayad Akhtar about American Dervish, his coming-of-age novel about a young Muslim man who has a romantic and spiritual awakening as he’s growing up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In August, 2013 Junot Diaz joined us to discuss his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao about a young Dominican boy trying to understand his life in New Jersey. And in 2012, Gary Shteyngart talked about his novel, Absurdistan, a hilarious tale about about a Russian immigrant desperate for a U.S. Visa.

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