Join our Live Q&A Next Week
Thursday, February 12 from 12:30 PM - 1:30 PM EST
In this week’s newsletter
Live Q&A with Dr. Miranda Melcher
Fast 5 with Hollay Ghadery
Channel Spotlight: New Books in Music
The Olympics
Meet A Host: Mel Rosenberg
Next Week: Live Q&A with Dr. Miranda Melcher
On Thursday, February 12 from 12:30 PM - 1:30 PM EST, join our Q&A with NBN host Dr. Miranda Melcher. Miranda will share tips and tricks for conducting a successful interview. She’ll cover everything from how she selects books to what makes for a great question. If you’re already an NBN host, interested in becoming a host, or you just want to improve your interview skills, join us. It’s free!
Register: Click this link
Fast Five with Hollay Ghadery
Hollay Ghadery is a multi-genre writer living in Ontario on Anishinaabe land. Fuse, her memoir of mixed-race identity and mental health, was released by Guernica Editions in 2021 and won the 2023 Canadian Bookclub Award for Nonfiction/Memoir. Her collection of poetry, Rebellion Box was released by Radiant Press in 2023, and her collection of short fiction, Widow Fantasies, was released with Gordon Hill Press in fall 2024 and was longlisted for the Toronto Book Award. Her debut novel, The Unraveling of Ou, is coming out in February 2026 with Palimpsest Press. Visit Hollay’s website here to learn more!
Through the Sad Wood Our Corpses Will Hang by Ava Fermehri - This one of the most gorgeous, technically masterful books I’ve ever had the fortune of reading, and within the first few pages, l suspected it was going to be one of my favourite books ever. Fermehri’s novel tells the story of Sheyda Porrouya, a woman in prison in Iran awaiting execution after being found guilty of killing her mother. Sheyda’s sense of reality is at once unhinged and more dexterous than the people around her. She’s both ill and luminous; filthy and iridescent, captive and freer than most of us will ever be. This is a story that’s less about Sheyda’s relative guilt or innocence and more about the relativity of the identities we construct for ourselves, to make sense of who people tell us we are.
The Haunting of Modesto O’Brien by Brit Griffin - From the first paragraph of the first page, The Haunting of Modesto O’Brien absorbed me into its wild, wonderful, and gloriously gothic world of darkness, obsession, and intrigue. Set in 1907 in a silver mining camp in Northern Ontario, we meet the Nail sisters and a detective/fortune teller, Modesto O’Brien, who arrived at the booming camp with his own mysterious vendetta, but is hired by one of the sisters, Lily, to find Lucy. The sisters were supposed to meet in town, but as far as Lily knows Lucy never arrived. Brit Griffin’s language is lightening— illuminating with ecstatic force an unforgettable world of myth, brutality, and devotion. There are power-hungry and violent men. Greed and scheming. There’s a fine and ticklish thread of romance. There’s also a nightmarish creature stalking the wilderness. This book was also on David Giuliano’s Fast 5 here!
The Dialogues: The Song of Francis Pegahmagabow by Armand Garnet Ruffo, with Nishnaabemwin translations by Brian D. McInnes - Reading this book feels like sifting through fragments of many different fragments; many different voices. Through poems, conversations, letters, newspaper clippings and song, The Dialogues traces the tale of famous WW1 sharpshooter, Francis Pegahmagabow and explores the complexities of telling Indigenous stories. Armand’s writing is both simple and sophisticated. It twists open the valve of some lonely and desperate part of the self and lets it exhale. The perspective in this book— the zooming in and out— is dizzying; appropriately disorienting and still, it manages to ground you. Armand doesn’t hold your hand as you negotiate a path through these pages, but his words do stay with you while you find your own way. A beautiful, necessary read.
Villain Hitting for Vicious Little Nobodies by Lindsay Wong - A glorious and menacingly playful read about a young woman who signs away her life in the ancient Chinese tradition of corpse marriage. This novel glitters like an ominous jewel. Lindsay Wong creates a deliriously enthralling gothic tale of a dysfunctional family of women who do what they need to do to survive and are punished for it. Filled with morbid humor and piercing insight, Wong’s writing sings. It howls. Locinda and her grandmother, Baozhai, are gorgeous and gruesome; tender and cruel. They are perfect mirrors through which to reckon with our own unsettling contradictions and complexities. I know they will revisit me on my next dark night of the soul. And I’ll be glad for their company.
Stan on Guard by K.R. Wilson - This book will be published on March 1, so look out for it! As a protagonist, Stan is an unforgettable combination of calloused irreverence and heart. Throughout the millennia, through Stan’s sprawling life, Wilson explores touchstones of human experience, tenderness, and struggle. To my mind, Stan is of the most thrilling and masterfully created antiheroes in literature.
Listen to Hollay’s great interview about her book The Unravelling of Ou
Channel Spotlight: New Books in Music
Last Sunday was the 2026 Grammy Awards! This week, check out a few great interviews about music and musicians.
Bad Bunny’s Debí Tirar Más Fotos won album of the year, and he will be the halftime performer at Super Bowl LX this Sunday. Listen to our interview with Vanessa Díaz and Petra R. Rivera-Rideau about their book P FKN R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance.
In Why Alanis Morissette Matters, Megan Volpert examines the intellect, philosophical interests, and personal journey of alt-rock star Alanis Morissette.
In this episode, NBN host Bradley Morgan discusses his book, U2: Until the End of the World. He digs into the history of the band and gives readers an intimate look at their formation and the evolution of their unique sound.
The Olympics
Olympics XXV begin this week and run through February 22. The games will be held across Northeast Italy including Milano, Verona, and Cortina d'Ampezzo. Events include bobsleigh, skiing, skating, and snowboarding. The Paralympic Winter Games will follow from March 6-15.
Check out last year’s newsletter to find 3 great episodes on the Olympics!
And listen to this Nordic Asia Podcast episode discussing skiing phenom Eileen Gu. At the 2022 Beijing Olympics, Gu earned a medal in all three free ski events, with gold in big air and half pipe, and silver in slope style. Tune in to watch her again!
Meet A Host: Mel Rosenberg
Q: Can you briefly introduce yourself including your areas of interest?
A: Hi, I’m Mel Rosenberg, author of the picture book, Emily Saw a Door, which will launch in North America on Feb. 22nd, 2026. Other than children’s books, my other areas of interest are science and innovation (I was a professor of microbiology), and music (I sing and play jazz and sixties music).
I’m also the host of the Children’s Literature Channel, and the large majority of my podcasts are there.
Q: How did you first hear about the New Books Network?
A: Through my dear friend Richard Lucas.
Q: What made you want to be a host for NBN?
A: I was previously hosting a videocast entitled, “You’ve Got Mel.” By 2021, most of my interviewees were children’s authors. Richard suggested that I “migrate” to NBN and when Marshall Poe, the founder of NBN, agreed to establish the Children’s Literature Channel, we started out.
Q: What do you enjoy most about being an NBN host?
A: There is a lot I enjoy about the NBN. Mostly, In particular, I enjoy the freedom that NBN gives me to select the books and guests that interest me.
Q: What episode has been your favorite to record?
A: Wow, I’ve done over 200 episodes. They are all my favorites. The most important one, for me personally, was my candid interview with Liza Fleissig.
She subsequently became my literary agent (together with Ginger Harris) and sold our book to Annie Kelley at Random House Studio, who has also been a guest on the podcast!
Q: If you could record an NBN interview with anyone, who would it be?
A: Oh, that just happened!!! I recently interviewed Jimmy Wales, the incredible father of Wikipedia, my internet hero. And friend.
Q: What advice would you give to anyone interested in becoming a host for NBN?
A: I think you need to be particularly passionate about books and the people who make them come true.