Poets & Writers Theater

In this CBS Sunday Morning video, Washington Post book critic Ron Charles recommends books for the summer, including the novels Godwin by Joseph O’Neill (Pantheon, 2024), Same as It Ever Was (Doubleday, 2024) by Claire Lombardo, and Bear (Hogarth, 2024) by Julia Phillips, who is profiled in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this CBS Sunday Morning video, Washington Post book critic Ron Charles gives his book report on new recommendations for the summer, including Sanjena Sathian’s debut novel, Gold Diggers (Penguin Press, 2021), Great Circle (Knopf, 2021) by Maggie Shipstead, and The Man Who Lived Underground (Library of America, 2021) by the late Richard Wright, which is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this 2019 video, Diane Seuss reads from her books of poetry and speaks about her writing with Washington Post’s Ron Charles at Hill Center in Washington, D.C. for a series hosted by the Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress. Seuss’s essay “Restless Herd: Some Thoughts on Order—In Poetry, In Life” appears in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Washington Post book critic Ron Charles tries not to spoil the plot of Téa Obreht’s second novel, Inland (Random House, 2019), in this humorous video for his Totally Hip Video Book Review series. Obreht is profiled by Amy Gall in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Washington Post book critic Ron Charles takes a humorous look at Helen Oyeyemi’s sixth novel, Gingerbread (Riverhead Books, 2019), for his Totally Hip Video Book Review series. Oyeyemi answers questions about her new novel in a recent installment of our online series Ten Questions.

“[The poem] allows for a place for the reader to breathe,” says Ada Limón in this 2019 reading and conversation about her books of poetry with Washington Post book critic Ron Charles, hosted by the Library of Congress. “In that empty space we actually bring ourselves to the page, so that the writer is not the only person experiencing the poem, but the reader is part of that journey.”

After procrastinating and receiving wisdom from Obi Wan Cannoli, the Washington Post’s Ron Charles reveals his favorite novels of 2016 in less than two minutes, which include Annie Proulx’s Barkskins (Scribner, 2016), Imbolo Mbue’s Behold the Dreamers (Random House, 2016), and Michael Chabon’s Moonglow (HarperCollins, 2016). 

Book critic Ron Charles provides a humorous plot summary of Daniel Handler's new novel, We Are Pirates (Bloomsbury, 2015). You can read Charles's full review of the book in the Washington Post.

Last month Ron Charles interviewed poet Carl Phillips, whose most recent collection, Silverchest, was published by FSG in April 2013, as part of the Hill Center Poetry Series, cosponsored by the Library of Congress and the Washington Post.

Narrated by Jonathan Ames, this fifteen-minute documentary investigates Gary Shteyngart's prolific book blurbing and features Ron Charles, A.J. Jacobs, A.M. Homes, Molly Ringwald, Karen Russell, Dinaw Mengestu, and others.

The book critic at the Washington Post has a little fun with Publishers Weekly's recent announcement that E L James, the author of the Fifty Shades trilogy of adult romance novels, is the Publishing Person of the Year.

The Washington Post fiction critic Ron Charles stars in this addition to the current video craze that has produced such gems as the recently released Sh*t Agents and Editors Say.