Gays Reading

Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors joins Jason to talk about the books she’s reading and revisiting, what she prioritizes when the world feels like too much, and her new book, We Make the World: Guided Aesthetics Practices for Art, Power, and Healing.Patrisse Cullors is the co-author of The New York Times bestseller When They Call You a Terrorist, and an educator, artist, and abolitionist from Los Angeles. She is the co-founder of the Crenshaw Dairy Mart and has been on the frontlines of the abolitionist movement with Black Lives Matter, Justice LA, Dignity and Power Now, and Reform LA jails. Also the founder of The Center For Art and Abolition, Cullors has popularized the term “Abolitionist Aesthetics” to challenge artists to aestheticize abolition.

Jason is joined by Emma Straub (American Fantasy) for a conversation about You’ve Got Mail vs. Sleepless in Seattle, the origin story of her bookstore Books Are Magic, and a peek at the novel she’s working on now.Emma Straub is the New York Times-bestselling author of six books for adults: the novels This Time Tomorrow, All Adults Here, The Vacationers, Modern Lovers, Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures, and the short story collection Other People We Married. She is also the author of a picture book, Very Good Hats. Her books have been published in more than twenty languages. She and her husband own Books Are Magic, an independent bookstore in Brooklyn, New York.

Jason talks to author Louise Kennedy about her new novel Stations, this month's selection for The Nod™️ by Gays Reading with Aardvark Book Club. Louise Kennedy is the internationally bestselling author of Trespasses, which was a finalist for the Women’s Prize, and the story collection The End of the World Is a Cul de Sac. Before starting her writing career, she worked as a chef for almost thirty years. She lives in Sligo, Ireland.

Frasier star Jane Leeves joins Jason to talk about the books she's loved throughout her life, the first editions she and her husband collect, and her new memoir, Daphne & Me, a look back at her years on the beloved sitcom.Jane Leeves was born in Ilford, Essex, England. She had her start on The Benny Hill Show, then appeared in many popular sitcoms such as Seinfeld and Murder She Wrote and landed a recurring role on Murphy Brown as Audrey Cohen. In addition to Frasier, she starred in the Emmy Award–winning TV Land series Hot in Cleveland and graced the world of theater as Sally Bowles in Cabaret on Broadway. Leeves has starred on the big screen, as well, in movies like Music of the Heart. In 2018, she joined the Fox medical drama The Resident. Leeves lives in Malibu, California, with her husband, Marshall Coben, with whom she has two children.

When Ann Patchett was on Gays Reading, the must-read book she discussed was Music Against the Night, so it's no surprise that author Yiyun Li joins Jason to talk about it. They discuss how she reads Moby-Dick annually, her relationship to music, and how she first learned of John Field, the subject of Music Against the Night.Yiyun Li is the author of several works of fiction—Wednesday’s Child; The Book of Goose; Must I Go; Where Reasons End; Kinder Than Solitude; Gold Boy, Emerald Girl; The Vagrants; and A Thousand Years of Good Prayers—and the memoirs Things in Nature Merely Grow and Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life. She is the recipient of many awards, including a Pulitzer Prize, a PEN/Faulkner Award, a PEN/Malamud Award, a PEN/Hemingway Award, a PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, a MacArthur Fellowship, and a Windham–Campbell Prize, and was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, A Public Space, The Best American Short Stories, and The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, among other publications. She teaches at Princeton University and lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

Prolific writer Elizabeth Gilbert talks about what she's been reading (a set of books recommended by her local indie bookstore), the books she buys in bulk to give away, and her latest book, All the Way to the River, Oprah's Book Club selection last September.Elizabeth Gilbert is the author of nine previous works of fiction and nonfiction, which collectively have sold more than 25 million copies worldwide, spent more than two hundred weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, and been translated into more than fifty languages. She has been a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the PEN/Hemingway Award. With more than 20 million views of her TED Talk and 2.7 million followers on her social media accounts, she continues to be one of the most beloved and influential writers of our age.

New York Times bestselling author Mary Beth Keane (Ask Again, Yes) joins Jason to talk about her newest novel, Whale Harbor. They get into how the book echoes her own family, the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to her, and the surprising freedom of discovering that the worst thing that could happen might not be so bad after all.Whale Harbor is Good Morning America's November 2026 Book Club pick. Mary Beth Keane is the author of five novels, including the New York Times bestseller Ask Again, Yes. She was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship for fiction writing and has received citations from the National Book Foundation, PEN America, and the Hemingway Society. Born in the Bronx to parents from the west of Ireland, she lives in New York with her husband and two sons.

Jason talks to debut author Rebecca Birrell about her novel Venus, Vanishing, this month's selection for The Nod™️ by Gays Reading with Aardvark Book Club. Rebecca Birrell is an art historian and a Bye-Fellow in the History of Art at Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge. She was formerly the curator of nineteenth and twentieth century paintings and drawings at the Fitzwilliam Museum and has occupied curatorial positions at the Jewish Museum London, the Department of Prints and Drawing at the British Museum, and at the Charleston Trust. She studied English literature at University College London, followed by a master's in women’s studies at the University of Oxford and a PhD from the Edinburgh College of Art. Venus, Vanishing is her debut novel.