This was a year of firsts for the Fully Booked podcast: In March, we welcomed a Nobel laureate. In May, a picture-book author. A June episode celebrated a paperback launch (as opposed to hardcover). And in August, a poet discussed an actual poetry collection (as opposed to fiction/nonfiction). Long story short, you can teach an old podcast new tricks—and the result was a banner year for Fully Booked. If you haven’t had a chance to listen in yet, here are eight great episodes to get you started:

George Saunders (Episode 198): What better way to kick off another strange and delightful year in podcasting than in conversation with George Saunders? In January, we spoke about A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life (Random House, Jan. 12), a guided tour of seven stories by Chekhov, Gogol, Tolstoy, and Turgenev by the beloved author and longtime professor.

Kazuo Ishiguro (Episode 204): As soon as we stopped rolling tape, this interview shot straight into the pantheon of my personal favorites. In March, Ishiguro and I discussed his latest novel, Klara and the Sun (Knopf, March 2), a provocative look at a disturbing near future that marked a return to dystopian ground for the Nobel laureate. He was a lovely, down-to-earth conversation partner. The chat went many exciting and unexpected places, including a meditation on “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.”

Melissa Febos (Episode 209): It was a pleasure to co-host Fully Booked with my colleague Johanna Zwirner for the first time in March, when we interviewed Melissa Febos, one of my favorite lyric essayists. We chatted about metaphor and imagery in her stunning collection Girlhood (Bloomsbury, March 30), along with such topics as enthusiastic consent, cuddle parties, and writing as a restorative process,  

Traci Sorell (Episode 215): Not a week goes by that I don’t think of Sorell’s We Are Still Here! Native American Truths Everyone Should Know (Charlesbridge, April 20), a gorgeous, informative picture book that makes Native history, law, and policy utterly compelling. I enjoyed learning more about why she chose to structure the book as a series of student presentations on Native history, her professional background in federal Indian law and policy, and her working relationship with illustrator Frané Lessac.

Marie-Helene Bertino (Episode 222): I loved Parakeet so damn much when I read it at the end of 2020, it made me miserable we’d missed the opportunity to feature author Bertino on its pub date. And so the unspoken rule of only interviewing authors for a hardcover release (or paperback original) was broken. In a delightful conversation, we discussed Bertino’s relationship to Parakeet one year later, weddings in literature, and the wily word frisson.

Anuk Arudpragasam (Episode 223): In the span of a week, we went from one of my favorite novels of 2020 to one of my favorite novels of 2021: Arudpragasam’s A Passage North (Hogarth, July 13). A companion to his critically acclaimed 2016 debut, The Story of a Brief Marriage, A Passage North poignantly contends with the violence of the Sri Lankan civil war from a spatial and temporal remove. We talked about the proximity of both narratives to the violence of the conflict in Sri Lanka, philosophy, and much more.

Leigh Patel (Episode 226): Academic and activist Patel joined me in late July to discuss No Study Without Struggle: Confronting Settler Colonialism in Higher Education (Basic Books, July 20), and I have carried the joy of this conversation forward ever since. The concerns of Patel’s bold work are essential topics: settler colonialism, its relation to higher education, how education activism works, and the role of love in transforming systems of oppression.

Kaveh Akbar (Episode 228): In August, Akbar told us all his thoughts on God in the poems of Pilgrim Bell (Graywolf, Aug. 3), a stunning, visceral poetry collection contending with embodiment, legibility, profanity, and praise. This marked the first time we talked pure poetry on the podcast. It was also the first—and last—time I sang a Dishwalla song on tape. Despite this, it was one of our most popular episodes of the summer.

S.A. Cosby/The Crime Episode (Episode 231): August went out with a bang and a book that blew my hair all the way back: Razorblade Tears (Flatiron Books, July 6) was unlike any novel I’d ever read, and author Cosby is a podcast guest nonpareil. We had a blast discussing the highest compliment an author can receive, Southern colloquialisms, how working in the funeral industry informs his fiction, writing LGBTQ+ characters with care and nuance, and how friend and fellow crime writer P.J. Vernon helped him get it right.

Mary Roach (Episode 233): Mary Roach was one of the very first authors I interviewed for Kirkus Reviews, way back in 2013, and I’d been dying for another chance to chat ever since. Our September discussion of Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law (Norton, Sept. 14) was, as anticipated, an absolute hoot. We started with whether she prefers her four-letter books (Bonk, Gulp, Fuzz) to her five-letter books (Stiff, Spook, Grunt) (answer: “I don’t care”) and ended with a careful consideration of what we’d name our heavy metal band (answer: Danger Tree). It’s 30 minutes of feral fun.

Editor at large Megan Labrise hosts the Fully Booked podcast.