Charlie Jane Anders’ spellbinding new novel tackles the morality of magic.

On this episode of Fully Booked, Charlie Jane Anders joins us to discuss Lessons in Magic and Disaster (Tor, August 19)—the story of a young witch who teaches her grieving mother how to do magic. In a starred review, Kirkus writes that Anders’ eagerly anticipated latest provides “much to ponder, much to cry over and rage against, much to appreciate.”

Anders is thenationally bestselling, award-winning author of All the Birds in the Sky, The City in the Middle of the Night, the Unstoppable trilogy, Even Greater Mistakes, and Never Say You Can't Survive. She co-created Escapade, a transgender superhero, for Marvel Comics, and is currently the science fiction and fantasy book reviewer for the Washington Post. Annalee Newitz and she co-host the podcast Our Opinions Are Correct.

Here’s a bit more from our review of Lessons in Magic and Disaster: “Jamie, a trans graduate student, needs to find that piece of evidence that will give direction to her Ph.D. dissertation about 18th-century female authors, even as her university threatens to pull her funding and she faces misogyny and transphobia every day in the classes she teaches. She’s also trying to reconnect with her mother, Serena, who is suffering from a crippling depression stemming from the long-ago death of her wife, Mae, and the ruin of her career as a social justice activist by the leader of a right-wing smear group. So Jamie shares something with Serena that she hasn’t even shared with her nonbinary spouse, Ro: Jamie can do magic….This compact novel is about many things: a literary treasure hunt that strongly recalls A.S. Byatt’s Possession; the struggle to negotiate obligations to parents, spouses, and oneself; moving forward from grief; and a self-taught witch’s fraught journey toward understanding her own magic. But underlying everything is this profound question: How do minority groups fight effectively and ethically against the tolerance of intolerance?”

In a wide-ranging conversation, Anders and I discuss podcasting, plot, pedagogical practices, what—if anything—novels should“teach,” Susan Sontag, and how to live well.

Then editors Laura Simeon, Mahnaz Dar, John McMurtrie, and Laurie Muchnick share their top picks in books for the week.

EDITORS’ PICKS:

Murder Between Friends by Liz Lawson (Delacorte)

Ceecee: Underground Railroad Cinderella by Shana Keller, illus. by Laura Freeman (Charlesbridge)

Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization by Bill McKibben (Norton)

Fonseca by Jessica Francis Kane (Penguin Press)

THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS:

Roller Coaster by Peter Searle