Keene on Books

Keene on Books returns with an episode on Alison Cochrun's 2024 novel, Here We Go Again. Host / Associate Professor of English Education Chris Parsons is joined by Amber Davisson, Professor and Chair of the Communication and Philosophy Department at Keene State and Kim McKane, Assistant Professor of Nursing at Keene State. Our start-of-summer timing is immaculately-aligned with the start of this book -- to the Keene Applebee's!

Keene on Books is back with an episode discussing Daniel Kraus's 2025 novel, Angel Down. Host / Associate Professor of English Education Chris Parsons is joined by Celia Rabinowitz, the Assistant Vice-President for Academic Engagement and Dean of Mason Library at Keene State as well as Molly Parsons, Assistant Director of the Center for Research and Writing at KSC. The episode runs over an hour, but we had to put a period on it at some point.

Keene on Books returns with an episode on Suzanne Collins's 2025 novel and Hunger Games prequel, Sunrise on the Reaping. Host / Associate Professor of English Education Chris Parsons is joined by Amber Davisson, Professor and Chair of the Communication and Philosophy Department at Keene State and Molly Parsons, Assistant Director of the KSC Center for Research and Writing. It is winter in New England and 'snow KEEPS landing on top'; is that what people mean when they call this novel relevant to our current events?

Keene on Books makes its 2026 return with an episode on Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's 2025 novel Dream Count. Host / Associate Professor of English Education Chris Parsons is joined by KoB legend Dr. Emily Robins Sharpe. She is Professor of English at Keene State, teaching courses on, amongst other things, postcolonial and world modernist literatures. Emily is the author of Mosaic Fictions: Writing Identity in the Spanish Civil War.

Keene on Books returns with an episode on Agustina Bazterrica’s 2017 novel Tender Is the Flesh (Sarah Moses's 2020 English translation). Host / Associate Professor of English Education Chris Parsons is joined by three KSC legends: Dr. Anna Schur is Professor of English at Keene State and author of the books Wages of Evil: Dostoevsky and Punishment and The Letters and the Law: Legal and Literary Culture in Late Imperial Russia; Dr. Kirsti Sandy is Interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Keene State, an English professor, and author of the prizewinning book of linked memoir essays, 2017’s She Lived, and the Other Girls Died; and Dr. Lisa DiGiovanni is Professor of Modern Languages and Cultures and Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Keene State and author of the 2025 book, Militarized Masculinity in Spain and Chile: Remembering Violence through Film and Literature.

Keene on Books returns with an episode discussing Louise Erdrich's 2024 novel, The Mighty Red. Host / Associate Professor of English Education Chris Parsons is joined by Celia Rabinowitz, Director of Keene State's Mason Library and Molly Parsons, Assistant Director of the Center for Research and Writing at KSC. Molly may have founded The Mighty Red fan club, but Celia and I are eager members.

It is autumn, and we are back. Keene on Books returns with an episode on Taylor Jenkins Reid's 2025 novel, Atmosphere. Host / Associate Professor of English Education Chris Parsons is joined by Amber Davisson, Professor and Chair of the Communication and Philosophy Department and Meriem Pagès, Professor of English, departmental medievalist, and Director of the Medieval and Renaissance Forum. For those interested, yes, we have already sold the tv and film rights to this episode: we're all played by AI.

Keene on Books returns with an episode on Rufi Thorpe's 2024 novel Margo's Got Money Troubles. Host / Associate Professor of English Education Chris Parsons is joined by Amber Davisson, Professor and Chair of the Communication and Philosophy Department at Keene State and Molly Parsons, Assistant Director of the KSC Center for Research and Writing. A book with pro wrestling, OnlyFans, and narrative theory: I've never wished more that the intro music for Keene on Books was Stone Cold Steve Austin's entrance music. /glass breaks

Keene on Books returns with an episode discussing Kate Atkinson's 2024 novel, Death at the Sign of the Rook. Host / Associate Professor of English Education Chris Parsons is joined by Celia Rabinowitz, Director of Mason Library at Keene State and Molly Parsons, Assistant Director of the Center for Research and Writing at KSC. You should listen, but the TL;DL here is that we love Atkinson, and Beatrice can steal our paintings anytime.

Keene on Books returns with an episode on Lauren Groff's 2021 novel, Matrix. Host / Associate Professor of English Education Chris Parsons is joined by Meriem Pagès, Professor of English and Director of KSC's Medieval and Renaissance Forum as well as Molly Parsons, Assistant Director of the Center for Research and Writing. Of course, we discuss Groff's book. But Meriem also tells us about the 12th-century generally -- and Marie de France's lais "Bisclavret," which is about, to use Meriem's literary, academic language, "a really awesome werewolf." Join us! 

Keene on Books returns with an episode on Friedrich Gorenstein’s 1967 novel Redemption (Andrew Bromfield's 2018 English translation). Host / Associate Professor of English Education Chris Parsons is joined by Dr. Anna Schur, Professor of English at Keene State and author of the books Wages of Evil: Dostoevsky and Punishment and The Letters and the Law: Legal and Literary Culture in Late Imperial Russia as well as “Evil, Theodicy, and Jewishness in Fridrikh Gorenshtein” in Fall 2023 issue of Slavic Review. If I told you the book starts with a ball and ends with loads of babies, I don't think you'd be able to guess the middle. Read it.

Keene on Books returns with an episode discussing Miranda July's 2024 novel, All Fours. Host / Associate Professor of English Education Chris Parsons is joined by Celia Rabinowitz, Director of Mason Library and Molly Parsons, Assistant Director of the Center for Research and Writing. Discussing the New York book of the summer in January in New Hampshire is our BRAND.