Spring is finally here! In honor of National Reading Month and Women’s History Month, we’re taking a deep dive this week into women authors. Get your reading lists ready! You might just find your next favorite book.
Yours in media,
Elizabeth He, Visual Communications Editor
This is a web edition of GBH's The Deep Dive, a weekly newsletter bringing you the best GBH has to offer.
Women Who Write
10 Women Authors to Read in Women’s History Month
From literary fiction to fantasy and magical realism to gothic mystery and more, GBH staffers suggest some of their favorite women authors. Find your next great read here!
Boston Public Radio: Rachel Hartigan on Amelia Earhart
Explore the enduring mystery of Earhart’s 1937 disappearance through a new biography of her life. Author and journalist Rachel Hartigan discusses her book Lost: Amelia Earhart’s Three Mysterious Deaths and One Extraordinary Life. Let your reading journey take flight.
The Culture Show: Authors Gish Jen & Chef Gesine Bullock-Prado
Author Gish Jen discusses her witty and deeply personal novel Bad Bad Girl.She blends fiction and autobiography to imagine her mother’s life and explore the distance between them. Then, pastry chef and author Gesine Bullock-Prado talks about her cookbook My Harvest Kitchen: 100+ Recipes to Savor the Seasons.
How Zora Neale Hurston’s Posthumous Novel Was Rescued from a Fire and Published
Nearly lost in a fire, Zora Neale Hurston’s final novel, The Life of Herod the Great, is out more than 60 years after her death. The novel expands on her interest in the ancient king of Judea. Could this be your next read?
Beyond the Page: Hank Phillippi Ryan
Hank Phillippi Ryan talks about her new book, All This Could Be Yours,and discusses her writing process, how her career in investigative reporting influences her novels, and the meta experience of going on a book tour for a book about going on a book tour. It’s book tour inception!
Indie Bookstores
GBH Staff Recommends These Indie Bookstores
In honor of National Reading Month, GBH staff shared their favorite independent bookstores in Greater Boston and further afield. Check out these charming destinations.
Boston Public Radio: In Support of Indie Bookstores
BPR is joined by an independent bookstore panel with Bruce and Cathy Jacobs of Turtle Books in Brookline and Franchie Viaud of JustBook-ish in Dorchester. Hear them talk about what makes their bookstores so special.
GBH Forum Network: The Resurgence of the Independent Bookstore
More than 300 new independent bookstores have sprouted up across the country. A variety of bookstore owners share their passion for the printed word and their experiences in the literary world.
Recipe of the Week
Velvety Lemon-Almond Pound Cake
For this plush pound cake featured in this episode of Milk Street Television, Christopher Kimball’s team took a cue from Rose Carrarini of Rose’s Bakery in Paris and replaced some of the wheat flour with almond flour, making the cake’s crumb extra tender and moist. How sweet!
Library Love
- Author Kate Quinn knows just how magical the Boston Public Library can be. Now, it’s the setting of her latest book, The Astral Library! Watch her love letter to the BPL and check out her 2025 author talk on The Briar Club and more.
- The Mass. State library is inviting the public to celebrate its 200th anniversary with several events. See how this library has recorded democracy at work.
- Learn the story of pack horse librarians – women hired by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Work Progress Administration (WPA) during the Great Depression to travel on horseback to deliver library books and magazines to people in Eastern Kentucky.
- How did public libraries shape a nation and remain a beloved sanctuary for Americans today? Watch Independent Lens: Free For All: The Public Library to find out.
Dive Into America 250
Vintage Recording Details an Eyewitness Account of Lexington, Concord Battles
In this 1950 recording, preserved by GBH Archives, a Waltham doctor recalled his great-grandmother’s childhood account of the chaos on the first day of the Revolutionary War.What did she see?
Off Topic
- Leave your stress behind and drift off with the most relaxing classical music we could dream up! Listen to the CRB Dream Stream here.
- Vote now in the “Speech Sixteen,” and help us name the greatest speech in American history! Each week, vote on pairs of iconic addresses until only one remains. Vote here in this AMERICAN EXPERIENCE March Madness-style bracket.
- Did you know? Over 4,000 beauty products targeting Black women are tagged as harmful. What’s the hidden health crisis?
