Books That Matter: Shannon Sanders on JAZZ by Toni Morrison

Welcome to the FictionMatters Podcast. I’m your host Sara Hildreth and this is Books That Matter. In this series, I’ll speak with writers I admire to learn about their lives as readers and deep dive into a book that matters to them.

Shannon Sanders is the author of The Great Wherever (Holt, July 2026) and the linked short story collection Company (Graywolf, 2023), which won the 2024 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes’ Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, was named one of the best books of 2023 by Publishers Weekly and Debutiful, and was shortlisted for the 2024 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous publications, including One Story, The Sewanee Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, and Electric Literature, and has received a PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. She lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, with her husband and three sons.

In today’s episode, Shannon joins me to talk about Toni Morrison’s Jazz, and I felt honored to unpack this complicated and beautifully rendered novel with her. Then we dive into Shannon’s new novel The Great Wherever, which is out Tuesday, July 7th, and yes that is tomorrow if you’re listening to this episode the day it drops. I had the great privilege of reading an early copy of The Great Wherever and I have to say it’s one of the best family novels I’ve read in a long time and I loved the originality Shannon brings to the narrative structure. While we do get into some specifics about Jazz, we don’t include any spoilers for The Great Wherever and you can listen to the episode without yet having read either book.

You can find The Great Wherever in your favorite bookshop on July 7th. I also have to give a strong push for Company, Shannon’s linked short story collection which was one of my favorite books of 2023. Aubrey’s family appears in Company as well so if you fall in love with them, you need to pick a copy of that as well!

• The Great Wherever by Shannon Sanders

• The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

• The Wayside School Series by Louis Sachar

• Holes by Louis Sachar

• The Babysitters Club by Ann M. Martin

• Mary Downing Hahn

• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

• Lord of the Flies by William Golding

• Toni Morrison

• Octavia Butler

• Chinua Achebe

• Agatha Christie

• The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

• Tana French

• Company by Shannon Sanders

• Jamel Brinkley

• Deesha Philyaw

• Pemi Aguda

• Three Women by Lisa Taddeo

• Ghost Lover by Lisa Taddeo

• The Final Revival of Opal and Nev by Donnie Walton

• Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

• Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

• Ann Patchett

• Jonathan Franzen

• Jazz by Toni Morrison

• Beloved by Toni Morrison

• Paradise by Toni Morrison

• On Morrison by Namwali Serpell

• The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

• Corregidora by Gayl Jones

• Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

• Dominion by Addie E. Citchens

• The Love Songs of W. E. B. Du Bois by Honoree Fannone Jeffers

• The World Doesn’t Require You by Rion Amilcar Scott

• The Devil Three Times by Rickey Fayne

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