Buckeye

Find it on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Buckeye by Patrick Ryan has been called sweeping, pastoral, and epic, yet intimate.

The book tells the story of two couples, Cal and Becky Jenkins, and Margaret and Felix Salt, who paths cross on the home front during World War II and whose families remain intertwined for decades afterwards.

The author is a Bowling Green State University grad who sets the novel in a fictional Ohio town somewhere between Toledo and Dayton.

The book topped many best-of lists back in 2025, was praised by Tom Hanks, and picked by Jenna Bush Hager as one of her book club books.

I spoke with Patrick Ryan recently ahead of Buckeye being released in paperback.

He talked about spending his college years here in Ohio at BGSU, the inspiration for the book, as well as the praise he's received.

The conversation is on tape, so we can't take your calls, but send us your thoughts.

And it's almost going in reverse order, because then at number four, it's Lottie Brooks's Twelve Disasters of Christmas.

At number three, Buckeye by Patrick Ryan.

That's our book of the month for October, doing really well.

And at number two, Is This a Plum by Dan and Finn Ahari, back on the pillar after a of a few weeks.