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Chapter A Day

Started in 1931, “Chapter a Day” is WPR’s longest-running program. Jim Fleming, Norman Gilliland, Michele Good, Melvin Hinton, Baron Kelly and Susan Sweeney read a chapter from a book for a half hour each weekday. Genres are predominately contemporary and range from works of fiction, history and biography.

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CURRENTLY READING


The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters

Monday, March 25 through Friday, April 12, 2024.
Read by Norman Gilliland and Michele Good.


July 1962. A Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. Joe will remain distraught by his sister’s disappearance for years to come. Meanwhile in Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective. Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren’t telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret.

(Harper Perennial; ISBN-10: 14434681815)

Theme: “Valse Triste”, Jean Sibelius; English String Orchestra, William Boughton, conductor; English Chamber Orchestra, Nimbus Records


Readings are archived for just one week after their broadcast due to publisher 
copyright restrictions.


Latest Episodes

  • The Berry Pickers 4 Of 15

    Norma finds a drawer filled with photographs of the time before she was 4 years-old even though all of the photos from that time were supposedly destroyed during a fire. Norma has other questions as well, like why does her skin become so dark when she is exposed to the sun, but her parents’ skin…

    The Berry Pickers 4 Of 15
  • The Berry Pickers 3 Of 15

    Guilt-ridden, Joe is at odds with his brothers, Ben and Charlie, and his sister, Mae. The loss of Ruthie prompts a child welfare agent to try and take Joe away from his parents, but he hides in the woods until his father drives the agent away.

    The Berry Pickers 3 Of 15
  • The Berry Pickers 2 Of 15

    We meet Norma as she re-tells the story of her life. Her earliest memories are of being troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem too real to be her imagination.

    The Berry Pickers 2 Of 15
  • The Berry Pickers 1 Of 15

    July 1962. A Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field.

    The Berry Pickers 1 Of 15
  • The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes 10 Of 10

    “The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb” Part 2. Victor Hatherley, an engineer, has accepted a commission to examine a hydraulic stamping machine that has gotten out of gear. The job will require only an hour’s work, it pays extremely well and requires absolute secrecy. But when Hatherly arrives, he is approached by a young woman…

    The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes 10 Of 10

Chapter A Day Booklist

View information about every book we’ve read in the past thirty years!

Coming Next

Book Cover for "Cold Sassy Tree" by Olive Ann Burns

Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns

Monday, April 15 through Friday, May 17, 2024
Read by Karl Schmidt.


The one thing you can depend on in Cold Sassy, Georgia, is that word gets around—fast. When Grandpa Blakeslee announces one July morning that he’s aiming to marry the young milliner, Miss Love Simpson—a bare three weeks after Granny Blakeslee has gone to her reward—the news is served up all over town. And young Will Tweedy suddenly finds himself eyewitness to a major scandal…

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