WPR

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.

Schedule

WPR Music, 7 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., WPR News, 9:30 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Hosted by

Michele Gerard Good

CURRENTLY READING

Sitting Pretty by Rebekah Taussig

Monday, May 12 through Friday, May 23, 2025

Read by Michele Gerard Good

UW Madison’s 2024-2025 Go Big Read! Growing up as a paralyzed girl during the 90s and early 2000s, Rebekah Taussig only saw disability depicted as something monstrous (The Hunchback of Notre Dame), inspirational (Helen Keller), or angelic (Forrest Gump). None of this felt right; and as she got older, she longed for more stories that allowed disability to be complex and ordinary, uncomfortable and fine, painful and fulfilling. Disability affects all of us, directly or indirectly, at one some point or another in our lives. By exploring this truth in poignant and lyrical essays, Taussig illustrates the need for more stories and more voices to understand the diversity of humanity. Sitting Pretty challenges us as a society to be patient and vigilant, practical and imaginative, kind and relentless, as we set to work to write an entirely different story.

LISTENER ADVISORY: This book contains language which listeners may find offensive.

THEME: “Beautiful” by Christina Aguilera, Linda Perry, composer; RCA

(HarperOne; ISBN10: 0062936808)

Readings are archived for one week following the broadcast day of the last chapter due to publisher  copyright restrictions.

Latest Episodes

Sitting Pretty 10 of 10 – What Is Accessibility
Rebekah discusses what she means when she discusses accessibility and how it affects all of us.
May 23, 2025
Sitting Pretty 9 of 10 – Keep Your Kindness To Yourself
Rebekah discusses the complications of kindness. Who is it really for? Why won’t people listen?
May 22, 2025
Sitting Pretty 8 of 10 – Feminism Needs A Bigger Boat
Rebekah attempts to build a bridge over the chasm that exists between feminism and disability. Later, she discusses the pitfalls of kindness.
May 21, 2025
Sitting Pretty 7 of 10 – Output = Value
Rebekah soon leaves Sam and sets out to live on her own. But when she takes steps to support herself, things quickly become complicated. She takes a full time teaching […]
May 20, 2025
Sitting Pretty 6 of 10 – The Price Of Your Body
Rebekah learns early on how expensive it is to treat her paralysis and all the complications that go along with it. As her 23rd birthday approaches and she creeps ever […]
May 19, 2025

Chapter A Day Booklist

View information about every book we’ve read in the past 30 years!

View Booklist

Coming Next

A man in a hat walks on the Brooklyn Bridge; the book cover reads Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line by Martha A. Sandweiss. — Version 1.0.0

Passing Strange by Martha A. Sandweiss

monday, may 26 through friday, june 20, 2025
Read by melvin hinton

Clarence King was a late 19th-century celebrity, a brilliant scientist and explorer once described by Secretary of State John Hay as “the best and brightest of his generation.” But King hid a secret from his Gilded Age cohorts and prominent family in Newport: for thirteen years he lived a double life – the first as himself, and a second as the black Pullman porter and steelworker named James Todd. How did this fair, blue-eyed son of a wealthy China trader pass across the color lines? And drove him in this post-Civil War era to risk his fortune and reputation?