Scott Simon Books in Order

Scott Simon was born in Chicago on March 16, 1952, the son of comedian Ernie Simon and actress Patricia Lyons Simon. His childhood included time in Chicago and other cities across the United States and Canada, but Chicago became the place he returned to in his work, his memories, and his sports loyalties.

He started out in journalism, joining public radio as its Chicago bureau chief in 1977. In 1985, he became the host of Weekend Edition Saturday, a role that gave him a weekly space for interviews, reporting, commentary, and the small human stories that often stay with listeners.

Reporting took Simon far beyond the studio. He has covered stories in all fifty states, on five continents, and from war zones including El Salvador, Sarajevo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. That work gave him a close view of how ordinary people keep going through frightening, funny, and confusing moments.

Books became another way for him to follow those stories. His memoir Home and Away moves through sports, theater, politics, travel, and family life, while keeping Chicago at its center. Simon has described turning to fiction as a challenge, a chance to use a reporter's eye for detail while imagining lives beyond his own.

That approach shaped Pretty Birds, his first novel. Set during the siege of Sarajevo, it follows a teenage basketball player whose life is torn apart by war. Windy City takes a very different route, using the death of Chicago's mayor to explore city politics, deal-making, family pressures, and the strange comedy of public life.

Chicago never stays offstage for long.

Simon has also written about the subjects he has followed as a fan. Jackie Robinson and the Integration of Baseball looks at Robinson's fight against racism as he broke Major League Baseball's color barrier. In My Cubs, Simon writes personally about the Chicago Cubs, mixing team history with the long wait, hope, and heartache familiar to generations of fans.

Family is another steady thread in his work. Baby, We Were Meant for Each Other tells the story of his and his wife Caroline's adoption of their two daughters from China, alongside stories from other adoptive families. Unforgettable grew from the messages Simon shared while sitting with his mother during her final days, then widened into a warm, candid portrait of their life together.

He writes about big events through the people living inside them.

Simon is married to documentary filmmaker Caroline Richard Simon, and they have two daughters, Elise and Paulina. Away from the microphone and page, he has named books, theater, ballet, British comedy, Mexican cooking, and enduring devotion to the Cubs among his pleasures. In 2025, he was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame. His work keeps circling back to the same useful questions: what people love, what they survive, and what they remember.