Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
Joseph Luzzi talks about his moving new memoir and contemplation of Dante’s Divine Comedy, In A Dark Wood. Then, we hear some voices from the recent marathon reading of Melville’s Moby Dick put on by the legendary Sag Harbor NY bookstore, Canio’s. Continue reading
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
We speak with Michelle Goldberg about Indra Devi, who helped to spark the yoga craze in America. Her biography is The Goddess Pose: The Audacious Life of Indra Devi, the Woman Who Helped Bring Yoga to the West. Continue reading
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
Frances Jensen talks about her book, The Teenage Brain:Â A Neuroscientist’s Survival Guide to Raising Adolescents and Young Adults . And marijuana is being used to successfully treat some illnesses. But it’s not so healthy for the developing brain. Addiction psychiatrist Kevin Hill tells us about risks and benefits of pot. His new book is Marijuana: The Unbiased Truth About The World’s Most Popular Weed. Continue reading
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
Rosemary Sullivan talks about her extraordinary new biography of Svetlana Stalin, Stalin’s Daughter (Harper Collins, June 2015.)Â
Then, Russian Á©migrÁ© Elena Gorokhova explores the inner divide that splits the soul of the immigrant in her new memoir Russian Tattoo (Simon and Schuster, 2015). Continue reading
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
Hannah Nordhaus, author of The Beekepper’s Lament, talks about her latest book, a wonderful history/slash memoir of her ancestor Julia Staub. It’s called American Ghost: A Family’s Haunted Past in the Desert Southwest.
And if apple pie is a symbol of America, apples may be a symbol of New England. Russell Steven Powell talks about his book, Apples of New England: A User’s Guide. Continue reading
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
David Flusfeder discusses his novel, John The Pupil. It’s about a medieval journey that prefigures the Renaissance era to come. And then another work of fiction that reimagines a historical figure:Â urban philosopher David Kishik talks about his book, The Manhattan Project. It imagines what Walter Benjamin would have written about New York had he succeeded in escaping to the US from Nazi-dominated Europe. Continue reading
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
Catherine Price talks about her book VITAMANIA: Our Obsessive Quest For Nutritional Perfection (Penguin). Then food psychologist Traci Mann tells us why diets don’t work and how we can get to — and stay at — our leanest live-able weight. Her book is Secrets from the Eating Lab: The Science of Weight Loss, the Myth of Willpower, and Why You Should Never Diet Again. Continue reading
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
Tom Butler of the Foundation for Deep Ecology talks about a gorgeous — and disturbing — new coffee table book of photojournalism, Overdevelopment, Overpopulation, Overshoot.
And women mystery writers have gone from being ignored to being stars of the genre. We talk with mystery writer Sara Paretsky about women’s changing position in the genre and about her own socially conscious mystery writing. Then we congratulate Elizabeth Kolbert on her Pulitzer Prize for The Sixth Extinction. Continue reading
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
Journalist Eric Alterman talks about his new book, Inequality And One City: Bill de Blasio and the New York Experiment. It’s about how the New York mayor is using city government to implement his agenda on inequality, the forces arrayed against him and the contradictions he faces. And then, we hear poems from Richard Wilbur and Jonathan Wright. Continue reading
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
In 2008, WV guest James W. Russell got a big shock, like hundreds of thousands of other Americans who thought their 401k’s were going to give them a comfortable retirement. His retirement portfolio took a big hit, so he decided to investigate just why our retirement system is so insecure.
What he found out, he’s put into his explosive book, SOCIAL INSECURITY: 401(k)s and the Retirement Crisis. We spend the hour talking with Russell about 401k’s, pension plans, and social security — and what can be done to make sure we don’t end up poor in our old age. Continue reading
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
ABC anchorman and meditator Dan Harris talks about his book, 10% Happier:Â How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works–A True Story. Then, renowned psychiatrist and author of Thoughts Without A Thinker Mark Epstein discusses his latest book, The Trauma Of Every Day Life. It’s about how Buddhist meditation can help us heal from trauma and use it to achieve greater wisdom. Continue reading
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
Jay Griffiths talks about her book, A Country Called Childhood: Children and the Exuberant World (Counterpoint, November 2014.) It’s a powerful plea to nourish children’s independence and reconnect them with nature. Continue reading
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
Stephen Kurkjian talks about his new book Master Thieves. It’s about the record-breaking art heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990 and who might have done it.
Then, forty years after the end of the Vietnam War, its lethal legacy continues. We talk with George Black about his story, “The Lethal Legacy of the Vietnam War” in the March 16 issue of The Nation. Continue reading
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
Investigative journalist Jenny Nordberg talks about her book, THE UNDERGROUND GIRLS OF KABUL: In Search of a Hidden Resistance in Afghanistan. It’s about how some young girls in Afghanistan are disguised as boys — an ancient practice in a gender-apartheid society.
And feminist writer Katha Pollitt discusses how access to safe, legal abortions is under threat in America and what that means for women’s rights. Her book is PRO: Reclaiming Abortion Rights. Continue reading