About Books, January 15, 2011

William W. Starr takes readers on a romp around Scotland in Whiskey, Kilts, and the Loch Ness Monster: Traveling through Scotland with Boswell and Johnson. Although he reverses the direction taken by Boswell and Johnson and detours to places they didn't go, you'll learn a lot about them and about current Scotland. The book is perfect for someone who has been there and wants to remember or for the person going there who wants an overview. It's funny and fulfilling.

Listen to the interview at http://www.wvik.org/listings-aboutbooks.htm

About Books, January 6, 2011

J. Harley McIlrath is a native Iowan, a bookstore manager and a writer. Possum Trot is his book of short stories published by Ice Cube Books. I loved each one. They evoke an earlier time, are about love, familes and farm life. You'll find tears and smiles in the McIlrath's work.

Listen to the interview at http://www.wvik.org/listings-aboutbooks.htm

About Books, January 1, 2010

Keith Jeffrey, a professor of Bristish History at Queen's University in Belfast, was commissioned by the Secret Intelligence Service to write its history. The result is The Secret History of MI6, 1909-1949. The SIS's purpose was to increase public understanding without endangering national security. Therefore, although he had complete access to the archives, Jeffrey had to agree to a few restrictions (not revealing agent's names, for example). The book is a treasure to anyone interested in how clandestine services work and their effect on history.

Listen to the interview at http://www.wvik.org/listings-aboutbooks.htm

About Books, December 18, 2010

Tim Slover believes in Christmas and his book, "The Christmas Chronicles: The Legend of Santa Claus," may just have you believing too. It's a delightful story that begins when Klaus is a young man in the Black Forest in 1343. You'll learn about his first delivery of presents to children. You'll learn about his laugh, his red suit, the reindeer and how he can deliver around the world in one night. It's a fascinating story, one you may want to read as a family each year.

Listen to the interview at http://www.wvik.org/listings-aboutbooks.htm

About Books, December 11, 2010

Ammon Shea explores the history of the telephone and the telephone book in The Phone Book: The Curious History of the Book That Everyone Uses But No One Reads. In it you'll learn about the first telephone company in New Haven that had their switchboard in someone's kitchen as well the development of telephone etiquette, early numberless phone books, telephone operators and the yellow pages.

Listen to the interview at http://www.wvik.org/listings-aboutbooks.htm

About Books, December 4, 2010

Geoffrey O'Brien, editor in chief of the Library of America, wrote "The Fall of the House of Walworth: a Tale of Madness and Murder in Gilded Age America" after visiting an exhibit about the Walworth family in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. The book begins with the murder of the novelist Mansfield Walworth by his son Frank. This crime leads the author in an exploration of generations of the Walworth family and their fall from prominence.

Listen to the interview at http://www.wvik.org/listings-aboutbooks.htm

About Books, November 27, 2010

Gary Stuart is the author of Innocent Until Interrogated: The True Story of the Buddist Temple Massacre and the Tucson Four. This is an eye-opening book revealing how police interrogations can lead to false confessions...even false confessions of murder. Stuart is an attorney and this University of Arizona Press book shows how sloppy police work and severe interrogations can undermine justice.

Listen to the interview at http://www.wvik.org/listings-aboutbooks.htm

About Books, November 20, 2010

Michael Kammen, a Pulitzer Pize winner, has written a book on a rather quirky subject: Digging Up the Dead:a History of Notable American Reburials. In it you'll read about the the reburial of Edgar Allen Poe from an unmarked grave to a prominent site. Other persons whose remains are moved include Sitting Bull, Jefferson Davis, Daniel Boone, Abraham Lincoln, Frank Lloyd Wright etc. Along the way you'll learn lots about our history and about changing burial practices. Fascinating.

Listen to the interview at http://www.wvik.org/listings-aboutbooks.htm

About Books, November 13, 2010

Heidi Cullen, a senior research scientist with Climate Central, often reports on climate change for the PBS News Hour. Her book, The Weather of the Future: Heat Waves, Extreme Storms, and Other Scenes from a Climate-Changed Planet, explains the extreme weather we have been experiencing like the flooding Red River and Hurricane Katina. She gives a thought provoking look at what our world will be like in 2050 if we do not change the levels of carbon emissions.

Listen to the interview at http://www.wvik.org/listings-aboutbooks.htm

About Books, November 6, 2010

Sam Kean's The Disappearing Spoon and Other Tales of Madness, Love and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements is delightful. Read it to discover fascinating stories about carbon, neon, silicon, gold and other elements and their influence on our history.

Listen to the interview at http://www.wvik.org/listings-aboutbooks.htm

About Books, October 30, 2010

R. Tripp Evans has written a new and revealing biography: Grant Wood: a Life. Wood is such an integral part of our image of the midwest. This book has great value not only in insisting that he was not a simple, rural painter but in the extensive analysis of many of his works.

Listen to the interview at http://www.wvik.org/listings-aboutbooks.htm

About Books, October 23, 2010

Julie Flavell's When London Was Capital of America tells the story of the years before the Revolutionary War when American colonists traveled to London, their capital city. Through the stories of Carolinian Henry Laurens and his family; his slave, Scipio; Stephen Sayre, a New England merchant and Benjamin Franklin, we learn about London in the 1760's.

Listen to the interview at http://www.wvik.org/listings-aboutbooks.htm

About Books, October 16, 2010

Paul Greenberg discusses the issues around the domestication of seafood in his book, Four Fish: the Future of the Last Wild Food. He has traveled all over the world to research the history of salmon, sea bass, cod and tuna. He writes about overfishing, fish farms, and the challenges of healing the oceans and providing safe, sustainable seafood.

Listen to the interview at http://www.wvik.org/listings-aboutbooks.htm

About Books, October 9, 2010

William Powers tackles dependence on digital devices in Hamlet's Blackberry: a Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age. The book offers a little bit of memoir as well as a look back at seven philosophers (Plato, Seneca,Thoreau etc.) and how they handled technological change in their time.

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About Books, October 2, 2010

Terra Brockman writes about family farm life in The Seasons on Henry's Farm: A Year of Food and Life on a Sustainable Farm. The farm, owned by Brockman's brother Henry, is located in central Illinois and produces vegetables for the Evanston Farmer's Market as well as baskets for subscribers. Starting with the fall garlic planting and including favorite family recipes, Terra shares the entire year of sowing, cultivating and harvesting.

Listen to the interview at http://www.wvik.org/listings-aboutbooks.htm

About Books, September 25, 2010

Camilla Lackberg, Swedish author of The Ice Princess, has written seven mysteries in seven years. All take place in a real town, Fjallbacka, and involve Erica Falck, a writer, and detective Patrik Hedstrom. Neither of these two are the dark characters we've come to expect from Scandanavian myster writers. Camilla says she is more interested in normal people. But the stories are absorbing. Be sure to check out Camilla's web page. She includes a tutorial on writing mysteries.

Listen to the interview at http://www.wvik.org/listings-aboutbooks.htm

About Books, September 18, 2010

Jennifer Steil is the author of The Woman Who Fell From the Sky: An American Journalist in Yemen. Steil accepted the position of editor of a Yemeni newspaper and her book is a wonderful account of her experience there. You will learn all about the culture, cuisine, treatment of women, politics, the press, etc. And her falling in love with the British Ambassador is the frosting on the cake.

Listen to the interview at http://www.wvik.org/listings-aboutbooks.htm

About Books, September 11, 2010

Lainey Salisbury and Aly Sujo have written a fascinating true story of art forgery titled Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art. It takes place in England from the mid 1980's until the mid 1990's. The con man is John Drewe and the forger is John Myatt. They successfully fooled art collectors from London to Manhattan to Paris.

Listen to the interview at http://www.wvik.org/listings-aboutbooks.htm

About Books, September 4, 2010

Nathaniel Philbrick, author of The Last Stand, says that he has long been interested in human behavior in a self-contained, structured community. Usually he has written about life aboard ship. Now he explores life in a nomadic Indian village and in a cavalry regiment. The result is one of the most interesting histories I have read.

Listen to the interview at http://www.wvik.org/listings-aboutbooks.htm

About Books, August 28, 2010

Evan Thomas is the author of The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst and the Rush to Empire, 1898. The three men in the subtitle wanted the United States to declare war on Spain for a variety of reasons explained by Thomas. Opposed were Willam James and Thomas Reed with President McKinley undecided. This is a thoughtful look at why nations choose war.

Listen to the interview at http://www.wvik.org/listings-aboutbooks.htm