Bookpod.org

Loving a mentally ill mother

Mon, 09 May 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Almost nobody has a simple relationship with their mother. How much more complicated, then, if your mother suffers from mental illness.

In this episode, psychotherapist Linda Appleman Shapiro talks about Four Rooms, Upstairs, the memoir she wrote about growing up in the 1940s and 1950s with an immigrant mother who suffered from depression -- and about her mother's love that helps sustain Shapiro to this very day. BOOK AUDIBLE AUDIO

Giving Borges his due

Mon, 13 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Translator and editor Suzanne Jill Levine talks about Jorge Luis Borges and his five volumes of non-fiction and poetry published by Penguin Classics. On Writing, The Sonnets, On Argentina, On Mysticism, Poems of the Night. See also The Subversive Scribe: Translating Latin American Fiction

Cooking with commonsense

Mon, 06 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Tom Hudgens talks about the cooking education he received before writing The Commonsense Kitchen, a cookbook for budding and seasoned cooks that takes the panic out of preparing and eating food. See also Tom's Cooking and Eating Tips, a bonus mp3 episode on Wordpress.

Echoes of Tenderloin past

Mon, 29 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0500

David Freeland talks about Automats, Taxi Dances, and Vaudeville: Excavating Manhattan's Lost Places of Leisure, the book he wrote to document the buildings that drew earlier generations of New Yorkers in search of a day or night's entertainment. BOOK, KINDLE

Looking for happiness around the world

Mon, 22 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Eric Weiner talks about The Geography of Bliss, the book in which he used a "happiness index" to travel to the happiest places in the world. Iceland: most happy. Moldova: Least happy. BOOK, KINDLE

Three generations of men with fire

Mon, 15 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Jay Varner talks about Nothing Left to Burn, a memoir about his arsonist grandfather, his fire chief father and his own stint as a newspaper reporter on the police and fire desk.

Why eat food that makes you sick?

Mon, 08 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Levana Kirschenbaum talks about In Short Order, a cookbook that offers an alternative way of eating to the sugar-, salt- and fat-rich foods of all too many North American diets. Take a look too at Levana cooks dairy-free! BOOK, KINDLE

When countries dismiss good intelligence

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Alan Furst reflects on the characters and politics of The Spies of Warsaw, his 2008 novel about a Charles de Gaulle-like colonel who tries to speak truth to power. BOOK, KINDLE NOTE: This episode can be heard on Firefox and Internet Explorer, not Safari. We are working to fix this browser issue.

A novelist's tale of Afghanistan in 1841

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Tamim Ansary talks about The Widow's Husband, a novel set in a mid-nineteenth-century Afghan village that looks at England and Russia's battle for control of Afghanistan from an Afghan point of view. Listen to a longer episode on Wordpress. BOOK, KINDLE

A snail kept her alive

Mon, 18 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Elisabeth Tova Bailey talks about The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, her meditation on the ingesting, sleeping and reproductive habits of one particular gastropod. BOOK, KINDLE

Herding cats in Afghanistan and loving it

Mon, 11 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0400

A former captain in the British Grenadier Guards talks about The Junior Officers' Reading Club, his gonzo account of nation-building in Afghanistan. BOOK, KINDLE

A man goes to prison for his books

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0400

A bookseller and book thief play cat and mouse in Allison Hoover Bartlett's The Man Who Loved Books Too Much. BOOK, KINDLE

It takes children to raise a village

Mon, 20 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0400

The founder of the Nyaka AIDS Orphans School in southwestern Uganda talks about The Price of Stones, a book -- written with Susan Urbanek Linville -- in which he ponders the human and financial challenges involved in breaking Uganda's cycle of poverty. BOOK, KINDLE. Read or listen to three bonus episodes.

Making art in a random universe

Mon, 06 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0400

The prolific novelist and short story writer talks about the imaginative landscape for the stories in Wild Child.

Be glad for the flower workers

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0400

The author of Flower Confidential, Wicked Plants and other books related to the soil, talks about the workers in the global industrial flower complex. Recorded via Skype.

Freedom of speech in Tudor England

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Brenda Rickman Vantrease talks about The Heretic's Wife, a novel about the risks that brave individuals once took to begin thinking for themselves.

Mishap on the high seas

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Fishing boat captain Linda Greenlaw talks about Seaworthy, a book about a 56-day epic disaster that tested her mettle after ten years away from bluewater fishing.

When parents go countercultural

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0400

The novelist talks about My Before and After Life, a tale of the perennial clash between the sacred and the profane.

Murder, madness, obsession

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0400

The New Yorker writer talks about The Devil and Sherlock Holmes, a collection of stranger-than-fiction articles written for various magazines that explores the murder, madness and obsession that all too often define the human condition.

What's It All About, Judd?

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0400

The author talks about This Is Where I Leave You, a novel that considers what happens when you are forced to bare your most private humiliations to the people who think they know you best.

The life and death of Jews under Mussolini

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0400

The San Paolo Professor of International Journalism at Columbia University talks about Benevolence and Betrayal, his book about the fate of Jews during the Nazi occupation of Italy.

In search of the holy prepuce

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0400

The travel writer talks about An Irreverent Curiosity, a historical travelogue that traces the whereabouts of a religious relic.

Why did the good dot-coms succeed?

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0400

A venture capitalist talks about Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer -- one of 32 dot-com entrepreneurs she interviewed for Founders at Work.

Take 25% OFF the e-book edition of Founders at Work: Stories of Start-ups' Early Days. Use coupon code: BOOKPODWNP

What went wrong in Mogadishu?

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0400

In Black Hawk Down, the long-time reporter asks, "How did good intentions to stave off famine in Somalia go off the rails?"

A foodie valentine to NYC restaurants

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0400

The New York Times writer talks about Appetite City, a chronicle of New York City's culinary habits from the days of the Dutch to the current melange of ethnic eateries.

Listen to a slightly longer version of this episode on Wordpress.

The lost civilization of the Eastern European Jews

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0400

The executive director of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research talks about the Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, a vast book and online project that recovers the long, diverse history of the Jews in Poland, Russia and other European countries.

In The Pinkas of Metz, Jonathan Brent explains why the editors of the Encyclopedia struggled to arrive at a straightforward definition of Eastern Europe. mp3 and pdf

The last stand of Custer and Sitting Bull

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Nathaniel Philbrick talks about The Last Stand, the book he wrote to explore the actors of the Battle of Little Bighorn -- and the beginning of the end for traditional Native American culture.

Raising a mentally ill son

Mon, 31 May 2010 00:00:00 -0400

The North Carolina-based writer talks about The Boy Who Loved Tornadoes, the book she wrote about riding a healthcare merry-go-round in her quest to find appropriate care for her psychotic child.

Italian wet nurses and syphilis

Mon, 24 May 2010 00:00:00 -0400

The provost of Brown University and historian talks about Amalia's Tale, the book he wrote to dramatize the state practice in nineteenth-century Italy of compelling unmarried women to give up their babies to a foundling hospital. The consequences were terrible for everyone involved.

The transmogrification of Robert Mugabe

Mon, 17 May 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Dinner With Mugabe chronicles the Zimbabwean president's transformation from a lonely bookish boy to one of Africa's worst tyrants.

Family Swap

Mon, 10 May 2010 00:00:00 -0400

The author of The Sisters Antipodes talks about the husband-trading that occurred in her childhood and the troubling consequences that two families live with to this day.

My father, Orson Welles

Mon, 03 May 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Orson Welles' daughter talks about In My Father's Shadow -- and the filmmaker, writer and magician whom she knew as a self-absorbed artist and one of the most humane influences in her life.

Can Rwanda forgive and forget?

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Philip Gourevitch talks about the Rwandan genocide and the questions he had that led him to write We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families.

Dancing out of the night

Mon, 19 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0400

The travel and gardening writer talks about Hold Me Tight and Tango Me Home, her memoir about learning to dance tango and overcoming heartbreak.

An Armenian from Teaneck remembers the genocide

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0400

The poet and literary critic talks about Black Dog of Fate, his memoir about decoding the messages he received from a grandmother who survived a death march to Aleppo.

Family is a big deal to me

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0400

The prolific author of personal essays, film reviews and novels -- including Two Marriages -- talks about the impact that his parents had on his development as a writer.

Why can't Christians, Jews and Moslems all just get along?

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0400

The Jerusalem-based journalist talks about At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden: A Jew's Search for God with Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land and reflects on the longing he feels for a spiritual reconciliation with historic adversaries.

Do we choose to be cruel?

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Cruelty asks, "What compels people to carry out mass murders of former neighbors and schoolmates?"

The Hmong meet American healthcare

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Cultural differences and good intentions complicate the care of a Laotian child in The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down.

The world in me

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500

In The World in a City: Traveling the Globe Through the Neighborhoods of the New New York, the New York Times reporter talks about his experience as an immigrant -- and the effect it's had on his work as the chronicler of New York's ethnic communities.

What went wrong with Bonfire?

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500

The author of The Devil's Candy: The Anatomy of a Hollywood Fiasco, asks, "How could so many talented film people create a movie debacle?"

Report From Iron Mountain lives on and on

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Was the document a study-group memorandum by men with "abnormally high uric acid concentrations in the blood" or was it a satiric hoax?

The wind done gone and knocked Scarlett upside the head

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

The country music songwriter and author of The Wind Done Gone talks about the anger black readers feel toward Gone With the Wind.

Journey into the Grand Canyon of the soul

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

In Heading West, timid Nancy Finch is kidnapped and compelled to hike down into the Grand Canyon to escape her pursuer -- and pursue a fateful encounter with herself.

Stripped in the People's Republic of China

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

In Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven, two college girls go off to experience real life in a communist country and discover that they are babes in the woods.

Growing up in the Socialist Workers Party

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0500

In When Skateboards Will Be Free: A Memoir, the author talks about the effect of the Socialist Workers Party on his family and himself.

Travel is instant fiction

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Border crossings are a chance for the author of A Modern Way to Die to step out of his New York skin and become somebody else.

Echoes of Leopold in Congo

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Th author of King Leopold's Ghost recaps the terrible history of Congo.

Finding the city of no limits

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0500

The author of Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong recalls his early days in Manhattan when he was a young man from a small town in search of the City.

Publication note

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0500

We publish Monday at 10:00 a.m. (NYC).