WYPL Book Talk

Podcast - Thomas Mullen - Lightning Men

 

Thomas Mullen has published five novels, The Last Town on Earth, which won the James Fenimore Cooper prize, The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers, The Revisionists. His latest Lightning Men is a continuation of a series begun with his previous novel, Darktown, which follows two of Atlanta's first African-American police officers following World War Two. It's now 1950 and when three African-American families move into a formerly all-white neighborhood, Officers Lucius Bogs and Tommy Smith, as well as white policeman Denny Rakestraw, discover that morality often lies outside the law.

Podcast - Anne Gisleson - The Futilitarians

 

 

Anne Gisleson's writing has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The Oxford American, The Believer, and The Los Angeles Times, among others. Today we'll be talking about her first book, The Futilitarians: Our Year of Thinking, Drinking, Grieving, and Reading which is published by Little, Brown.

 

 

 

 

 

Podcast - Adrienne Berard - Water Tossing Boulders

 

 

Blake McVey talks with Adrienne Berard about her book WATER TOSSING BOULDERS:HOW A FAMILY OF CHINESE IMMIGRANTS LED THE FIRST FIGHT TO DESEGREGATE SCHOOLS IN THE JIM CROW SOUTH, which is now in paperback by Beacon Press. It's the true story of the Chinese-American Lum family who fought for the rights of their daughters to attend whites-only public schools in 1920s Mississippi. Their case made it all the way to the Supreme Court thirty years before the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case.

 

 

Podcast - Ladee Hubbard - The Talented Ribkins

 

Ladee Hubbard is the winner of the 2016 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award and the William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition for the Short Story. Today we'll be talking about her debut novel, The Talented Ribkins, which is published by Melville House. It's the story of Johnny Ribkins, who, despite an amazing ability to make maps of places he's never seen, finds himself in deep debt to an unsavory character all while trying to bond with his niece whom he's never met before.

Podcast- Peggy O'Neal Peden - Your Killin' Heart

Linda Lloyd talks to Peggy O'Neal Peden about her mystery novel, Your Killin' Heart.

From the Macmillan website:

Contrary to popular belief, not everyone in Nashville is an aspiring country music star. Campbell Hall, for one, just wants to get her travel agency off the ground and move on from a break-up. But when she gets the opportunity to visit the mansion of mysterious country icon Jake Miller, she jumps at the chance. After all, who knows what clues are lurking around the long-dead star’s last home?

Podcast - Mark Bowden - Hue 1968

 

Mark Bowden is a renowned journalist and author. He recently had the cover story of the July August 2017 issue of the Atlantic Monthly magazine about how America and the world should deal with North Korea. He is perhaps better known for his non-fiction books including The Finish: The Killing of Osama bin Laden, Our Finest Day: D-Day, June 6, 1944, and Blackhawk Down. Today, we'll be discussing Hue 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam, which is a look at the longest and fiercest battle of America's involvement in the Vietnam War. The combined North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces seized control of South Vietnam's third-largest city on the eve of Tet, the nation's biggest holiday. It would take almost a full month for South Vietnamese and American forces to regain control of city that was almost leveled during the fighting. 

Podcast - Scott McClanahan - The Sarah Book

 

Scott McClanahan is a writer from West Virginia whose approach to writing and life would never be called timid. He's released several collection of stories, but he's probably best known for his book Crapalachia. His newest release is a novel called The Sarah Book, which features a writer named Scott McClanahan who is doing his best to ruin his marriage to a woman named Sarah, and examines the beginning of their relationship as well as its demise. 

Podcast - Ace Atkins - The Fallen

Ace Atkins is a best-selling and well-respected novelist of crime fiction. He has continued on the Spenser series for the Robert B. Parker estate, having published Little White Lies, his sixth addition to the series earlier in 2017, and this summer brings us the seventh installment of his Quinn Colson series, The Fallen, set in the contemporary, but fictional northern Mississippi county of Tibbehah.

Podcast - John Grisham - Camino Island

We have a special program today; we have two interviews. A little later I will be speaking with Tim Henderson who is the director of humanities TN about the organization and about its 2017 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville. This October will be the 29th edition of one of the biggest book festivals in America. But up first, we have a special guest, a writer by the name of John Grisham. John Grisham is of course the best-selling author of legal thrillers and other popular novels who got his start writing stories set in the Mid-South. He is estimated to have sold more than 300 million books worldwide, and I was invited by the website Chapter16.org to interview him at his recent event at Parnassus Books in Nashville, TN. Chapter16.org is the literary website of Humanities TN and they have graciously allowed us to use the audio from the interview on Book Talk. MR. Grisham and I began our conversation about his latest novel, Camino Island, which is published by Doubleday.

Podcast - Gail Godwin - Grief Cottage

 

 

I was recently invited to be in conversation with one of America's greatest writers, Gail Godwin, at Parnassus books in Nashville, TN. Ms. Godwin was on tour with her latest novel, Grief Cottage, which is published by Bloomsbury. I had some technical difficulties with my recording microphone, so the sound isn't as good as we normally have on Book Talk, but it is a wonderful conversation with Ms. Godwin. - Stephen Usery

Podcast - Vickie Fee - One Fete in the Grave

Vickie Fee was a long-time journalist in western Tennessee but now calls the Upper Peninsula of Michigan home. To help with home sickness, she began writing the Liv and Di in Dixie Mystery series, and today we'll be talking about the third installment, One Fete in The Grave, which is published by Kensington.

Podcast - Alexandra Marzano-Lesnevich - The Fact of a Body

 

 

 

Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich to the program today. Alexandria has received fellowships from The National Endowment for the Arts, MacDowell, and Yaddo, and a Rona Jaffe Award. Also, she teaches at Grub Street and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. In this episode, we will talk about her book, The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir.

Podcast - D.J. Donaldson - Assassination at Bayou Sauvage

Harry Freeman talks to Memphian D.J. Donaldson about the latest installment of his New Orleans Forensic Mysteries series starring Andy Broussard and Kit Franklin, Assassination at Bayou Sauvage.

Download here.

Podcast - Ann Patchett - Commonwealth

Ann Patchett has written several books of non-fiction, including 2013's This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, but she is best known for her novels, including Bel Canto which won the PEN/Faulker and Orange prizes, and 2012's State of Wonder. Today we'll be talking about her latest novel, Commonwealth, which was recently released in paperback.

Podcast - Edan Lepucki - Woman No. 17

 

Edan Lepucki is a contributing editor for themillions.com and the founder of Writing Workshops Los Angeles. She is also the author of the novella If You're Not Yet Like Me and the New York Times best-selling novel, California. Today we'll be talking about her second novel, Woman No. 17, which was recently published by Crown.

 

Podcast - Lisa Wingate - Before We Were Yours

Linda Lloyd talks to bestselling author author Lisa Wingate about her latest hit novel, Before We Were Yours, which looks at the infamous Tennessee Children's Home Society adoption scandal, and how it could have affected the children and their birth and adopted families.

Podcast - Peter Cooper - Johnny's Cash and Charley's Pride

Peter Cooper was a long-time music writer for The Tennessean newspaper. In addition to teaching at Vanderbilt University, and being a performing and recording artist, Peter is now a Senior Director, Producer, and Writer at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. Today we'll be talking about his new book, Johnny's Cash and Charley's Pride: Lasting Legends and Untold Adventures in Country Music which is published by Spring House Press.

Podcast - David Wiesner - Fish Girl

David Wiesner has a tremendously successful career as a picture book author and artist, having won three Caldecott Medals. But today we'll be talking about his first foray into graphic novels. It's entitled Fish Girl, and he did the art and co-authored it with award-winner author and scholar Donna Jo Napoli.

Podcast - Julie Buntin - Marlena

Julie Buntin is the director of writing programs at Catapult and her work has appeared in The Atlantic, Cosmopolitan, and Slate among others. Today we'll be discussing her debut novel, Marlena. It's the story of a friendship between two teenage girls in rural Michigan and the decades long effects that it has on one of them.

Podcast - Holly Tucker - City of Light, City of Poison

Dr. Holly Tucker is a professor at Vanderbilt University in Italian and French, as well in their medical school's Center for Biomedical Ethics & Society. Dr. Tucker is author of Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine & Murder in the Scientific Revolution and Pregnant Fictions: Childbirth & the Fairy Tale in Early-Modern France. Today we will be talking about her most recent book, City of Light, City of Poison: Murder, Magic, and the First Police Chief of Paris, which is published by W.W. Norton.