WYPL Book Talk

Linda Lloyd welcomes Ashton Lee to the Book Talk studios to chat about Queen of the Cookbooks, the 5th installment of his Cherry Cola Book Club series. Librarian Maura Beth McShay is busy getting ready for the grand opening of Cherico, Mississippi's new, state-of-the-art library, when she is beset not just by skulduggery in the cook book competition, but also by protesters who want to control which books go on the library's shelves.

Beverly Lowry is a respected novelist and writer of non-fiction. In addition to biographies of Harriet Tubman and Madame C.J. Walker, her book Crossed Over: A Monster, A Memoir dealt with the unsolved crime of her son's death by a hit and run driver and her getting to know Karla Faye Tucker, the convicted murderer who became the first woman executed in Texas in over 100 years. In this episode, we are talking about her new book, Who Killed These Girls?, her investigation to the still unresolved murders of four teenage girls in a yogurt shop in Austin Texas in December of 1991.

Robert Olen Butler is one of America's most acclaimed writers of fiction, having not only won many literary honors, including the Pulitzer Prize, but he also had prize for short fiction named in his honor, which was award five times in the early 2000s. Early in his writing career, Butler wrote fiction about the Vietnam conflict from several different angles, and in his latest novel, Perfume River, he looks about how this war, and even wars before and since, have influenced the Quinlan family.

 

Thomas Mullen has published four novels, The Last Town on Earth, which won the James Fenimore Cooper prize, The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers, The Revisionists, and Atria has recently published his latest, Darktown, set in the dawning of the Civil Rights era in Atlanta. Eight African-American men are the first hired onto the police force, and two of them Lucius Boggs and Tommy Smith are tested as they investigate an African-American woman's murder, complicated by the fact she was seen last with a disgraced, white ex-cop who still has friends on the force.

 

 

Nathan Hill has worked as a journalist and is currently on leave from his job as an associate professor of creative writing. He's just published his debut novel The Nix to much critical acclaim, including starred reviews in Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Kirkus. And it was recently announced that Meryl Streep and J.J. Abrams plan on adapting The Nix for television.

Kerri Maniscalco is a debut novelist who has the honor of being the first author published by James Patterson's new young adult imprint called Jimmy Patterson Books and is distributed by Little, Brown. Stalking Jack the Ripper is the story of a 17-year-old girl named Audrey Rose Wadsworth who is fascinated by the Jack the Ripper case and is then terrified to learn that Jack might be closer to her than she suspects. Also, Stalking Jack the Ripper debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestsellers list for young adult hardcover! Congratulations Kerri!

Candice Millard is a former writer and editor for National Geographic Magazine. Her first book The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey was published in 2005. Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of A President, which won an Edgar for best fact crime book, followed in 2011. Doubleday has recently published her third book, Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape and the Making of Winston Churchill, which has already spent several weeks in the top ten of the New York Times Best Sellers list.

Memphis Commercial Appeal reporter Daniel Connolly worked as an embedded reporter in Memphis Kingsbury High School investigating how children of immigrants, those who are here both legally and undocumented, navigate their difficult high school years and figure out how to pursue careers and higher education. The resulting book is The Book of Isaias: A Child of Hispanic Immigrants Seeks His Own America.

Linda Lloyd talks to Robert Hicks about his third novel, The Orphan Mother. The Civil War has ended, and characters from his best-selling debut, The Widow of the South, return to deal with the all too real consequences of the war and slavery. Formerly enslaved, Mariah Reddick is working as a midwife and fights for justice when her son is murdered.

Jacqueline Woodson is one of America's most talented and beloved poets and authors of fiction for children. She's won the National Book Award, a Coretta Scott King Award, and numerous other accolades, including currently serving as the Youth Poet Laureate for the Poetry Foundation. 2016 sees the publication of her first novel for adults in 20 years, Another Brooklyn.

Odie Lindsey's writing has appeared in numerous outlets including Iowa Review and Best American Short Stories. 2016 sees the publication of his debut, a short story collection called We Come to Our Senses, available from W.W. Norton and received starred reviews from Kirkus and Booklist.

Alex Bledsoe is a veteran writer of horror and fantasy novels like The Memphis Vampire series and the Eddie LaCrosse series. Although born and raised in west Tennessee and living in Wisconsin, Alex has a contemporary fantasy series set in the hills of east Tennessee about a mysterious group of people known as the Tufa. The previous entries were The Hum and the Shiver, Wisp of a Thing, Long Black Curl, and today we'll talk about the world of the Tufa and the fourth book in the series called Chapel of Ease.

Jason Miller is a noted Twitter funny person and contributor to the RiffTrax movie satire series. Jason first appeared on Book Talk in 2015 to talk about the first book in his Slim in Little Egypt mystery series, Down Don't Bother Me. 2016 brings book two in the series set in southern Illinois coal country, Red Dog.

Linda Lloyd talks to Morgan Matson about her fourth novel for young adults, The Unexpected Everything. Andie is a rising high school senior whose politician father's scandal has scuttled her summer internship. For a teenager who had her future planned out, she is now scrambling for a summer job which will lead her to change the way she thinks about her family, past and future.

Donald Ray Pollock came to writing later in life after having worked 30+ years in a paper mill in central Ohio. His first published book was a collection of short stories called Knockemstiff, followed by the novel, The Devil All the Time. 2016 sees the release of his second novel, The Heavenly Table, which is published by Doubleday.

Brad Taylor retired as lieutenant colonel from the United States Army after over 20 years of service, including time in what is popularly known as Delta Force. He then began writing thrillers about a shadowy special forces unit called The Taskforce, starring operator Pike Logan. The first book in the series was One Rough Man, and now in the summer of 2016, we have the tenth book in the series, Ghosts of War, which is published by Dutton.

Ace Atkins used to be a crime reporter down in Tampa, Florida, but turned to the world of fiction with his New Orleans set Nick Travers series. He then wrote four critically acclaimed historical novels based on true crimes. His currently writing two series. One is continuing the Spenser series for the Robert B. Parker estate, and his own Quinn Colson series, set in northern Mississippi, about an Army Ranger who retires back to his hometown and takes over as sheriff. Today we'll talk about the most recent book in the series, The Innocents.

Whitney Terrell has written three novels, The Huntsman, The King of Kings County, and today we'll be talking about his most recent, The Good Lieutenant, about a U.S. Army lieutenant named Emma Fowler who is involved in a horrible incident in war-torn Iraq and is told in reverse chronology.