WYPL Book Talk

Tim Johnston - Descent

Tim Johnston is a writer of fiction with a YA novel called Never So Green, a collection of short stories, and a new novel from Algonquin Books. It's called Descent, and it's one of the best reviewed literary thrillers in recent memory.

 

If you would like to meet Tim and hear him read from his work, he'll have an event at the University of Memphis on Thursday, February 19, 2015 beginning at 5:30 in the Bluff Room at The University Center. The event is open to the public. For more information, call (901)678-3732.

Sharon Draper - Stella by Starlight

Sharon Draper won the 1997 National Teacher of The Year Honor, and has gone on to become even more famous as the author of best-selling and award-winning books for children and young adults. We talk about her latest book for middle-graders, Stella by Starlight, which was inspired by her father and her maternal grandmother. 

David V Mason - Brigham Young: Sovereign in America

 

David Vaughn Mason is chair of the theater department and director of Asian Studies at Rhodes College. During the so-called Mormon Moment during the 2012 Presidential election, Dr. Mason gained notice for his editorials in the Washington Post addressing his faith and how it fits into America. Routledge has recently published his biography of  Church of Latter Day Saints leader entitled, Brigham Young: Sovereign in America.

Mark Greaney - Tom Clancy Full Force and Effect

We're happy to welcome Mark Greaney back to the program. Mark has previously appeared to discuss his Gray Man series of international thrillers, but today we'll talk about his latest NY Times best-selling novel in Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan series, Full Force and Effect.

Ricj Bragg - Jerry Lee Lewis His Own Story

Pulitzer Prize-winner Rick Bragg won for feature writing while at the New York Times. He's also the author of eight books, including the best-selling and beloved All Over But the Shoutin'. His newest book is a look at one of America's most talented and mercurial music legends in: Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story.

Dinaw Mengestu - All Our Names

Dinaw Mengestu became a major player in the literary scene in America and around the world with the 2007 publication of his first novel, The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears. 2010 saw the publication of How to Read the Air. In this episode, we discuss All Our Names which was just released in paperback this week by Vintage. 

Craig K Collins - Thunder in the Mountains

Craig K. Collins is the author of Thunder in the Mountains: a Portrait of American Gun Culture, a hybrid of memoir and a look at the role guns have played in violence in the American West over the years.

Robert Bausch - Far as the Eye Can See

Robert Bausch is a winner of the Dos Passos Prize for literature, and he has published a collection of short stories and nine novels.His third novel, Almighty Me was eventually adapted into the film Bruce Almighty. His fourth novel A Hole in the Earth was a New York Times Notable Book. Bloomsbury has recently published number nine, Far as the Eye Can See, a novel of finding humanity in the post-bellum big west.

Eugenia Bone - The Kitchen Ecosystem

Eugenia Bone was last on to talk about her last book, Mycophilia, which was a New York Times notable Book of 2011, she returns to to Book Talk to discuss her newest title, The Kitchen Ecosystem: Integrating Recipes to Create Delicious Meals, which includes recipes to support her approach in making the most of locally-sourced, fresh ingredients by small utilizing small batch preservation techniques.

Judy Schachner - Skippyjon Jones: Snow What

Judy Schachner is the writer illustrator of picture books like Yo, Vikings! and the tremendously successful Skippyjon Jones series, and we'll be talking about the new one centered on winter fun, Snow What.

Jan Brett - The Animals' Santa

Jan Brett is one of America's most successful author/illustrators of picture books. She has a brand new Christmas book out called The Animals' Santa.

Karen Abbott - Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy

Karen Abbott is one of America's most popular historical investigators. She wrote about the prostitution trade of gilded age Chicago in Sin in the Second City and about Gypsy Rose Lee in American Rose. Her newest book is Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War.

James Elroy - Perfidia

James Ellroy is perhaps America's greatest historical crime novelist and one of its most polarizing. Best known for his L.A. Quartet of novels, which included The Black Dahlia and L.A. Confidential, as well as the Underworld USA Trilogy, as well as the autobiographies My Dark Places and The Hilliker Curse. 2014 finds him launching his second LA Quartet, which is a prequel series, pulling characters from his previous books, and seeing how they had navigated World War II. The first book is Perfidia, and it begins in southern California on December 6, 1941.

Alexis Coe - Alice + Freda Forever

 

Alexis Coe is a former research curator for the New York Public Library and has had her writing published in publications such as The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and Modern Farmer. Zest Books has published her debut Alice + Freda Forever, which is a true crime story of same sex romance which ended in murder in the 1890s in the American South.

Emily St. John Mandel - Station Eleven

Emily St. John Mandel has published four novels Last Night in Montreal, The Singer's Gun, and The Lola Quartet, her newest one, Station Eleven, was a finalist for the 2014 National Book Award for fiction. It's the story of apocalypses, personal and global, and people who knew a famous actor before and after a superflu decimates humanity.

Brock Clarke - The Happiest People in the World

Brock Clarke has published two collections of short stories and four novels including the provocatively titled An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England. His newest one, The Happiest People in the World, is the story of real and would-be assassins, editorial cartoonists, witness protection, and faculty-versus-student sporting events.

Tavis Smiley - Death of a King

Tavis Smiley is one of the most prominent broadcasters in America. He currently hosts his talk show for for PBS, and started an online talk-radio channel last year. He has also written twelve books, the newest of which is The Death of A King: The Real Story of Dr. Martin Luther King's Final Year, and it's available from Little, Brown.

Reed Farrel Coleman - Robert B. Parker's Blind Spot

Reed Farrel Coleman. Reed is best known for his Moe Prager private detective series which concluded earlier this year with the ninth book in the series,The Hollow Girl. Reed is well-respected having won Macavity, Anthony and three Shamus Awards. The Robert B. Parker estate recently asked him to pick up the Jesse Stone series, and today we'll talk about his first entry into it, Blind Spot, and it's published by Putnam.

Stephen Schottenfeld - Bluff City Pawn

 

Stephen Schottenfeld is a professor of English at the University of Rochester, and his short fiction has appeared in Virginia Quarterly, New England Review, and Best American Short Stories. Bloomsbury has recently published his debut novel, Bluff City Pawn, the story of Huddie, a pawnshop owner in Memphis who is struggling with bad business and his two brothers.

Barbara Shoup - Looking for Jack Kerouac

Barbara Shoup is the executive director of the Indiana Writers Center. She's published two books on writing as well as eight novels for young and old adults alike. Her newest novel, Looking for Jack Kerouac, is the first book of the new imprint, Lacewing Books, which is dedicated to bringing literary fiction to the young adult audience. It's the story of two young men recently graduated from high school who travel to meet their literary hero, and one of them learns more about himself the further he gets from home.