WYPL Book Talk

David Wesley Williams - Long Gone Daddies

Stephen Usery speaks with Commercial Appeal sports editor David Williams about his debut novel Long Gone Daddies, which looks at three generations of traveling musicians and how they all ended up in Memphis and the trouble they have with love.

Ruta Sepetys - Out of the Easy

 

 

 Stephen Usery interviews Ruta Sepetys talks about the follow-up to her bestselling debut, Between Shades of Gray. Her new novel is Out of the Easy, and it stars the seventeen year-old Josie Moraine who has raised herself since elementary school. Her mother is a prostitute, and the precocious Josie wants to better her own lot in life at the beginning of the 1950s in New Orleans.

Alan Lightman - Mr g

Stephen Usery interviews Memphis native Alan Lightman about his latest book, Mr g: A Novel About the Creation. Lightman, who has taught both physics and creative writing at MIT, spins a yarn of a being outside of space and time who creates a universe while dealing with his loving, yet constantly bickering, aunt and uncle. An ominous stranger comes on the scene and tries to influence Mr g as he refines the laws for his new creation.

Jeanette Keith - Fever Season

Sara Hoover interviews Jeanette Keith about her book, Fever Season: The Story of a Terrifying Epidemic and the People who Saved a City. Heroes and cowards are revealed during the yellow fever outbreak which claimed 17,000 lives.

Da Chen - My Last Empress

Sara Hoover interviews Da Chen about his novel, My Last Empress, a tale of ill-fated love. Set in the 19th century, madness and obsession propel Samuel Pickens to leave Yale behind for imperial China, where he becomes embroiled in a dangerous love affair within the Forbidden City.

John Perry - The Art of Procrastination

 Stephen Usery interviews Stanford philosophy professor John Perry about his book, The Art of Procrastination: Guide to Effective Dawdling, Lollygagging and Postponing.

Molly Caldwell Crosby - The Great Pearl Heist

Molly Caldwell Crosby worked for National Geographic Magazine before scoring a critical and commercial hit with he first book, The American Plague about the scourge of yellow fever. Her next book was Asleep: The Forgotten Epidemic That Remains one of Medicine's Greatest Mysteries. Molly's newest book is The Great Pearl Heist: London's Greatest Thief and Scotland Yard's Hunt for the World's Most Valuable Necklace.    

Sal Lizard - Being Santa Claus

Stephen Usery gets in the holiday spririt as he interviews Sal Lizard about his memoir Being Santa Claus: What I Learned About the True Meaning of Christmas.

Julianna Baggot - Pure

Sara Hoover interviews Julianna Baggott about her novel Pure, the first in a trilogy. Sixteen-year-old Pressia Bells navigates a post-apocalyptic world after the denotations, which fused survivors to their surroundings. While avoiding the militia hunting her, Pressia finds hope in the unlikeliest of places.

Tatjana Soli - The Forgetting Tree

Sara Hoover interviews Tatjana Soli about her second novel, The Forgetting Tree. Claire Baumsarg has fallen in love with her husband’s citrus ranch in Southern California. But soon tragedy strikes and fractures the family. An illness befalls Claire, opening the way for the mysterious, Caribbean-born Minna as Claire’s caregiver, who may be the greatest threat of all.

Inman Majors - Love's Winning Plays

Stephen Usery interviews Inman Majors about his new novel, Love's Winning Plays. Set in the intense yet hilarious world of off-season college football, young Raymond Love is trying to win a full-time position as a coach for an unnamed SEC school. His big test is to keep tabs on the eccentric Coach Woody, whose dedication to the sport gets off-track when touring the state to help raise money from boosters.

James Meek - The Heart Broke In

Stephen interviews Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize-winner James Meek. Meek is the former Moscow bureau chief for The Guardian newspaper. His latest novel, The Heart Broke In, looks at a reality television producer and three scientists who get caught up in romantic entanglements, betrayals, and ethical quagmires, all while a British tabloid editor is taking too keen of an interest in their personal lives. 

Lawrence Norfolk - John Saturnall's Feast

Stephen Usery interviews award-winning British novelist Lawrence Norfolk. His first book in twelve years, John Saturnall's Feast is the story of an orphan who becomes the greatest chef of his time in the era leading up to and through the British Civil war in the 17th century. This was a time when English cuisine was intricate and cosmopolitan before economic woes and the Puritan devotion to simplicity reduced it to a shell of its former self.

Michael Morris - Man in the Blue Moon

Sara Hoover interviews Michael Morris about his novel, Man in the Blue Moon. It’s the story of Ella Wallace and her three sons fighting to save their home and the mystical land it’s set upon in the Florida panhandle. While World War I rages across the ocean, a mysterious man’s arrival impacts the entire community. 

Peter Heller - The Dog Stars

Stephen Usery interviews Peter Heller about his book, The Dog Stars. A New York Times bestseller, the novel focuses on Hig, a survivor of the superflu which eliminated most of humankind. He flies his 1956 Cessna with his dog Jasper in Colorado. The pair forge an uneasy alliance with the killer Bangley and try to navigate their way through this new world.

Courtney Miller Santo - The Roots of the Olive Tree

 Courtney Miller Santo about her upcoming debut novel, The Roots of the Olive Tree. Already being translated into seven languages, The Roots of the Olive Tree follows five generations of women. The matriarch Anna is hoping to become the oldest living person in the world, and secret after secret has built up and affected the women and their relationships.

Gregory Fletcher - Intrepid Aviators

Stephen Usery interviews Gregory Fletcher about his book Intrepid Aviators:The True Story of U.S.S. Intrepid's Torpedo Squadron 18 and Its Epic Clash With the Superbattleship Musashi. It's a story that traces the history of naval aviation up through the Battle of Sibuyan Sea when his father and fellow pilots sank the Japanese battleship Musashi.

Jeff Crook - The Sleeping and the Dead

Stephen Usery talks to Jeff Crook about the first installment of his mystery series starring Memphis crime scene photographer Jackie Lyons. The series begins with The Sleeping and the Dead where Jackie fights her addictions while helping the police department track down a brutal serial killer who has a flair for theatrics.

Natalie Bakopolous - The Green Shore

 
Stephen Usery interviews Natalie Bakopoulos about her debut novel, The Green Shore. In late summer of 1967, the government of Greece was overthrown by a right-wing military coup, and an Athens family, who leans left, must learn to live carefully in terms of politics while still dealing with everyday life.

Benjamin Busch - Dust to Dust

Stephen Usery interviews Benjamin Busch about his memoir Dust to Dust. An Iraq war veteran, artist, actor from HBO's The Wire, and son of prominent novelist Frederick Busch, Benjamin Busch relays how his life was shaped by how he tried to shape the world in building structures as a child, serving in the Marine Corps, and creating art.