On 6 July I talked with D A Henderson, MD, currently Professor of Medicine and Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh, about his recent book Smallpox: The Death of a Disease (Prometheus Books). Dr Henderson was chief of the World Health Organization Smallpox Eradication Program from 1966 to 1977.
I then talked with Stanford University Biology Professor Joan Roughgarden about her books Evolution's Rainbow: Diversity, Gender and Sexuality in Nature and People and The Genial Gene: Deconstructing Darwinian Selfishness (both published by the University Of California Press).
To hear this program, click here. The signal breaks up badly from about 1 minute 15 seconds to 4 minutes 15 seconds. I have no idea why but will see if I can correct it.
posted by Eric Tomb and others 6:53 PM 0 Comments
Monday 22 June 2009: Jane Mayer/Ron Soodalter
On 22 June I talked with New Yorker staff writer Jane Mayer about her book The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Became a War On American Ideals, which has recently been published in paperback by Anchor Books. Ms Mayer will appear at the Los Angeles Public Library in L A on Tuesday 30 June and at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on Wednesday 1 July.
I then talked with historian Ron Soodalter about The Slave Next Door: Human Trafficking and Slavery in America Today , which he co-authored with Kevin Bales and which has just been published by the University of California Press.
To hear this program, click here.
posted by Eric Tomb and others 6:46 PM 0 Comments
Monday 8 June 2009: no program
On 8 June Booktown was pre-empted for a KVMR membership drive, which did quite well. Thank you all.
posted by Eric Tomb and others 12:01 PM 0 Comments
Monday 25 May 2009: Misha Glenny/Cheri Snook
On 25 May I talked with British journalist and author Misha Glenny about his book McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld, which has just been released in paperback by Vintage Books.
I then talked with KVMR broadcaster and activist Cheri Snook about Words of Realness, a concert featuring musical settings of poems by New Folsom Prison inmate Spoon Jackson, which will take place at 8 PM on Tuesday 26 May at the Miners Foundry in Nevada City. Cheri has been active in art and writing programs at Folsom for many years and helped produce the Michael Franti concert which KVMR broadcast live from Folsom in 2005.
To hear this program, click here.
posted by Eric Tomb and others 5:32 PM 0 Comments
Monday 11 May 2009: Tony Horwitz/Douglas Adams
I was out of town on 11 May so KVMR played a program I recorded last week. First came an interview with journalist and author Tony Horwitz about his book A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World, which has just come out in paperback from Picador. I then played the beginning of a talk which Douglas Adams, who was born on 11 May 1952 (this should be a National if not a Galactic holiday), gave at the University of California in Santa Barbara a few months before his sudden death. To see the entire talk, click here.
To hear this program, click here.
I talked with Tony Horwitz' wife Geraldine Brooks about her novel People of the Book on 4 February 2008.
posted by Eric Tomb and others 10:08 AM 0 Comments
Monday 27 April 2009: National Soft Pretzel Month
On 27 April I helped celebrate April, which is National Soft Pretzel Month, National STDs Awareness Month, National Poetry Month, Fresh Florida Tomato Month and more, by playing LPs, CDs and selections from poets.org of spoken poetry. After LPs of John F C Richards reading the opening passages of Virgil's Aeneid and Stanley Kunitz and Andrei Voznesensky reading English and Russian versions of Voznesensky's Goya, I played CDs of Langston Hughes reading several short poems and Michael McClure reading his longer poem Indian accompanied by pianist Ray Manzarek.
The selection from poets.org included Ed Ochester reading his The March of the Penguins, Maxine Kumin reading her Purgatory, William Carlos Williams reading his To Elsie, Wanda Coleman reading her American Sonnet 35, August Kleinzahler reading his Tranter in America, Kim Adonizio reading her What Do Women Want, Clayton Eshleman reading his translation of Cesar Vallejo's XIII, Darcie Dennigan reading her Sentimental Atom Smasher, Robert Bly reading his Poem for Andrew Marvell, Rita Dove reading her Reunion 2005 and Weathering Out, Jim Powell reading his translation of Sappho's Artfully Adorned Aphrodite, Kay Ryan reading her Home to Roost, The Edges of Time and The Niagara River and W S Merwin reading his My Friends.
I then announced two upcoming readings: Rita Dove will appear at the Crest Theater in Sacramento at 7:30 PM on Wednesday 13 May as part of the California Lectures series; Bill Lee and Charity Bryson will open a reading May Day into Summer: Poetry of the Season, which will be hosted by Q Loren Ruh Smith and will conclude with an open mike, at the Broad Street Bistro and Gallery in Nevada City from 7:00 to 8:30 PM on Thursday 14 May.
I finished the program with two more scratchy LPs: Beatrice Lillie reading Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky and Cyril Cusack reading William Butler Yeats' Byzantium.
To hear this program, click here.
posted by Eric Tomb and others 9:36 PM 0 Comments
Monday 13 April 2009: Andrew Sean Greer/David Carle
On 13 April I talked with Andrew Sean Greer about his most recent novel The Story of a Marriage, which has just been releasd in paperback by Picador. We also touched on his earlier novel The Confessions of Max Tivoli (also Picador). Some common themes between The Story of a Marriage and Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier came up in the conversation. Andrew Sean Greer will appear at 1 PM on Monday 20 April at the University Union Ballroom at Sacramento State University as part of the California Lectures series. I previously talked with him about Max Tivoli on 1 November 2004.
I then talked with David Carle about the revised edition of his Introduction to Water in California, which is part of the University of California Press's California Natural History Guides series. I had previously talked with David about his Introduction to Air in California (on 27 November 2006) and Introduction to Fire in California (on 1 July 2008). And yes, he hopes that his Introduction to Earth in California* will be available next year.
At the end of the program I mentioned three upcoming events.
Two have to do with National Poetry Month: at 7:30 PM on Thursday 16 April B L Kennedy and Mario Ellis Hill will read at the Center for the Arts in Grass Valley as part of the Nevada County Poetry Series; at 2:30 PM on Saturday 18 April Matt Amott, Julia Valin, Todd Cirilo and Will Staple will read Poems from the Night Shift at the North Columbia Schoolhouse Cultural Center.
Also at 7:30 PM on Saturday 18 April Books Across the Water will present an evening of words and music at St Joseph's Cultural Center in Grass Valley featuring the Moore Brothers, Luke Janela, Casual Fog, Molly Allis, Earth Rhythms, Seamsplit and author Kim Culbertson to raise money to send books to a South African township.
To hear this program, click here.
* If you can't wait that long, UC Press already has two good books that cover part of the topic:
Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations by David R Montgomery (whom I interviewed on 25 June 2007) and Sand: The Never-Ending Story by Michael Welland. Dead Pool: Lake Powell, Global Warming, and the Future of Water in the West by James Lawrence Powell gives a different look at water in California and adjacent regions.
posted by Eric Tomb and others 8:25 PM 1 Comments
Monday 30 March 2009: Mary Roach/Lawrence Weschler
On 30 March I talked with Mary Roach, author of Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers and Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, about her most receont book Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, which has just been published in paperback by W W Norton. Mary Roach will appear at the Center for the Arts in Grass Valley at 7 PM on Thursday 9 April in an event co-sponsored by Literature Alive!, the CftA and Words on Paper. More information is at 274-8384, extension 14.
I then talked with Lawrence Weschler about two books which come close to defining California art in the last 40 years. His 1983 book Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees has just been published in an expanded edition with the subtitle Thirty Years of Conversations with Robert Irwin by the University of California Press along with a new one True to Life: Twenty-five Years of Conversations with David Hockney.
To hear this program, click here.
posted by Eric Tomb and others 10:42 PM 0 Comments
