Podcast - Nancy Pearl

Stephen Usery interviews Nancy Pearl about her newest guide about what to read next with Book Lust to Go: Recommended Reading for Travelers, Vagabonds, and Dreamers. Not a listing of guide books, Book Lust to Go looks at travel memoirs, novels that evoke a strong sense of place, epic histories, and mysteries that get to the nitty-gritty of some of the world's most fascinating places.

Podcast - Ian Frazier

Stephen Usery interviews Ian Frazier about his new book Travels in Siberia, which details several trips to this vast land after the fall of communism. Frazier is a writer and columnist for the New Yorker who is known for his keen wit, as well as his serious non-fiction works like On the Rez and Great Plains.

Podcast - Lee Sandlin

Stephen Usery interviews Lee Sandlin about his book Wicked River: The Mississippi When It Last Ran Wild. It's an interesting and sometimes funny look at the Big Muddy between the Louisiana purchase and the end of the Civil War, including close looks at crime on the river, the New Madrid earthquakes, and the Sultana riverboat disaster.

Podcast - Mark Greaney

Stephen Usery interviews Mark Greaney about his the second book in his Gray Man series, On Target. Burned CIA operative Court Gentry is recovering from his previous adventures and injuries and jumps back into the world of black ops by heading to Somalia and getting in the middle of the Darfur conflict, where more than a few players have an active interest.

Podcast - Karen Essex

Usery interviews best-selling author Karen Essex about her new book Dracula in Love. Straying away from her usual epic historical novels, Essex has reworked Bram Stoker's Dracula and told it from Mina Harker's point of view, and things are very different indeed.

Podcast - James L. Swanson

Stephen Usery interviews New York Times best-selling author James Swanson. Following his 2006 hit Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Kiler, Swanson has just published Bloody Crimes: The Chase for Jefferson Davis and the Death Pageant for Linclon's Corpse about the chaotic final days of the Confederacy and the unprecedented period of morning for the assassinated President of the United States of America. .

Podcast - Tom Franklin

Tune into Book Talk this Saturday evening as Stephen Usery interviews Tom Franklin about his new novel Crooked Letter Crooked Letter. It's the story of two men in southeast Mississippi whose lives intersected as children, when interracial friendships were frowned upon, and now as adults, when one is the local constable and the other comes under suspicion when a teenage girl disappears. Tom Franklin on this week's Book Talk, Saturday evening at 6:00 p.m. on FM89.3 WYPL.

Podcast - Lauren Kate

Tune into Book Talk this Saturday evening as Stephen Usery interviews Lauren Kate, the author of the best-selling young adult Fallen series. Torment is the second novel and our heroine Lucinda is just becoming accustomed to the concept of fallen angles and demons on Earth, when she changes schools and meets a different kind of supernatural being. Lauren Kate on this week's Book Talk, Saturday evening at 6:00 p.m. on FM89.3 WYPL Memphis.

Podcast - Laura Lippman

Stephen Usery interviews Laura Lippman about her new stand-alone crime novel, I'd Know You Anywhere. It's deeply-compelling psychological tale of Eliza Benedict, the only surviving victim of a serial rapist and killer and what happens when the killer contacts her just prior to his execution. Laura Lippman on this week's Book Talk, Saturday evening at 6:00 on FM 89.3 WYPL Memphis.

Podcast - Matt Dellinger

Stephen Usery interviews Matt Dellinger about his new book, Interstate 69: The Unfinished History of the Last Great American Highway. It's about more than concrete and asphalt; it's about the people and communities who have supported and opposed this highway that is supposed to run from the Mexican to the Canadian borders through Houston, Shreveport, Memphis, and Indianapolis.

Podcast - Heather Brewer

Tune into Book talk this week as Stephen Usery interviews Heather Brewer about her best-selling young adult series of novels, The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod. She's just published the fifth and final installment in the series, Twelfth Grade Kills about teenager Vlad Tod who is half-vampire, half-human and completely conflicted. Heather Brewer this week on Book Talk, Saturday evening at 6:00 p.m. on FM89.3 WYPL Memphis.

Podcast - Mona Simpson

Stephen Usery interviews Mona Simpson about her new novel, My Hollywood. It's the story of two women, one an Anglo-American, who along with her husband employ the other, a Filipino national, to be the nanny for their young son. Told from each woman's point of view, it investigates familial and professional obligations, as well as social class, racial perceptions, and national identity.

Podcast - Jeannette Walls

Tune into Book Talk this week as Stephen Usery interviews the author of the best-selling memoir The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls about her book Half Broke Horses: A True Life Novel, which is new in paperback. It's the story of her maternal grandmother as she moves around the American southwest in the first half of the twentieth century, eking out a living in frontier conditions while teaching school and running a ranch with her husband.

Podcast - Michael Knight

Stephen Usery interviews Michael Knight about his first novel in ten years, The Typist. Set amid the early days of the occupation of Japan after the end of World War II, Army typist Private Francis VanCleave tries to make sense of his new post, fellow soldiers, commanding officers, Japanese citizens, and his wife back in the States.

Podcast - Dr. Donald Ryan

Tune into Book Talk this week as Stephen Usery interviews Dr. Donald Ryan about his new memoir, Beneath the Sands of Egypt: Adventures of an Unconventional Archaeologist. He talks about his path to becoming an archaeologist in Egypt's Valley of the Kings and Polynesia, as well as his working relationship with the legendary explorer Thor Heyerdahl. Donald Ryan on this week's Book Talk, Saturday evening at 6:00 p.m. on FM89.3 WYPL Memphis.

Podcast - Eileen Sisk

Stephen Usery interviews Eileen Sisk about her look at one of the most successful country musicians of all time in Buck Owens:The Biography.

Podcast - Dianne Glave

Stephen talks to Dianne Glave about her new book Rooted in the Earth: Reclaiming the African-American Environmental Heritage.

Podcast - Kathleen Koch

Stephen Usery interviews former CNN correspondent Kathleen Koch about her new book Rising from Katrina: How My Mississippi Hometown Lost It All and Found What Mattered. As we approach the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Koch recounts Bay St. Louis, Mississippi's experience during the storm and the slow path to recovery and rebuilding over the intervening years.

Podcast - Susan Gregg Gilmore

Stephen Usery interviews Nashville native Susan Gregg-Gilmore about her second novel, The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove, which has just hit bookstore shelves.

Interview with Stephen Usery

Are you interested in how the sausage known as Book Talk is made? Paul V. Griffith interviewed Stephen for the Humanities Tennessee literary website Chapter 16. You can read the interview here.

Podcast - Denise Hildreth

Stephen Usery interviews Denise Hildreth, author of the popular Savannah series, about her new stand-alone novel, Hurricanes in Paradise, which follows four women at a Caribbean resort as a storm bears down on the island.

Podcast - George Klein

Stephen talks to legendary radio man George Klein about his memoir Elvis:My Best Man: Radio Days Rock'n'Roll Nights, and My Lifelong Friendship with Elvis Presley.

Podcast - Alex Heard

Stephen Usery interviews Alex Heard about his new book The Eyes of Willie McGee: A Tragedy of Race, Sex and Secrets in the Jim Crow South. It's a fascinating look at one of the most complex rape trials of the late forties and early fifties which captured the interest of people and governments around the world.

Podcast - Tess Gerritsen

Stephen Usery interviews Tess Gerritsen about Ice Cold, her eighth book featuring Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles. Dr. Isles goes missing while in Wyoming for a conference, and Rizzoli must control her temper when out of her jurisdiction while trying to help find her colleague and friend.

Podcast - Aram Goudsouzian

Stephen Usery interviews Aram Goudsouzian about his new book, King of the Court: Bill Russell and the Basketball Revolution. It's an in-depth look at the greatest champion in American team sports, two NCAA titles, an Olympic Gold Medal, and eleven NBA championships. Special attention is paid to Russell's involvement in raising the racial consciousness of America during the Civil Rights era and ever since.

Podcast - Adam Ross

Stephen Usery interviews Nashvillian Adam Ross about his debut novel Mr. Peanut. Stephen King calls Mr. Peanut "...the most riveting look at the dark side of marriage since Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" It's a complex look at love, hate, murder suicide, and resignation in three marriages that are tied together by the eternal struggle to actually communicate between married partners.

Podcast - Sebastian Junger

Tune into Book Talk this Saturday evening as Stephen Usery interviews Sebastian Junger about his new best-selling book, War, a look at a year in the life of a United States Army company stationed in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan, which has the highest casualty rate for any outpost in the country. Not intended as a political view of the war, it's a grunt's-eye-view of battle in some of the toughest terrain on Earth. Sebastian Junger on Book Talk this Saturday evening at 6:00 p.m. on FM89.3 WYPL Memphis.

Podcast - Sam McLeod

Stephen Usery interviews Sam McLeod about his hilarious new memoir, Big Appetite:My Southern Fried Search For the Meaning of Life. As adult Sam drives across county to attend a neighborhood reunion in Nashville, he reflects back on his family, neighbors, and not least of all, the delicious food of his childhood years in central Tennessee.

Podcast - Glenn Taylor

Stephen Usery interviews Glenn Taylor about his second critically-acclaimed novel, The Marrowbone Marble Factory. It's a intriguing look at post- World War II West Virginia, dealing with race, class, and the conflict of traditional mountain life with the coming space age.

Podcast - Nathaniel Philbrick

Stephen Usery interviews National Book Award-Winner Nathaniel Philbrick about his latest best-seller, The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn. In addition to a remarkably detailed recounting of the two-day battle, The Last Stand looks at Sitting Bull and George Armstrong Custer's careers leading up to their fight and the effect to their legacies in the 134 years since The Last Stand.

Podcast - Karl Marlantes

Stephen Usery interviews Karl Marlantes about his New York Times bestselling debut novel Matterhorn. A searing look at futility, racism, and the changing nature of American military missions, Matterhorn is one of the finest fiction debuts in recent memory.

Podcast - Hampton Sides

Stephen Usery interviews Memphis native Hampton Sides about his latest best-seller Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin. It follows James Earl Ray starting with his escape from a Missouri prison in 1967 until his capture a few months after the murder of Dr. King.

Podcast - Reif Larsen

Stephen Usery interviews Reif Larsen about his debut novel, The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet. Brand new in paperback, The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet is about a 12 year-old map maker whose incessant diagramming of the world around him leads him on an amazing journey from his home ranch in Montana to the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. There's a bonus of sixteen minutes of conversation on the podcast!

Podcast - Ace Atkins

Stephen Usery interviews Ace Atkins about his latest historical crime novel, Infamous. Infamous is the darkly humorous story of Memphis-native George "Machine Gun" Kelly, his wife Kathryn, and the kidnapping of an Oklahoma City oil baron that draws the unwanted attention of J. Edgar Hoover and his Bureau of Investigation.

Podcast - Norris Church Mailer

Stephen Usery interviews novelist Norris Church Mailer about her memoir A Ticket to the Circus, which follows her childhood in small-town Arkansas, life as a high school art teacher, and her more than thirty-year relationship with her husband, the late Norman Mailer.

Podcast - Keith Thomson

Stephen Usery interviews Huffington Post blogger and international security expert Keith Thomson about his espionage thriller Once a Spy.

Podcast - Rheta Grimsley Johnson

Stephen Usery interviews nationally-syndicated columnist and author Rheta Grimsley Johnson about her new memoir Enchanted Evening Barbie and the Second Coming. Also, she will be appearing at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library on Mother's Day, May 9th, 2010 at 2:00 p.m. For more information call LINC at 415-2700.

Podcast - Brad Watson

Stephen Usery interviews Brad Watson about his new short story collection Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives. Mississippi-native Watson has won the Sue Kaufmann Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award. Download the podcast today.

Podcast - Linda Fairstein

Stephen Usery interviews Linda Fairstein about her latest Alexandra Cooper novel Hell Gate. Manhattan prosecutor Cooper and her homicide detective partner Mike Chapman investigate the deaths surrounding a human trafficking shipment of Ukrainians and a political scandal that has turned deadly which echoes a crime committed in America's earliest days.

Podcast - Molly Caldwell Crosby

Stephen Usery interviews Molly Caldwell Crosby about her book Asleep: The Forgotten Epidemic That Remains One of Medicine's Greatest Mysteries.

Podcast - Roy Morris, Jr.

Stephen Usery interviews the editor of Military Heritage magazine, Roy Morris, Jr. about his last look at nineteenth century America with Lighting Out for the Territory: How Samuel Clemens Headed West and Became Mark Twain.

Podcast - Richard Bausch

Stephen Usery interviews PEN/Malamud-winner Richard Bausch about his latest collection of short stories, Something Is Out There.

Podcast - Elizabeth Kostova

Stephen Usery interviews best-selling author Elizabeth Kostova about her new novel, The Swan Thieves. It follows psychiatrist Andrew Marlow as he tries to discover why painter Robert Oliver tried to attack a painting in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.

Podcast - Amy Greene

Stephen Usery interviews Amy Greene about her New York Times best-selling debut novel Bloodroot, which follows four generations of women in the Smoky Mountains of east Tennessee.

Podcast - Jeffrey Jackson

Stephen Usery interviews Rhodes College professor Jeffrey Jackson about his latest look into French history with Paris Underwater: How the City of Light Survived the Great Flood of 1910. It's an intriguing look on how many with very real political and economic differences came together and endured one of the River Seine's worst floods ever.

Podcast - Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

Stephen Usery interviews Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl about their supernatural young adult novel Beautiful Creatures, which Amazon named the fifth best book of 2009.

Podcast - Kimberla Lawson Roby

Stephen speaks to best selling author Kimberla Lawson Roby about the second book to follow Alicia Black, the daughter of Reverend Curtis Black, in Be Careful What You Pray For.

Podcast - Rebecca Skloot

Stephen Usery interviews Rebecca Skloot about her book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. It's a fascinating look into HeLa cells which were the most important advance in medical research for the twentieth century, but more than that we meet Henrietta Lacks the woman who provided the cells and the grief her loss caused her family, and it looks at the socio-economic impact the HeLa cells have had on our country and world. This is an intriguing 72 minute audio interview with Rebecca; please download it today. Just click on the white box with the blue musical note and it will take you to the download page.

Podcast - Rebecca Skloot

We're making our interview with Rebecca Skloot available early due to the huge advance interest in her book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. This is an intriguing 72 minute audio interview with Rebecca; please dowload it today. Just click on the white box with the blue musical note and it will take you to the download page.

Podcast - Dacre Stoker

With vampires ubiquitous in the popular culture, Dracula has returned to claim his throne. Stephen Usery interviews Dacre Stoker, the great-grand nephew of Dracula creator Bram Stoker, about the first family-approved sequel to the original, with Dracula the Un-Dead. Set a couple of decades after dipatching the Count, the intervening years haven't been kind to our band of heroes as a new threat invades London. Download the podcast today!

Podcast - Alanna Nash

2010 marks the 75th anniversary of Elvis Presley's birth, so Stephen Usery interviews Alanna Nash about her new look at the king of rock'n'roll, Baby Let's Play House: Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him. More than just a look at Elvis's love life, it investigates all his relationships with women, romantic, familial, platonic, artistic and business. Over one hour of talking about The King, download it today!