Book Talk

Broadcast - February 4, 2012 - Adam Johnson "The Orphan Master's Son"

2012-01-31T07:29:00.000-08:00

Tune into Book Talk this week as Stephen Usery interviews Adam Johnson about his critically-acclaimed second novel, The Orphan Master's Son. It's the story of Pak Jun Do, a young man thought to be an orphan, and the incredible path his life takes inside the repressive and mysterious political system of North Korea. It's a harrowing tale that also allows room for love and humanity to bloom in the cracks of this totalitarian regime. Adam Johnson on this week's Book Talk, Saturday evening at 6:00 p.m. on FM89.3 WYPL Memphis.

Podcast - John M. Barry "Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul"

2012-01-28T16:30:00.001-08:00

Stephen Usery interviews John M. Barry, the New York Times best-selling author of Rising Tide and The Great Influenza. Barry's new book is Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul: Church, State, and the Birth of Liberty, which traces America's approach to freedom of religion back to Williams's reaction to supression of Puritans by the English crown and his banishment by early Massachusetts colonists.

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Podcast - Margi Preus "Heart of a Samurai"

2012-01-24T06:40:00.001-08:00

Stephen Usery interviews Margi Preus about her debut novel, Heart of A Samurai. This Newberry Honor winner is now in paperback and is based on the true story of John Manjiro, a 14 year-old Japanese boy who survived a shipwreck in 1841 and led to adventures leading him farther away from home than he could have ever imagined.

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Podcast - Tom Piazza "Devil Sent the Rain"

2012-01-15T13:56:00.001-08:00

Stephen Usery conducted a special interview with Tom Piazza about his collection of essays, Devil Sent the Rain:Music and Writing in Desperate America, at the Chapter16.org tent, during The Southern Festival of Books. For fans of NPR-style natural sound, there's plenty of wind and sirens to liven up the already fun proceedings.

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Podcast - Rick Gavin "Ranchero"

2012-01-09T05:46:00.001-08:00

Stephen Usery interviews Rick Gavin about Ranchero, the first book in his hilarious crime fiction series about Mississippi Delta repo man Nick Reid.

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Podcast - Stuart Dill "Murder on Music Row"

2011-12-17T16:29:00.001-08:00

Tune into Book Talk this week as Stephen Usery interviews Stuart Dill about his debut thriller, Murder on Music Row. Drawing on over two decades of artist management, Dill has created a tense, behind-the-scenes look at the country music industry as someone is trying to kill the biggest star in Nashville, Ripley Graham. 23-year-old intern Judd Nix has gotten in over his head and is as concerned about his own survival as solving the mystery.

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Podcast - Hillary Jordan "When She Woke"

2011-12-13T13:00:00.001-08:00

Hillary Jordan comes back to the program to talk about her new novel When She Woke. In a near, dystopian future, Hannah Payne awakes and finds her skin colored red for a committing a crime, which today would be perfectly legal. It's a bit of a riff on The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne that also investigates how our information technology could conspire to deprive us of our basic freedoms.

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Podcast - William B. Jones, Jr. "Classics Illustrated: A Cultural History"

2011-12-03T16:28:00.001-08:00

Stephen Usery interviews William B. Jones, Jr. about his new book, Classics Illustrated: A Cultural History. More than just a beautiful coffee table book, Jones traces the history of Classics Illustrated from their pre-World War II beginnings through through peak of popularity in the 1950s, until their end in the 1960s, and subsequent attempts to revive bringing the great books to young and older readers alike in comic book form.
He'll also be signing his book on Saturday, Dec 10 at The Booksellers at Laurelwood (formerly Davis-Kidd) at 1:00 p.m.

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Podcast - John Jeremiah Sullivan "Pulphead"

2011-11-26T16:39:00.001-08:00

Stephen Usery interviews John Jeremiah Sullivan about his collection of essays entitled Pulphead. Sullivan has won two National Magazine Awards and has written for publications like The Oxford American, GQ, and The Paris Review. Time Magazine recently called him the new Tom Wolfe and his book was Just named to the 100 notable books of the year list by the New York Times.

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Podcast - Donna Johnson "Holy Ghost Girl"

2011-11-20T12:33:00.001-08:00

Stephen Usery interviews Donna Johnson about her memoir, Holy Ghost Girl. It recounts her childhood as the daughter of the organ player and mistress of the successful tent revival preacher and end-time prophet Brother David Terrell. It's a fascinating look at the people behind the pulpit and how adulation and power corrupt even the most devout.

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Podcast - Justin Torres "We The Animals"

2011-11-13T14:33:00.001-08:00

Stephen Usery interviews Justin Torres about his critically-acclaimed debut novel, We The Animals. It's the story of a very young family with three boys in Upstate New York stuggling with identity on all fronts in addition to economic hardship. Concentrated, unflinching, and impressionistic, We The Animals is one of the most talked about debuts of the year.

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Podcast - Marisa de los Santos "Falling Together"

2011-11-06T06:57:00.001-08:00

Stephen Usery interview Marisa de los Santos about her third novel, Falling Together. It's the story of three friends who were inseperable in college, but several years after graduation the friendship disintegrates, and as their ten-year reunion approaches, they must come to grips with this and other losses.

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Podcast - Robert Morgan "Lions of the West"

2011-10-29T16:34:00.001-07:00

Stephen Usery interviews acclaimed novelist and poet Robert Morgan. Best known for his novel Gap Creek, Morgan has been branching out into biography recently, and his new book Lions of the West takes a look at ten men who played huge roles in America's expansion from the original thirteen colonies all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

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Podcast - Diana Abu Jaber "Birds of Paradise"

2011-10-24T06:15:00.001-07:00

Stephen Usery interviews Diana Abu Jaber about her new novel, Birds of Paradise. Set in southern Florida in 2005, a family struggles with after effects of a runaway daughter who stays in just enough touch to keep the wounds open as her mother, father, and brother all try to move forward in their lives.

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Podcast - Kami Garcia "Beautiful Chaos"

2011-10-17T19:29:00.001-07:00

Stephen Usery interviews Kami Garcia, co-author of the Caster Chronicles series about the third installment, Beautiful Chaos. Human high-schooler Ethan Wate and his magical girlfriend Lena Duchannes fight against the ancient evil in her family that threatens to not only ruin the school year, but could also bring about the end of the world.

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Podcast - Mark Greaney "Ballistic"

2011-10-09T13:19:00.001-07:00

In Ballistic,the third installment of Mark Greaney's The Gray Man series, Court Gentry finds his way to Mexico and gets mixed up with narcotraficantes. We also talk about a possible film version of The Gray Man and his recent collaboration with Tom Clancy.

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Podcast - R.J. Ellory "A Simple Act of Violence"

2011-10-09T13:03:00.001-07:00

Stephen Usery interviews R.J. Ellory about his Theakston prize-winning novel, A Simple Act of Violence. Washington D.C. homicide detective Robert Miller is hunting a serial killer whose secrets could shake the foundation of the nation. They also talk about RJ's blues rock band, The Whiskey Poets.

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Podcast - Eoin Colfer "Plugged"

2011-10-09T12:53:00.001-07:00

Eoin Colfer, the man behind the Artemis Fowl juggernaut, has decided to get into the adult crime fiction game, as well. In Plugged, Daniel McEvoy is an Irish ex-millitary expat living in New Jersey. Working as a bouncer at the crummiest casino in town, he gives the bum's rush to a lawyer who doesn't respect the law. Hijinks, hilarity, and bloodshed ensue.

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Podcast - Lisa Patton - "Yankee Doodle Dixie"

2011-10-01T16:29:00.001-07:00

Stephen Usery interviews former Memphian Lisa Patton about her second novel Yankee Doodle Dixie. A sequel to Whistlin' Dixie in a Nor'Easter, Yankee Doodle Dixie finds Leelee Satterfield back in Memphis and having trouble readjusting to home after having run an inn in Vermont for over a year. A new job in radio makes things more interesting than Leelee could have ever imagined.

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Podcast - Robert Olen Butler "A Small Hotel"

2011-09-28T10:23:00.001-07:00

Stephen Usery interviews Pulitzer-Prize winner Robert Olen Butler about his new novel, A Small Hotel. It's the story of the end of a marriage between Michael and Kelly Hays, but travels back in time to their first meeting, their childhoods, and other points along their histories that let us know how their marriage came to be so troubled.

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Podcast - Jesmyn Ward "Salvage the Bones"

2011-09-18T16:31:00.001-07:00

Stephen Usery interviews Jesmyn Ward about her second novel, Salvage the Bones. It's August of 2005, and as the hurricane season begins heating up, a Mississippi Gulf Coast teenage girl named Esch tries to get by from day to day, as her brother raises pit bulls for fighting, her father obsesses about the coming storms, and the world at large seems to have little to no sympathy for the rural poor.

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Podcast - Clyde Edgerton "The Night Train"

2011-09-10T16:29:00.001-07:00

Stephen Usery interviews Clyde Edgerton about his new novel, The Night Train. It's 1963 in a small North Carolina town where two teenagers, one black, one white, strike up a small friendship over music. One wants to become a jazz pianist in order to leave the segregrated south, and the other wants to lead his white bandmates in learning James Brown's Live at the Apollo note for note.

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Podcast - Preston Lauterbach "The Chitlin' Circuit and the Road to Rock 'n' Roll"

2011-09-03T16:23:00.001-07:00

Stephen Usery interviews Memphian Preston Lauterbach about his first book, The Chitlin' Circuit and the Road to Rock 'n' Roll. The Chitlin' Circuit doesn't just look at the evolution of African-American musical styles in the mid-twentieth century, but it also looks at the money men behind the business of show and all the hurdles they had to overcome to ensure some good rockin' tonight.

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Podcast - Kevin Wilson "The Family Fang"

2011-08-17T07:24:00.001-07:00

Stephen Usery interviews Kevin Wilson about his debut novel, The Family Fang. It's the story of Annie and Buster Fang, the children of noted performance artists who were used extensively in their parents' works and the effect it had on the family dynamic, as well as the career choices they made when they grew up. Both hilarious and heartbreaking, The Family Fang is already one of the most talked about debut novels of the year.

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Podcast - Jenny Wingfield "The Homecoming of Samuel Lake"

2011-08-15T05:39:00.001-07:00

Stephen Usery interviews Jenny Wingfield about her debut novel, The Homecoming of Samuel Lake. Set in South Arkansas in the mid-1950s, Samuel Lake is a Methodist minister without a church who moves his wife and kids into his in-laws' home, which features a general store up front and an illegal bar out back, and his daughter becomes friends with a neighbor which puts the entire family at risk.

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Podcast - Megan Abbott "The End of Everything"

2011-08-06T16:29:00.001-07:00

Stephen Usery welcomes back Edgar Award winner Megan Abbott to talk about her new novel The End of Everything. Known as the the Crown Princess of Noir, Abbott has shifted her view to a more contemporary setting as a teenage girl goes missing and we see the effect it has on her family, best friend, school, and community.

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Podcast - Adam Ross "Ladies and Gentlemen"

2011-07-30T16:29:00.001-07:00

Stephen Usery interviews Adam Ross about his short story collection Ladies and Gentlemen. Coming on the heels of his critically-acclaimed first novel, Mr. Peanut, Ross continues his investigations into the choices we make every day, especially the ones which lead us to hurting others and ultimately, ourselves.

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Podcast - Sandra Beasley "Don't Kill the Birthday Girl"

2011-07-23T16:29:00.001-07:00

Stephen Usery interviews award-winning poet Sandra Beasley about her memoir, Don't Kill the Birthday Girl. Beasley has suffered from multiple extreme food allergies all of her life, and she looks back at the effect it has had on her and her family, as well as investigating the science behind food allergies and their treatment.

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Podcast - Oscar Hijuelos "Thoughts Without Cigarettes"

2011-07-16T16:26:00.001-07:00

Stephen Usery interviews Pulitzer Prize winner Oscar Hijuelos about his new memoir, Thoughts Without Cigarettes. It follows his parents' leaving Cuba and moving to New York, his fight with kidney disease and a long hospital stay as a child that alienated him from his mother tongue Spanish, and up until he won the Pulitzer in 1990 for his novel, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love.

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Podcast - Bill Loehfelm "The Devil She Knows"

2011-07-09T16:27:00.001-07:00

Stephen Usery interviews Bill Loehfelm about his third crime novel, The Devil She Knows. Maureen Coughlin is tough Staten Island waitress coming up on 30 who wants to get her life on track, but when she sees something that she shouldn't have, surviving the next few days means much more than choosing a new career path.

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Podcast - David Schmahmann

2011-06-25T16:59:00.001-07:00

Stephen Usery interviews David Schmahmann about his two recent novels, The Double Life of Alfred Buber and Ivory From Paradise.

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Podcast - Karen White "The Beach Trees"

2011-06-25T16:29:00.001-07:00

Stephen Usery interviews Karen White about her latest best-selling novel, The Beach Trees, where a woman in New York becomes guardian of her recently-deceased friend's son and goes to New Orleans and the Mississippi coast in order to untie her friend's secrets.

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Podcast - Ace Atkins "The Ranger"

2011-06-17T10:09:00.001-07:00

Stephen Usery welcomes back Alabama native and current Mississipian Ace Atkins to discuss his new series about Army Ranger Quinn Colson. The Ranger is the first book, and in it, Sergeant Colson comes back to Jericho in Northern Mississippi for his uncle's funeral, and it seems there are more than a few questions lingering about this county sheriff's death. Also, Ace will be signing books at The Booksellers at Laurelwood (the former Davis Kidd) Tuesday, June 21, 2011 at 6:00 p.m.

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Podcast - Kyran Pittman "Planting Dandelions"

2011-06-04T16:29:00.001-07:00

Stephen Usery interviews Kyran Pittman about her memoir Planting Dandelions: Field Notes from a Semi-Domesticated Life. It's the story of a young woman from the Canadian Province of Newfoundland whose marriage blows apart as she runs off with a man from Arkansas and finds herself soon raising a family of three boys in Little Rock as she begins her writing career.

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Podcast - Jim Shepard "You Think That's Bad"

2011-05-28T16:29:00.001-07:00

Stephen Usery interviews National Book Award Finalist Jim Shepard about his newest collection of short stories, You Think That's Bad. Not one to limit himself historically or geographically, Shepard's stories range from Joan of Arc's compatriot Gilles de Rais, to the man responsible for the first Godzilla suit, and black ops scientists who work at Area 51.

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Podcast - Rita Mae Brown "Hiss of Death"

2011-05-21T16:29:00.001-07:00

Stephen Usery interviews Rita Mae Brown about her newest Mrs. Murphy mystery, Hiss of Death. Strange things are afoot at the new medical center in Crozet, Virginia and our feline detective Mrs. Murphy, corgi Tucker, and the somewhat rotund cat Pewter, all try to help their human Harry track down who is behind a string of suspicious deaths.

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Podcast - Daniel J. Sharfstein "The Invisible Line"

2011-05-14T16:34:00.001-07:00

Stephen Usery interviews Vanderbilt Law School professor Daniel J. Sharfstein about his book The Invisible Line: Three American Families and The Secret Journey From Black to White. It's a fascinating look at the evolution of America's legal views of people who have both Caucasian and sub-Saharan African ancestors and the implications it had on them when dealing with slavery, reconstruction and Jim Crow.

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Podcast - River Jordan "Praying for Strangers"

2011-05-07T16:29:00.001-07:00

Stephen Usery interviews novelist and playwright River Jordan about her memoir, Praying for Strangers. It's a look at the year when Jordan undertook a New Year's resolution to pray for a different stranger each and every day and the impact that it it made on her normally introverted tendencies.

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Broadcast - May 7, 2011 - River Jordan

2011-05-02T07:44:00.000-07:00

Tune into Book Talk this week as Stephen Usery interviews novelist and playwright River Jordan about her memoir, Praying for Strangers. It's a look at the year when Jordan undertook a New Year's resolution to pray for a different stranger each and every day and the impact that it it made on her normally introverted tendencies. River Jordan on this week's Book Talk, Saturday evening at 6:00 p.m. on FM89.3 WYPL Memphis.

Podcast - Mark Childress "Georgia Bottoms"

2011-04-29T16:29:00.001-07:00

Stephen Usery interviews Mark Childress about his new novel Georgia Bottoms. Georgia Bottoms is a special woman who provides a special service to the important men of Six Points, Alabama, all while trying to maintain her family's stately home with her mother's slide in to dementia, complicated by old-school racism, and her brother's small-time criminal inclinations making things more and more difficult.

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Podcast - Keith Thomson "Twice a Spy"

2011-04-16T16:29:00.001-07:00

Stephen welcomes Keith Thomson back to the program to talk about his new comedic international thriller Twice a Spy. Picking right up after Once a Spy, Charlie Clark and his former-spy and Alzheimer-patient father Drummond are searching for a nuclear weapon to save both one life in particular and many others in general.

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Podcast - Les Standiford and Joe Matthews "Bringing Adam Home"

2011-04-09T16:29:00.001-07:00

Tune into Book Talk this week as Stephen Usery interviews Les Standiford and Joe Matthews about their book Bringing Adam Home: The Abduction that Changed America. It's the story of the kidnapping and murder of six year-old Adam Walsh in Hollywood, Florida in 1981, the bungled investigation and the movement to bring the plight of missing children to national attention. Les Standiford and Joe Matthews on this week's Book Talk, Saturday evening at 6:00 p.m. on FM89.3 WYPL Memphis.

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Podcast - Kim Severson "Spoon Fed"

2011-04-02T16:29:00.001-07:00

Stephen Usery interviews New York Times Atlanta bureau chief, Kim Severson. Her memoir Spoon Fed:How Eight Cooks Saved My Life is new in paperback, and it looks back at her career as a food and dining writer in Alaska, San Francisco, and New York, as well as her family's food traditions rooted in her mother's Italian heritage.

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Podcast - Andre Dubus III "Townie"

2011-03-26T16:38:00.001-07:00

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Stephen Usery interviews Andre Dubus III, author of The House of Sand and Fog. They discuss Dubus's new NY Times best-selling memoir, Townie, about growing up in the rough, crumbling mill towns of northern Massachusetts and how he embraced violence to give him a sense of control in his adolescence, but at a major cost to his spiritual well-being.

Book Talk Podcast - Yann Martel "Beatrice and Virgil"

2011-03-19T16:29:00.001-07:00

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Stephen Usery interviews Canadian author Yann Martel about his allegorical novel, Beatrice and Virgil, which is now available in paperback. They'll also talk about the themes that pervade his fiction, including the international best-seller and Man Booker Prize-winning novel Life of Pi.

Podcast - Sophie Littlefield "Aftertime"

2011-03-12T16:28:00.001-08:00

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Stephen Usery interviews Sophie Littlefield about the first book in her dystopia trilogy. In the novel Aftertime, Cassandra Dollar must navigate northern California after bio-terrorism has decimated the ecology and turned most humans into ravenous, zomblie-like predators called "beaters." She's searching for her young daughter and must also deal with the threat humans continue to be to themselves.

Podcast - Mark Richard "House of Prayer No. 2"

2011-03-05T16:27:00.001-08:00

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Stephen Usery interviews PEN/Hemingway winner Mark Richard about his new memoir House of Prayer No. 2: A Writer's Journey Home. It's an unusual book, in that it's told in the second person, so Stephen asked that Mark answer his questions in the second person, too.

Podcast - Michael Oher "I Beat the Odds"

2011-02-27T05:49:00.001-08:00

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Stephen Usery interviews professional football player and Memphis native Michael Oher about his memoir, I Beat the Odds: From Homelessness to the Blindside and Beyond.

Podcast - Isabel Wilkerson "The Warmth of Other Suns"

2011-02-27T05:31:00.001-08:00

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Stephen Usery interviews Isabel Wilkerson about her critically-acclaimed and commercially- successful first book, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Wilkerson contends that the movement of African-Americans from the South to other parts of the United States from World War I to the early 1970s is the most under-reported stories in our country's history. She follows the lives of three people examining the different social and economic reasons for leaving the South and Jim Crow behind.

Podcast - Kevin Brockmeier "The Illumination"

2011-02-20T08:17:00.001-08:00

Stephen Usery interviews Kevin Brockmeier about his new novel, The Illumination.

It's the story of six people and how they respond to a strange, new development around the world when human pain begins to manifest itself as visible light. It investigates the philosophical, religious, artistic, and emotional ramifications of not being to hide one's pain or ignore another's.

Podcast - Philip Stephens

2011-02-12T16:38:00.000-08:00

Stephen Usery interviews Philip Stephens about his debut novel Miss Me When I'm Gone. It's the story of a folk singer who returns home to Apogee, Missouri in the Ozarks Mountains when his mother falls ill. The town has changed much over the years, in no small part because his brother's real estate development business, and everyone is on edge when an ex-con drifts into town.

As a bonus, here's a video of Philip performing one of the songs he wrote to get inside his character's head.

Philip Stephens - "Waiting on the Years" from stephen usery on Vimeo.

Podcast - Mary Jane Clark "To Have and to Kill"

2011-02-07T10:36:00.000-08:00

Stephen Usery interviews best-selling author Mary Jane Clark about the first book in her new mystery series, To Have and to Kill, which introduces us to Piper Donovan, a down on her luck actress who moves back in with her parents and gets more than she bargained for when she agrees to make a wedding cake for her soap opera star friend.

Podcast - Wendell Potter

2011-01-30T08:39:00.000-08:00

Stephen Usery interviews former health insurance executive Wendell Potter about his book, Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR Is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans. Potter is a former Memphis Press Scimitar reporter who worked his way up the corporate health care ladder until their practices finally burdened his conscience enough for him to quit and blow the whistle.

Podcast - Soledad O'Brien

2011-01-24T07:44:00.000-08:00

Stephen Usery interviews CNN news anchor and special correspondent Soledad O'Brien about her new memoir The Next Big Story: My Journey Through the Land of Possibilities. It follows O'Brien from her growing up in her interracial, immigrant family, attending Harvard, and working her way up the ladder in the competitive field of television news.

Podcast - Marshall Chapman

2011-01-15T17:54:00.000-08:00

Stephen Usery interviews Marshall Chapman about her new book, They Came to Nashville. In addition to her own story, Chapman talks to several country music performers and songwriters, including Willie Nelson and Emmylou Harris, about why they moved to Nashville and their earliest experiences when getting to town.

Broadcast - January 15, 2011 - Marshall Chapman

2011-01-11T09:36:00.000-08:00

Tune into Book Talk this week as Stephen Usery interviews Marshall Chapman about her new book, They Came to Nashville. In addition to her own story, Chapman talks to several country music performers and songwriters, including Willie Nelson and Emmylou Harris, about why they moved to Nashville and their earliest experiences when getting to town. Marshall Chapman, this week on Book Talk, Saturday evening at 6:00 p.m. on FM89.3 WYPL Memphis.

Podcast - Sonja Livingston

2011-01-08T16:29:00.000-08:00

Stephen Usery interviews University of Memphis instructor Sonja Livingston, about her memoir, Ghostbread. Now in paperback, this winner of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Award for Creative Non-Fiction is an impressionistic take on Livingston's childhood in the Rust Belt area of western New York.

Podcast - Nancy Pearl

2010-12-20T08:40:00.000-08:00

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

2010-12-13T07:41:00.000-08:00

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

2010-12-06T07:31:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-27T16:11:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-25T05:34:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-15T08:10:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-06T16:44:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-30T16:40:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-23T16:55:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-16T17:31:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-12T05:56:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-02T17:55:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-25T16:29:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-20T05:58:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-11T16:26:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-05T14:08:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-05T14:07:00.000-07:00

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

Podcast - Kathleen Koch

2010-08-28T16:55:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-23T11:58:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-16T10:04:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-14T18:58:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-14T18:52:00.005-07:00

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

2010-08-07T16:18:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-31T16:30:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-24T11:28:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-18T04:28:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-10T18:38:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-06T05:58:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-26T16:53:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-20T13:35:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-14T18:29:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-05T17:05:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-31T05:13:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-21T05:40:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-16T04:43:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-08T16:29:00.000-07:00

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

Podcast - Rheta Grimsley Johnson

2010-05-01T18:29:00.000-07:00

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

2010-04-26T05:57:00.000-07:00

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

2010-04-18T06:41:00.000-07:00

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

2010-03-27T15:02:00.000-07:00

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.

2010-03-15T11:27:00.000-07:00

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

2010-03-15T11:04:00.000-07:00

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

Podcast - Elizabeth Kostova

2010-03-06T16:31:00.000-08:00

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.