Podcast - Maureen Johnson

Stephen Usery interviews Maureen Johnson about her new novel The Madness Underneath, the second book in the Shades of London series. Louisiana high-school student Rory Deveau is recovering from a run in with a killer who imitated the crimes of Jack the Ripper, and now she has to make some tough decisions while being pulled in different directions by family, friends, and government while attending boarding school in London. Download here.


 

Stephen Usery interviews Jenny Milchman about her debut novel, Cover of Snow.  It's the suspenseful story of Nora Hamilton, a home restoration contractor, who wakes up to find her world turned upside down. Her small town becomes difficult to navigate as the Adirondack Mountains snow piles up, and she doesn't know if she can trust anyone to tell her the truth. Download here.

Podcast - Cory Doctorow - Homeland

credit Jonathan Worth

 Stephen Usery interviews author Cory Doctorow about the sequel to his best-selling novel, Little Brother. The new book, Homeland, also a New York Times bestseller, picks up with Marcus Yallow, a teenage hacker who took on the Department of Homeland Security over their illegal tactics, as he tries to get his life straight and work for a congressional candidate. But government operatives want revenge and some members of the hacking community think he isn't doing enough.

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Podcast - Ben Schrank - Love is a Canoe

Stephen Usery speaks with Ben Schrank about his third novel Love Is a Canoe. It's a story that spans the breadth of the book business from publishers, marketers and readers, and their love for books and the people in their lives.

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Podcast - 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.

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Podcast - Ruta Sepetys

 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. Download here.

Podcast - 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.

Podcast - 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.

Podcast - 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.

Podcast - 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.

Podcast - 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.    

Podcast - 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.

Podcast - Peggy Webb

 Stephen Usery interviews Peggy Webb about the latest installment of her Southern Cousins Mystery series, Elvis and the Blue Christmas Corpse. Set in Mooreville, MS just outside of Tupelo, beauty shop owner Callie Valentine and he basset hound named Elvis are trying to not get all shook up while looking for the killer of several residents of the local shopping mall's Santa's village.

Podcast - Julianna Baggott "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.

Podcast - 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.

Podcast - 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.

Podcast - 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. 

Podcast - 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.

Podcast - 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. 

Broadcast - September 22, 2012 - Kevin Powers "The Yellow Birds"

Tune into Book Talk this week as Stephen Usery interviews Kevin Powers about his bestselling debut novel, The Yellow Birds. It's the story of young soldiers serving in Iraq in 2004 and 2005. Something terrible has happened, and we see the psychological effects afterwards and the circumstances leading up to the event. Both poetic and unflinching, The Yellow Birds is one of the best reviewed debuts of the year. Kevin Powers on this week's Book Talk, Saturday evening at 6:00 p.m. and Sunday afternoon at 1:30 p.m. on FM89.3 WYPL Memphis.

Podcast - 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.

Podcast - 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.

Podcast - 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.

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Podcast - 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.

Podcast - Natalie Bakopoulos - 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.