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.