A Novel Idea

A Novel Idea, with Suzanne M. Lang, takes a look at California’s borders: the immigrants traveling over our Southern border rolling in on bicycles, and the furry, four footed immigrants, tagged and collared, reclaiming their territory on our Northern Border.

Kimball Taylor is a journalist whose curiosity reveals a story that sometimes reads like a bizarre work of fiction. The Coyote’s Bicycle, The Untold Story of Seven Thousand Bicycles and the Rise of a Borderline Empire follows trails leading from San Diego, Tijuana, and across the country’s military complexes. Taylor unearths incredible stories of human migration across our Southern Border and the bicycles that travel even further.

Emma Bland Smith has created a beautiful picture book, Journey: Based on the True Story of OR7, the Most Famous Wolf in the West, that portrays the story of OR-7, who came to be known as Journey, the first gray wolf to return to California in nearly 100 years.

A Novel Idea, with Suzanne M. Lang, takes a look at California’s borders: the immigrants traveling over our Southern border rolling in on bicycles, and the furry, four footed immigrants, tagged and collared, reclaiming their territory on our Northern Border.

Kimball Taylor is a journalist whose curiosity reveals a story that sometimes reads like a bizarre work of fiction. The Coyote’s Bicycle, The Untold Story of Seven Thousand Bicycles and the Rise of a Borderline Empire follows trails leading from San Diego, Tijuana, and across the country’s military complexes. Taylor unearths incredible stories of human migration across our Southern Border and the bicycles that travel even further.

Emma Bland Smith has created a beautiful picture book, Journey: Based on the True Story of OR7, the Most Famous Wolf in the West, that portrays the story of OR-7, who came to be known as Journey, the first gray wolf to return to California in nearly 100 years.

This edition A Novel Idea with Suzanne Lang features two authors who go deep into our cultural histories and help us understand where we’ve come from and where we are through some darn good story telling.

Elaine Khosrova has written a book about Butter, and not just on how to make a good hollandaise sauce. Butter is one of our oldest foods and she describes for us the wonder to the palette of yak butter made in the old ways, along with the role butter has played spiritually, medicinally, and as an important food, for thousands of years.

Barbara Doud Wright, whose deep family history inspired An Awakening Heart a fictional retelling of the Moravian Brethren who settled this continent at a most formative time in our nation’s history, has just published An Irish Tale, inspired by her Irish roots on the other side of the family. It’s a lyrical imagining of the young life of St Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, and the Pagan woman who loved and healed him.

This edition A Novel Idea with Suzanne Lang features two authors who go deep into our cultural histories and help us understand where we’ve come from and where we are through some darn good story telling.

Elaine Khosrova has written a book about Butter, and not just on how to make a good hollandaise sauce. Butter is one of our oldest foods and she describes for us the wonder to the palette of yak butter made in the old ways, along with the role butter has played spiritually, medicinally, and as an important food, for thousands of years.

Barbara Doud Wright, whose deep family history inspired An Awakening Heart a fictional retelling of the Moravian Brethren who settled this continent at a most formative time in our nation’s history, has just published An Irish Tale, inspired by her Irish roots on the other side of the family. It’s a lyrical imagining of the young life of St Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, and the Pagan woman who loved and healed him.

This encore presentation features Rosemary Manchester in conversation with Jonah Raskin on his book James McGrath: The Life and Times of an Extraordinary American Teacher, Mentor, Cultural Ambassador, and Pedagogical Pilgrim: in a Class by Himself.

Manchester also talks with Alison Owings on her oral-history Indian Voices: Listening to Native Americans.

Plus, Barbara Quick reviews Italian author Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend.

This encore presentation features Rosemary Manchester in conversation with Jonah Raskin on his book James McGrath: The Life and Times of an Extraordinary American Teacher, Mentor, Cultural Ambassador, and Pedagogical Pilgrim: in a Class by Himself.

Manchester also talks with Alison Owings on her oral-history Indian Voices: Listening to Native Americans.

Plus, Barbara Quick reviews Italian author Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend.

Elite North Koreans struggle to protect themselves and their families in the face of a paraonoid, tyrannical regime in award winning journalist, Paul H.B. Shin’s espionage thriller, Half Life. Suzanne M. Lang talks with Shin about the novel, set in 1997, during the period when famine was devastating North Korea and there were a series of high profile defections.

Suzanne talks with Wendy E. Simmons, whose travel memoir, My Holiday in North Korea: the Funniest/Worst Place on Earth chronicles her recent visit to this strange country: a trip that blew her mind in ways she did not anticipate.

Elite North Koreans struggle to protect themselves and their families in the face of a paraonoid, tyrannical regime in award winning journalist, Paul H.B. Shin’s espionage thriller, Half Life. Suzanne M. Lang talks with Shin about the novel, set in 1997, during the period when famine was devastating North Korea and there were a series of high profile defections.

Suzanne talks with Wendy E. Simmons, whose travel memoir, My Holiday in North Korea: the Funniest/Worst Place on Earth chronicles her recent visit to this strange country: a trip that blew her mind in ways she did not anticipate.

A Novel Idea with Suzanne M. Lang features Jessica Teich with her memoir The Future Tense of Joy. A Rhodes Scholar, Teich happens upon an obituary of a fellow Rhodes Scholar who took her own life by jumping out a hotel window, which leads Jessica on a transformative journey. Also featured is Cathy Wild, whose book Wild Ideas: Creativity from the Inside Out uses personal stories and analysis of her own life to identify difficult to articulate concepts of identity, suffering, gratitude, and health.

A Novel Idea with Suzanne M. Lang features Jessica Teich with her memoir The Future Tense of Joy. A Rhodes Scholar, Teich happens upon an obituary of a fellow Rhodes Scholar who took her own life by jumping out a hotel window, which leads Jessica on a transformative journey. Also featured is Cathy Wild, whose book Wild Ideas: Creativity from the Inside Out uses personal stories and analysis of her own life to identify difficult to articulate concepts of identity, suffering, gratitude, and health.