All About Books

He grew up in the second poorest county in the state, his alcoholic father had killed himself. As a college dropout, he was riding a garbage truck. In the book “Heartland” author Keith O’Brian describes just how close basketball legend Larry Bird came to slipping away in a forgotten town.

After a less than stellar undergraduate career, a young man takes an unspecified job with an elderly Italian noblewoman at her crumbling villa in the Tuscan hills. A breezy and witty novel, “Villa Coco” by Andrew Sean Greer.

At one time it was almost romanticized as an affliction of poets, today tuberculosis is seen as a disease of poverty. In his book “Everything is Tuberculosis” author John Green tells the scientific and social history of how the disease has shaped our world- and how our choices will shape the future.

Guinevere and her brother raised themselves in the woods behind their Vermont home. Their mother was busy writing a fantasy series which would later explode in popularity. “The Children: a Novel” by Melissa Albert explores having two childhoods- one known to the public, the other not known.

This week on All About Books, host Pat Leach interviews Christine Lesiak who was a long-time television producer at Nebraska Public Media. They’ll discuss the creation of her newly published novel “Let Me Go”, and the differences between telling stories for TV and writing books.

An awkward guest staying too long in your home seems an unlikely plot for a novel. But it’s best-selling author Hans Christian Anderson visiting Charles Dickens, his 9 children, and his estranged wife. Anderson barely speaks English. “Five Weeks in the Country” by Francine Prose.

Because early Americans thought the resources of this new country were infinite, birds were hunted for food and fashion to the point of extinction. “The Feather Wars” by James McCommons is the history of an unlikely group of individuals and organizations who came together to protect American bird life.

“Cherry Baby” is the latest novel from best-selling Omaha author Rainbow Rowell. It’s a story of relationships failing and arriving, it’s also about navigating weight issues in the era of GLP-1 weight loss drugs.

Host Pat Leach is joined by Dr. Maria Nazos who received her PhD in English at UNL. They’ll talk about her new book of poetry “Pulse”, how she and her editors put together 16 years’ worth of poems, and working with Ted Kooser.

This week on “All About Books” host Pat Leach picks a title far outside her normal reading routine. She reviews “The River Has Roots” by Amal El-Mohtar a Nebula Award-winning fantasy novella. Hear how she did with this magic-filled story.