Book Nook

By Vick MickunasArts Books

Book Nook episodes

April 08, 2019 Book Nook: Enchanted Ground - the Spirit Room of Jonathan Koons, by Sharon Hatfield
During the 1850s rural Athens County, Ohio was briefly a center for some spiritualist activities. The spiritualism movement had begun to sweep across America during the late 1840's and Jonathan Koons became something of a rock star on the scene as he demonstrated his psychic powers for hundreds and possibly thousands of people who made the difficult journey to his farm in southeast Ohio to spend time in his spirit room. In her book "Enchanted Ground - the Spirit Room of Jonathan Koons" Sharon
49 min
April 03, 2019 Book Nook: The Woman's Hour - the Great Fight to Win the Vote, by Elaine Weiss
A century ago the suffragettes who were trying to win the right to vote were drawing closer to victory in their long campaign. The Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution was finally passed as the state of Tennessee became the last state needed to ratify for the cause to be won. The drama that took place in Nashville was truly amazing. Elaine Weiss tells the tale of what happened that summer. It is a stirring story and one that is not very well known 100 years later. There were many
29 min
March 29, 2019 Book Nook: Hunting Leroux-the Inside Story of the DEA Takedown of a Criminal Genius and His Empire
A free press is one of the key elements in maintaining a healthy democracy and in-depth investigative journalism is a crucial aspect of a free press. Elaine Shannon is one of our truly gifted investigative reporters. It was really a pleasure to interview her about her new book. Here's my review of it which ran recently in the Cox Ohio newspapers: When I picked up a copy of "Hunting Leroux - the Inside Story of the DEA Takedown of a Criminal Genius and His Empire" by Elaine Shannon I was
50 min
March 27, 2019 Book Nook: The Moroccan Girl, by Charles Cumming
Charles Cumming made his first appearance on the program recently when he called in to our studios from London, England. I was somewhat embarrassed to admit to Charles that I had not been aware of him before reading his latest spy novel, "The Moroccan Girl." Now I have some catching up to do; Charles has been penning novels for some time and has amassed an impressive body of work. The author had some fun with this story. One captivating aspect of espionage novels and the people who create them
29 min
March 25, 2019 Book Nook: Cemetery Road, by Greg Iles
I just perused the fiction best-sellers in the Sunday New York Times and I see that "Cemetery Road" by Greg Iles made a debut on the list at #2. Wow, that's fabulous and totally deserved. Greg's new book is set in a fictional Mississippi town and it is a short book for him; only 600 pages. It is a story about family secrets and one very dark secret that Greg doesn't think any readers will be able to guess until they arrive on the shocking page which reveals the horrible truth. The author
51 min
March 21, 2019 Book Nook: The Border, by Don Winslow
For the past 15 years at the end of each year I have written columns for the Cox Ohio newspapers which list my favorite books from the preceding year. By December I usually have a very good notion of which books will make the final cut. This past December I was reading an advance copy of "The Border" by Don Winslow and I was loving that book so much that when I finished reading it I thought that this incredible final book in the author's trilogy about Mexican drug cartels is probably going to be
29 min
March 18, 2019 Book Nook: Midnight in Chernobyl, by Adam Higginbotham
Early on the morning of April 26, 1986 a terrible accident took place in the Ukraine at the Chernobyl Atomic Energy Station. A routine test that had been long delayed was finally taking place. Mistakes were made by the inexperienced operators. The result; Reactor Number Four blew up and a cloud of lethal radiation began spewing into the atmosphere. In his book "Midnight in Chernobyl-the Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster" Adam Higginbotham describes how the disaster unfolded
49 min
March 14, 2019 Book Nook: The Stalker by Lars Kepler
Lars Kepler is the pen name for a pair of writers who live in Stockholm, Sweden. Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril and Alexander Ahndoril are married and they have had successful careers as writers writing separately. In this interview they describe how they decided to collaborate on a series of thrillers that feature a Swedish police detective named Joona Linda. It wasn't easy at first but once they figured out how to write smoothly as a team the novels have been flowing and readers have been loving
29 min
March 08, 2019 Book Nook: In a House of Lies, by Ian Rankin
The Scottish novelist Ian Rankin is one of my favorite guests. I'm a huge fan of his series that features retired Edinburgh police Detective Inspector John Rebus. This is the fourth Rebus book to come out since he retired from the police force. Rankin brought Rebus back to work some cold cases and I am sure happy that he did. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Rebus series in the US and the author came through the states on book tour. We tracked him down by phone at a Florida hotel that
50 min
March 05, 2019 Best of the Book Nook: The Patriot, by Gary Hart
Gary Hart was a little known US Senator from Colorado in 1984 when he announced that he was running for the Democratic presidential nomination. He came out of nowhere to nearly win the nomination that year. The former Vice President Walter Mondale eventually became the nominee. During the next presidential election cycle Hart ran again and he was looking like the front-runner early on when his hopes were dashed after he became ensnared in what at the time was considered to be a sex scandal when
29 min

About Book Nook

From the publisher's feed

Listen to the Book Nook with Vick Mickunas for intimate conversations about books with the writers who create them.Vick Mickunas introduced the Book Nook author interview program for WYSO in 1994.…