As we begin the 2024 presidential campaign, we hear the word "inflation" in almost every candidate's speech. One issue that is always mentioned is the price of food. Benjamin Lorr spent several years travelling the United States and the world to investigate how the food supply chain works. His book is titled "The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket." He writes that: "Most people shop for groceries with clueless abandon."   

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On September 6, 1970, TWA flight 741 from Israel to New York was hijacked and flown to the Jordanian desert. Historian Martha Hodes, at the time 12 years old, was on that plane along with her sister Catherine, who was 13. A group called the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine was behind the hijacking. For years, Martha Hodes, who teaches 19th Century history at New York University, only had fuzzy memories of those 6 days and nights in the desert as a hostage. In the past couple of years, Prof. Hodes decided to try to piece together her experience. The result is her book titled "My Hijacking: A Personal History of Forgetting and Remembering."    

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C.W. Goodyear was born in New Orleans. He's a graduate of Yale University and now lives in the Washington, DC area. He's also a first time biographer, having just published a book about James Garfield titled "President Garfield: From Radical to Unifier." Garfield, America's 20th president, took office on March 4, 1881. His time as president lasted only 200 days. Garfield was assassinated by Charles Guiteau in a Washington, DC train station at the corner of 6th and Pennsylvania Avenue on July 2, 1881. Mr. Goodyear has written a full life biography of James Garfield, from the years he grew up in Ohio through his generalship in the Civil War and his 17 years in the U.S. House of Representatives.  

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Former president Theodore Roosevelt died on January 6, 1919. He was 60 years old. Author William Hazelgrove, in his new book about Roosevelt, chose to focus mostly on the last two years of TR's life. It's titled "The Last Charge of the Rough Rider," and it's the focus of this week's podcast. Mr. Hazelgrove takes us through TR's feud with President Woodrow Wilson over wanting to create another Rough Rider soldier regiment to fight in Europe. Wilson turned him down in spite of the fact that both the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives had approved Roosevelt's request.    

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Simon Sebag Montefiore is a British historian. He's 57 and lives in London with his wife Santa and their two children. He's written 12 books - 9 nonfiction and 3 novels. His latest effort is titled "The World: A Family History of Humanity." Including the index, it's 1,304 pages. In his preface, Montefiore writes: "I have always wanted to write an intimate human history like 'The World' – in some ways a new approach, in some ways a traditional one – which is the fruit of a lifetime of study and travels."  

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Robert Kaplan's 21st book, "The Tragic Mind," revolves around what he has learned over the years from Greek philosophers and William Shakespeare. Yale University Press says that Kaplan "employs the works of ancient Greek dramatists, Shakespeare, German philosophers, and the modern classics to explore the central subjects of international politics: order, disorder, rebellion, ambition, loyalty to family and state, violence, and the mistakes of power." Mr. Kaplan, 70, was born in New York City and graduated from the University of Connecticut. 

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James Risen's latest book is titled "The Last Honest Man." The man he's talking about is Frank Church, former Democratic senator from Idaho. In the prologue he writes: "When the Church Committee began to investigate the CIA, FBI, NSA and other agencies, it marked for the first time there had been any serious congressional inquiry into the national security state." The year was 1975. James Risen is a former New York Times reporter and currently covers national security for The Intercept.    

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"How did the U.S. lose the war in Afghanistan? Who bears responsibility? What has been the human cost?" These are the questions asked on Frontline's website advertising the 3-part documentary series "America and the Taliban." These hour-long documentaries, which are available for streaming online, were produced and directed by Martin Smith and Marcela Gaviria. Because of his on-screen appearances, Mr. Smith is better known by the public. From the other side of the duo, here's a conversation with Marcela Gaviria, who has produced over 40 hours of programming with Frontline.  

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When a historian writes a book, there are at least two ways to read it, two different parts. One is the narrative, the story, usually told in chronological order. The second part includes epigraphs, footnotes, source notes, photography, and the acknowledgements. Richard Norton Smith spent over 6 years writing and researching his new book, "An Ordinary Man: The Surprising Life and Historic Presidency of Gerald R. Ford." Susan Swain interviewed Mr. Smith on the first part, the narrative, which is available on C-SPAN's video archives. Now comes that second part, the process, the research, and the extras.    

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Seattle-based author Timothy Egan has written 10 books. His newest is called "A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them." The description of Mr. Egan's book on the dust jacket reads: "The Roaring Twenties – the Jazz Age – has been characterized as a time of Gatsby frivolity. But it was also the height of the uniquely American hate group, the Ku Klux Klan….They hated Blacks, Jews, Catholics and immigrants in equal measure, and took radical steps to keep these people from the American promise."

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