Ken Levy, a tenured law professor at LSU, was suspended for criticizing Donald Trump in the classroom. Hear his story on Books and More.

will-cooper.com

We discuss Jeffrey's new book: BOUTWELL: Radical Republican and Champion of Democracy.

https://www.jeffreyboutwell.com/

George S. Boutwell is the most consequential American political figure you've never heard of.  During his career from 1839 to 1905, he was Governor of Massachusetts, served in the U.S. House and Senate, was Treasury Secretary for Ulysses Grant and Commissioner of Internal Revenue for Abraham Lincoln, helped create the Republican Party in the 1850s, and challenged the efforts of Presidents McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt to annex the Philippines in 1900 following the Spanish-American war.  He was instrumental in framing the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, initiating the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, and investigating white vigilante violence against Blacks in Mississippi in the 1870s.  For seven decades, George Boutwell sought to "redeem America's promise" through racial equality, economic equity, and the humane use of American power abroad.

Chasing the Panther:

https://www.harpercollinsfocus.com/9780785255185/chasing-the-panther/

A cinematic and vibrant coming-of-age memoir, Chasing the Panther captures the thrilling and, at times, heartbreaking early years of Carolyn Pfeiffer, a pioneering film producer and one of Hollywood’s first female executives—a “mini-mogul” in the words of the Wall Street Journal.  

For a moment in the 1980s, Carolyn Pfeiffer was the only woman in Hollywood who could greenlight a movie. Working with directors like Sam Shepard and Wes Craven, and with actors like River Phoenix and Bette Davis, she had a hand in producing or distributing many landmark films, among them Ridley Scott’s The Duellists, Alan Rudolph’s Choose Me, and the Academy Award-winning Kiss of the Spider Woman. However, long before establishing herself as a player in the world of film, Carolyn was a horseback-riding tomboy who dreamed of exploring the world beyond her small hometown. Her journey turned out to be a tale fit for the movies.

As a young girl jumping from rock to rock in a rural North Carolina town, Carolyn felt a calling she couldn’t articulate but that she nonetheless understood: it was a tug on her heart, a yearning for something more. When she could, she set out for New York City, a refuge for young women exercising their independence and resisting the pressures of marriage and motherhood. There, swept up in the glamorous world of beat poets and millionaires, Carolyn brushed shoulders with a young Burt Reynolds and became fast friends with an English journalist named Penny. 

As the turbulent 1960s dawned, Carolyn booked a one-way passage to Europe. Her plan was to visit Penny and to travel around Europe for the summer but, instead, the world opened up to her in ways she never could have imagined. She found herself on set with Italy’s great filmmakers, in the couture houses of Paris’ fashion icons, and swept up in the youthful energy flooding London. She learned about film and found work on iconic movies like Federico Fellini’s 8 ½, Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard, and David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago, and she came to befriend and work alongside luminaries like the Beatles, Tennessee Williams, Francoise Truffaut, and Barbra Streisand. Amid these adventures and misadventures, Carolyn fell in and out of love, and was beset by tragedies and triumphs that resoundingly affirmed what she’d known since girlhood—that she was always destined for something more.

Set against the dazzling backdrop of Fellini’s Rome, the Paris of the French New Wave, and Swinging London, Chasing the Panther reads like a true-to-life novel revealing Carolyn’s unforgettable journey to find her place in the world.

We discuss his storied career as a writer and his forthcoming book, The Superman Wars.

https://williambernhardt.com/

https://peterfelixbooks.com/

We discuss Peter's philanthropy, movies, and great new book, Finding Happy.

https://www.samuelson.la/

https://rogerhowellbooks.com/

We discuss Jeffrey's classic 2005 book, The End of Poverty, and his current work in sustainable development.

The End of Poverty: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9854.The_End_of_Poverty

Columbia profile: https://csd.columbia.edu/sachs 

We discuss Jonathan's The Atlantic article on Donald Trump, Yes, It's Fascism, and his book, Cross Purposes: Christianity's Broken Bargain with Democracy.

Article: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/01/america-fascism-trump-maga-ice/685751/

Book: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300273540/cross-purposes/

Susan Dominus is a Pulitzer Prize-winning staff writer for The New York Times Magazine. We discuss her wonderful new book, The Family Dynamic: A Journey Into the Mystery of Sibling Success. Find it here: https://www.susanpdominus.com/

She has worked for The New York Times since 2007, initially as a Metro columnist. In 2018, she was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize for public service for their reporting on workplace sexual harassment issues. Her article about menopause in The New York Times Magazine earned a National Magazine Award.