Booktalk with Diana Korte

This book, “How Magicians Think. Misdirection, Deception, and Why Magic Matters,” is my love letter to magic,” says Jay, ”and it answers the questions people ask me every night after the show.”  This book is divided into 52 essays, same number as a deck of cards, and is filled with Jay's insights from working as a magician since he was a kid. Jay answers common questions like "How do you know who to call up from the audience to help you with your show?" “What do magicians do in secret?,” and “What does it feel like when you perform?" 

An international prize winner for his magic tricks, Jay averages 300 days each year putting on shows and watching other masters at work. He’s performed magic in more than 100 countries and can tell you with precision who is his toughest audience.

Ever wonder why some parents don’t get their kids vaccinated? How reliable are childhood and Covid-19 vaccines anyway? Tune in…

It’s not often that a book published five years ago is more pertinent today. But University of Colorado Denver Professor Jennifer Reich’s  “Calling the Shots: Why Parents Reject Vaccines” is that book because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“For over a decade, Jennifer Reich has been studying the phenomenon of vaccine refusal from the perspectives of parents who distrust vaccines and the corporations that make them, as well as the health care providers and policy makers who see them as essential to ensuring community health. Reich reveals how parents who opt out of vaccinations see their decision: what they fear, what they hope to control, and what they believe is in their child’s best interest. Based on interviews with parents who fully reject vaccines as well as those who believe in “slow vax,” or altering the number of and time between vaccinations, the author provides a fascinating account of these parents’ points of view.”  New York University Press

Scott Small’s debut book is “Forgetting. The Benefits of Not Remembering.” He's an expert on the memory losses of old age and Alzheimer’s who now introduces us to a third kind of forgetting. The normal one, the one that’s good for us and enhances our lives.

"Small, director of Columbia University’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, puts forgetting in a new light in his eye-opening and reassuring debut. While the standard view in science has been that forgetting is a malfunction of memory, Small makes a case that it ‘is not just normal but beneficial to our cognitive and creative abilities, to our emotional well-being, and even to societal health’...Small keeps things accessible with an easygoing prose and helpful diagrams, and his passion is undeniable. This smart survey will satisfy those curious about memory, or anxious about forgetting.”  Publisher’s Weekly

 “From her many well-loved novels, Hilma Wolitzer--now ninety-one years old and at the top of her game--has gained a reputation as one of our best fiction writers, who “raises ordinary people and everyday occurrences to a new height.” (Washington Post) These collected short stories--most of them originally published in magazines including Esquire and the Saturday Evening Post, in the 1960s and 1970s, along with a new story that brings her early characters into the present--are evocative of an era that still resonates deeply today."

This is the author's 15th book. At age 91 she’s already working on her next novel.  Along with publishing fiction, she’s written a book for writers called “The Company of Writers.” She’s taught in many creative writing programs and received honors and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, NEA, and the American Academy of Arts & Letters.  

"Edward Fosca is a murderer. Of this Mariana is certain. But Fosca is untouchable. A handsome and charismatic Greek Tragedy professor at Cambridge University, Fosca is adored by staff and students alike—particularly by the members of a secret society of female students known as The Maidens. Mariana Andros is a brilliant but troubled group therapist who becomes fixated on The Maidens when one member, a friend of Mariana’s niece Zoe, is found murdered in Cambridge. Mariana, who was once herself a student at the university, quickly suspects that behind the idyllic beauty of the spires and turrets, and beneath the ancient traditions, lies something sinister."

Alex Michaelides’s second novel is “The Maidens.” His first novel, “The Silent Patient,” was written after a self-described disappointing career as a Hollywood screenwriter. An instant bestseller, his first book has been sold in 50 countries. Alex was born and raised in Cyprus, an island in the Mediterranean, where he first learned about the Greek mythology that is woven throughout his books.

“Cold Case Chronicles” tells the stories of victims – some missing, some murdered and some with changed identities. All are true, and each are mysterious in their own ways. The cases in this nonfiction narrative date from 1910 through the 1950s and include an evolution in forensics, as well as historical context in order to view the men, women and children through the lens of time.”

One of these new forensic tools is genetic genealogy, the use of DNA testing (often using commercial home kits) to determine relationships between individuals, find genetic matches and discover one’s ancestry.

In addition to writing her true crime books, Silvia is a longtime newspaper columnist for the Boulder Daily Camera and author of more than 20 books. Though she is not a member of law enforcement, she works with them, has written a book for them and is credited with doing the lion’s share of the research on a famous Boulder Jane Doe case (“Someone’s Daughter: In Search of Justice for Jane Doe”).

For more information, see www.silviapettem.com.

“Twenty-six-year-old editorial assistant Nella Rogers is tired of being the only Black employee at Wagner Books. Fed up with the isolation and microaggressions, she’s thrilled when Harlem-born and bred Hazel starts working in the cubicle beside hers. They’ve only just started comparing natural hair care regimens, though, when a string of uncomfortable events elevates Hazel to Office Darling, and Nella is left in the dust.

Then the notes begin to appear on Nella’s desk: LEAVE WAGNER. NOW.

It’s hard to believe Hazel is behind these hostile messages. But as Nella starts to spiral and obsess over the sinister forces at play, she soon realizes that there’s a lot more at stake than just her career.”

Zakiya Dalila Harris’s debut novel, The Other Black Girl, takes readers into the corporate world of publishing. Somewhat like the character Nella in her book, Harris spent nearly three years in editorial at Knopf/Doubleday, a premier publishing house. She’s currently working on the pilot of a Hulu streaming service tv series about this book.  Follow Harris on @zakiya_harris.

“The change was immediate. The country opened up west of Harrisburg and suddenly we could drink from streams and build fires without getting caught and sleep pretty much anywhere we wanted. We’d walked the railroad track from Washington to Baltimore to Philly and then turned west at the Main Line and made Amish country by winter.  The Pennsylvania fields lay bare and hard in the cold but there were seams and folds in that country—strips of woods along stream bottoms, windbreaks between the cornfields, ridges left wild for hunting—where a man could easily pass the night unnoticed.”

Multiple best-selling author Sebastian Junger’s sixth book, Freedom,  recounts in part a 400-mile trek of a few men with 70-pound backpacks each walking along railroad lines on the East Coast.

Junger is the author of “The Perfect Storm,” “War,” and “Tribe” as well as Co-Director of the Oscar-nominated @Restrepo movie.  Follow Junger on @sebastianjunger

Jory Fleming’s unconventional memoir is “How to Be Human. An Autistic Man’s Guide to Life.” This book was written through a series of conversations with writer Lyric Winik.  

Jory and Lyric exchange comments and collaborate as they examine what it means to be human from topics ranging from rethinking emotion to autism and faith.

Jory now works at his undergrad college, the University of South Carolina, analyzing climate data.  In his spare time, he is an avid bird watcher, board game enthusiast, and Scottish country dancer.

Flynn Berry’s third thriller, a Reese’s Book Club Pick, is “Northern Spy.”  Berry, a graduate of the Michener Center for Writers in Texas, writes her books in longhand and doesn’t key them into a computer until she’s written at least 1,000 pages.

Known for writing novels with a strong sense of place, her first book, “Under the Harrow,” won an Edgar Award for best first novel. Her books, so far, have taken place in England or Ireland with a different part of the world coming up next.

Follow Flynn on @flynnberry_