Booktalk with Diana Korte

Host Diana Korte speaks with Manal al-Sharif, author of DARING TO DRIVE, who grew up in Mecca, Islam’s holiest city.

In her teens she was a religious radical, by her twenties she was a college-educated computer security engineer. Then she lived for a while in Boston, learned to drive and became a women’s rights advocate.

Back home she was the first Saudi woman who defied the ban on driving and immediately put the video on YouTube. And, yes, she was arrested.

This interview originally aired June 23, 2017. One year later the Saudi government made it legal for women to drive. Yet several years later, the number of women who have licenses to drive is only a few percent. 

Never one to shy away from controversial topics, Joyce Carol Oates’ “The Sacrifice” is based on the story of Tawana Brawley of upstate New York who made headlines in the late 1980s with allegations of kidnapping and rape that were later proven false.

When we spoke about this book in 2015, JCO was already the author of more than 100 books—novels, short story collections, a memoir, children’s books, poetry, plays, even a libretto for an opera.  

Host Diana Korte speaks with New Mexico-based Michael Benanav, a photo-journalist known for searching out and living with nomadic tribes and bringing their compelling stories and images back from distant places.

 In “Himalaya Bound: One Family’s Quest to Save Their Animals–And an Ancient Way of Life” he travels to northern India to journey with the Van Gujjars, a tribe of forest-dwelling nomadic water buffalo herders during their annual spring migration into the Himalayas.

In a book laced with stories of tribal cultures from India to Yellowstone, from Jordan to Kenya, Benanav deftly wends through the controversial terrain where Western ways of protecting the environment clash with indigenous understandings of nature.

Tracy Clark is an award-winning author of 6 crime novels including the Cass Raines Chicago Mystery series.  FALL is her newest book and second in the Detective Harriett Foster thriller series.  

In this page-turner of a book, the Chicago PD is on high alert when two city aldermen are found dead: one by apparent suicide, one brutally stabbed in his office, and both with thirty dimes left on their bodies—a betrayer’s payment. With no other clues, the question is, Who else has a debt to pay?

Detective Harriet Foster is on the case before the killer can strike again. But even with the help of her partner, Detective Vera Li, and the rest of their team, Harriet has little to go on and a lot at risk. There’s no telling who the killer’s next target is or how many will come next.  

TUNE IN for why Tracy Clark writes crime novels, what she likes best about Harriett Foster. and her advice for new writers. 

Host Diana Korte speaks with R. David Edmunds, author of 12 books about Native Americans. His newest title is “VOICES IN THE DRUM that features 9 stories about these people spanning hundreds of years of history. 

Times and places range from Mound City, AL as it existed a century or so before Columbus to what it was like for a job-hunting family in the 1950s to move from a reservation in the Dakotas to Denver CO.

TUNE IN for misconceptions non-Natives have about Indians, what it takes to be counted as a member of a tribe, and who are the unsung heroes in Native American history.  

Host Diana Korte speaks with Douglas Preston, author of "THE LOST TOMB." Some of the stories in this book have taken him from the haunted country of Italy and the largest tomb in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings to the booby-trapped Money Pit on Oak Island in Nova Scotia and a cannibal site in the American Southwest.

Listeners might be familiar with some of his other 40 books including "Lost City of the Monkey God" and his co-authored fiction series featuring FBI special agent Pendergast.

TUNE IN for, what he found when he was the first to enter an Egyptian burial chamber that had been sealed for millennia, why many of his books include archeologists, and his one piece of advice for would be writers that might be quite difficult to accomplish.

Cary Elwes, who was then age 23, played the dashing character known as Westley in this cult movie classic. He talked about the behind-the-scenes making of the movie in his book, “As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride” when we spoke in 2014.

The continued unexpected popularity of this happy movie made 36 years ago didn’t begin until ten years after it was released, thanks to the new VHS and cable tv then and the streaming internet today. 

Tune in for the name of Cary Elwes’s favorite fan, his biggest challenge—the inconceivable one—in making the movie, and what it took to create that great sword fight.  

Today I spoke with the James Beard Award-winning  Fuchsia Dunlop about her 7th book, “Invitation To A Banquet. The Story of Chinese Food.”  

Based in London, she speaks, reads, and writes Chinese and has traveled, often writing down recipes, for 30 years all around China.

Rather than another cookbook, “Invitation to a Banquet” is an exploration of the history, techniques, and philosophies of Chinese cuisine. She presents this through a "menu" of thirty dishes from different parts of the country including Mapo tofu, drunken crabs and stir-fried greens. 

TUNE IN for what many non-Chinese people most misunderstand about Chinese food along with a glimpse into Fuchsia Dunlop’s adventures as the first westerner to train at the influential Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine in mainland China. 

Author of more than a dozen books, historian Nathaniel Philbrick’s “Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War” details the perilous ocean crossing the European pilgrims made.  Imagine the struggle of moving 2 mph for 3,000 miles over two months. 

Yes, the Native American Wampanoags shared bounty with the Pilgrims at that first tense Thanksgiving, but unlike what many of us learned in grade school, it was an overwhelmingly Native affair.  As for the menu, probably yes to turkeys, ducks and venison but no to cranberry sauce and pumpkin pies. The author describes these and many other new facts about this epic time in American history.    

This Booktalk program dates back to 2007.

Host Diana Korte speaks with Alexander McCall Smith, the author of more than 100 books sold around the world in 40 languages. This includes the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency novels, plus other series and stand-alone books.  

His newest title in this cozy series, the 24th, is From a Far and Lovely Country featuring Mma Precious Ramotswe and her world of familiar characters. 

In this latest installment two cases compete for Mma Ramotswe's attention—and she may need to call in back up. But no worries, there’s always time for red bush tea and fruitcake. 

Tune in for just how many hours a day Scotsman McCall Smith spends writing his 5 books a year, why the series takes place in Botswana, and what happens when Assistant Detective Charlie gets his first case.