In Marc Schultz's THE GOOD LIFE, what makes for a happy life, a fulfilling life? A good life?

The simple but surprising answer is: relationships. The stronger our relationships, the more likely we are to live happy, satisfying, and overall healthier lives. In fact, the Harvard Study of Adult Development reveals that the strength of our connections with others can predict the health of both our bodies and our brains as we go through life.

For over eight decades, this study has tracked the same individuals and their families, asking thousands of questions and taking hundreds of measurements—from brain scans to blood work—with the goal of discovering what really makes for happiness and a good life.

Elaine Weiss's THE WOMAN’S HOUR: The Great Fight to Win the Vote tells the true story of the suffragettes—women in the face of enormous opposition who fought for and won American women's right to vote in 1920, a long 131 years after American men cast their first ballots.

As the book opens up, it's that fateful summer. After 70 years of a long fought campaign for equal citizenship for 27 million women, one of the pivotal political battles in United States history is unfolding in Nashville, Tennessee.  The women's suffrage movement needed just one more state to ratify the 19th Amendment, and it all came down to this state.  In the state legislature that summer, Tennessee ratified the 19th Amendment by one vote in August, 1920. 

Weiss reveals what it took for activists to win this crucial battle and how close they came to losing.  Woman’s Hour is more than just a vivid work of history, it is an inspiration for everyone who continues the fight for justice and equal rights today.

Jennifer Herrera’s debut thriller and first in a series is THE HUNTER.

After reckless behavior costs NYPD detective Leigh O’Donnell her job and her marriage, she returns with her four-year-old daughter to her beautiful hometown of Copper Falls, Ohio in this richly atmospheric novel.

Three men in town have drowned in what Leigh suspects to be a triple homicide. She hopes that by finding out who killed them, she just might get her life back on course. 

Tune in for her explanation of why fictional murder victims are usually women, yet statistics say 80% of homicide victims are men. 

Jennifer Herrera is a former philosophy grad student turned literary agent (her day job), whose first task in the publishing world was ghost writing.

Artist and singer Melissa Newman, one of the 5 daughters of actor Paul Newman who died in 2008, spoke with me about her dad’s posthumous memoir, “PAUL NEWMAN, The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man.”

It was compiled from interviews he gave to a close friend, and it sheds light on the self-doubt of the seemingly cool and calm Hollywood legend who was a deeply private man living an intensely public life.

His major film roles (out of 65 movies) include 3 of my favorites Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and The Sting. He was also a race car driver starting at age 47.  He won several national championships and took home the prize at his last race behind the wheel of a 700-horsepower Corvette when he was in his 80s.

A leading philanthropist of the 20th century, Newman raised and donated nearly $1 billion to many charities. He had six children and was married to Oscar-winning actress Joanne Woodward for fifty years.

LONGPATH by futurist Ari Wallach is about a mindset that looks at a future where new ways aren’t quite here yet and the old ways don’t work anymore.

Drawing on history, theology, neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, and social technologies, Wallach teaches readers to strengthen their ability to look ahead, relieve reactions to stressful events, increase capacity for cooperation, and even boost creativity.

Founder of a company that’s worked with CNN, Volkswagen Global, and The UN Refugee Agency among many others, in our conversation Wallach also describes the future trend he didn’t see coming.

“I feel lucky to do what I do. I write about real people, often by living their lives for a while—visiting their lives, you might say. Trying them on for size. Though there are easier ways to make a living, I suppose, none strike me as a fraction so interesting.” T.C.    

In Ted Conover’s 7th book, CHEAP LAND COLORADO, he introduces us to the off-gridders and their families who live in an isolated part of southern Colorado’s enormous San Luis Valley.

In our conversation today Ted talks about why these folks seek out this difficult life, how they manage the bitter high-altitude winters, and the skills homeowners learn when there are no city services or utilities. 

Ted has ridden the rails with hoboes, crossed the border with Mexican immigrants, and butchered beef in a meat-packing plant in Nebraska. His day job is teaching at New York University. He's also the author of six other books and numerous articles published in The New Yorker, Harper’s and The Atlantic, among many others. Perhaps his best-known book is “Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing,” an account of his ten months spent working as a corrections officer at New York’s Sing Sing Prison.

Christopher McDougall's Running with Sherman introduces us to the McDougall family and their menagerie--donkeys, rams, chickens, fainting goats--who all live on a small farm in rural Pennsylvania.

This book is part scientific exploration of the lost art of connecting with animals, part vivid telling of what life’s like in the southern part of Amish country, part radical rehabilitation story, part deep dive into the crazy sport that is burro racing (and the insane training required to run 15 miles with a donkey in tow in Colorado’s high altitude), and part road trip that cuts through the best of Americana.

Along the way impossibly, improbably, Sherman who starts out as a rescue donkey in this story learns to run.

This conversation with Chris McDougall took place several years ago. His newest book, Born to Run 2: The Ultimate Training Guide, will be released in December 2022. 

Delia Owens, the co-author of three nonfiction books on African research and wildlife, published her debut novel, “Where the Crawdads Sing,” in 2018, the year when this interview took place.  Since then this book has sold in the millions, attracted literary prizes, and has been made into a movie.  

Where the Crawdads Sing is a mystery, a love story, and a courtroom drama, but it is primarily about self-reliance and survival.  This nature-infused story features Kya, a young woman who was abandoned as a child in the remote coastal marshes of North Carolina and who learns to live by herself.  In our conversation Delia also talks about her research life in Africa studying wildlife and how that experience affects her today. 

"I learned from a book that crawdads don't really sing, but the important thing is that I learned from my mother that if you go deep enough into the wilderness, you'll hear them anyway."  Delia Owens

Private investigator Elvis Cole and his enigmatic partner Joe Pike are back on the case in RACING THE LIGHT by Robert Crais whose thrillers have been translated into 42 languages.

In Bob's 23rd novel, Adele Schumacher isn't a typical worried mom. When she hires Elvis to find her missing son, a controversial podcaster named Josh Shoe, she brings a bag filled with cash, bizarre tales of government conspiracies, and a squad of professional bodyguards.

Finding Josh should be simple, but Elvis quickly learns he isn't alone in the hunt. Then mix in super-secret security tech, corrupt politicians, vicious business cartels, and of course, humor and suspense.

RIVER OF THE GODS by historian Candice Millard is her fourth book. Known for her meticulously researched work, her newest book is an adventure tale full of danger that takes place in unchartered territory in Africa in the mid-1800s.

For millennia the location of the Nile River’s headwaters was shrouded in mystery.  In 1854 Richard Burton and John Speke were sent by the Royal Geographical Society to claim the prize for England.

Finding the source of the Nile took years and would not have been possible for these Englishmen without the guidance, expertise and local knowledge of Sidi Mubarak Bombay, a former slave.