Enoch Pratt Free Library Podcast

Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan, editor of Singapore Noir, talks with Rafael Alvarez, a contributor to Baltimore Noir.

From Singapore, land of mysteries and shadows that enticed Somerset Maugham and Rudyard Kipling, comes a collection of new stories from some of the best contemporary writers in Singapore. Three of its contributors have won the Singapore Literature Prize: Simon Tay, Colin Cheong and Suchen Christine Lim.

A native of Singapore, Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan is the author of A Tiger in the Kitchen. A former staff writer at the Baltimore Sun and Wall Street Journal, her work has also appeared in the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Recorded On: Thursday, June 5, 2014

Celebrity authors Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Brent Ridge, hosts of "The Fabulous Beekman Boys" on the Cooking Channel and winners of the 21st season of "The Amazing Race," talk about their new book, a year-long trip through the Beekman vegetable bounty.

Dubbed "gay Green Acres," The Fabulous Beekman Boys chronicles the lives of two city boys, Brent, a physician who previously worked for Marth Stewart Omnimedia, and Josh, a former advertising art director, in their real time adventure as novice farmers. Their working goat farm is renowned for its handcrafted goat milk soaps and artisanal Blaak cheese.

The Beekman 1802 Heirloom Vegetable Cookbook is packed with simple, delicious, and seasonal recipes that demonstrate how we can cook with fresh vegetables year round.

Presented in partnership with Baltimore GreenWorks as part of the Sustainable Speaker Series.

Recorded On: Monday, June 2, 2014

The Seven Disciplines of Wellness provides a roadmap for complete wellness of the body, mind and spirit. In a world full of confusion and contradictory health information, Surina Jordan uses scripture and science to uncover the true path to wellness.

Surina Jordan runs a wellness practice in Annapolis. She earned a Ph.D. in holistic nutrition and has more than 20 years' experience as a consultant, health coach, and motivational speaker.

Recorded On: Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Janice Gary's new book, Short Leash: A Memoir of Dog Walking and Deliverance, is a beautifully written portrait of two damaged souls and how they lean on one another to heal and find their way back to happiness.

After a brutal rape in her youth, Janice Gary never walked alone without a dog. Her new Lab-Rotweiler pup, Barney, is attacked by a vicious dog and becomes a clone of his attacker; walking with him is impossible. However, Gary risks taking him to a public park near the Chesapeake Bay; and over the course of their walks, the leash of the past begins to unravel for both Gary and her canine companion.

Janice Gary has an MFA in creative writing from Goucher College and is a fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Short Leash has won two Silver Nautilus Awards, one for memoir and one for animals/nature and has been shortlisted for the Grand Prize for the Eric Hoffer Award.

Recorded On: Monday, May 19, 2014

Investigative reporter Christopher Leonard reveals how a handful of companies have seized the nation's meat supply and created a system that puts farmers on the edge of bankruptcy, hikes up Americans' grocery bills, and places the greatest capitalist country in the world under an oligarchy controlling much of the food we eat.

Christopher Leonard is the former national agribusiness reporter for the Associated Press and a fellow with The New American Foundation in Washington, D.C.

Marc Steiner (The Marc Steiner Show, WEAA-FM) moderates the conversation with Christopher Leonard.

Presented in partnership with Food & Water Watch, Assateague Coastal Trust/Coastkeeper, and Baltimore GreenWorks.

Recorded On: Thursday, May 15, 2014

On the night of March 8, 1971, eight amateur burglars broke into an FBI office in Media, PA, and stole every file in the office. Betty Medsger, then a reporter at the Washington Post, received copies of the stolen files from anonymous sources and wrote the first stories about these files that chronicled the massive political spying and dirty tricks operations of FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover. Now, 43 years after her reporting on the Media files, Medsger introduces the burglars to the public for the first time in The Burglary.

Betty Medsger is the author of Framed: The New Right Attack on Chief Justice Rose Bird and the Courts. As head of the journalism education program at San Francisco State University, she founded the university's Center for the Integration and Improvement of Journalism. She is a founding member of Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE).

Recorded On: Wednesday, May 14, 2014