Steve Bertrand on Books

One of the spring’s most anticipated books is a biography of American literary icon Judy Blume. Author Mark Oppenheimer joins Steve to talk about the writer who helped us grow up and how she’s developed as she’s grown up. Blume cooperated with the writing of the book but has kept her distance from the final product.

And, would you wear a book on your purse? Coach is betting on it. They’ve created high fashion book charms for purses. Chris Kelly from Marketing Drive will explain.

In this episode, Steve talks with two authors.

Johnny Compton writes horror/fantasy stories and his latest is Dead First. Johnny has and interesting theory on horror stories. He says most of our most famous stories all have some aspect of horror in them. You might agree after you hear what he has to say.

Also in this episode we hear from Jordy Rosenberg. Jordy has created a fantastic character, who might actually be his mom. In the novel Night Night Fawn, Barbara Rosenberg is dying. She tells her story from two perspectives: one is a very funny, disgruntled Jewish woman in New York looking back on her disappointments in a way that will make you laugh while the other is a present-day Barbara hopped up on painkillers as she waits to die. Each version of Barbara complains about her child…whose sexuality she considers the biggest disappointment of her life. Jordy succeeds in tackling some of our major issues a very entertaining way.

Mark Greaney joins Steve to talk about The Hard Line, the 15th installment of his Gray Man thriller series. In the book, the intelligence community is under attack by selective assassins. It’s up to Court Gentry and his team to stop them. Greaney is well known to those who like to read on the edge of their seat. He also talks with Steve about his collaboration with Tom Clancy on Clancy’s Jack Ryan series. In fact, Greaney carried on the Ryan series after Tom Clancy died.  How’s that for pressure?

And did you know Rockford has a poet laureate? The newest laureate just took over a few weeks ago. Adam al-Sirgany talks with Steve about the poetry of living in the Midwest.

How about we get a few chuckles from the emergency room? Dr. Ashely Alker takes a light-“hearted” look at how we die in “99 Ways to Die: And How to Avoid Them”. It’s actually a fun read with a very personal origin story. Ashely’s mom was diagnosed with a serious illness and the family couldn’t keep up with the medical jargon. She went into medicine to help translate what doctors were telling telling them about her mom. Sadly, her mother died before she became a full-on doctor. And, Minnesotans are still coping with the immigration trauma, and many are doing that with a children’s book series written in the 1940s. The Betsy-Tacy books are a series of stories by Maud Hart Lovelace. They follow two young girls as they, among other things, welcome their new immigrant neighbors in the early 20th century. Columnist Aaron Brown talks with Steve about some very old books that are fueling a newfound passion.

Why is it we’re so drawn to Victorian novels? Charles Finch has some ideas. He’s the author behind the Charles Lenox detective series. His novel The Hidden City was a hit last year. Charles is also a respected book critic. That’s a job that comes with some heavy responsibility. He talks about that and about what he hears from authors who don’t like his reviews. Also, do you have a hard time putting a book aside, even if you don’t like it? Sophie Vershbow writes about that in The Atlantic. She helps Steve know when to say when.

In this episode of Steve Bertrand on Books, Steve talks with author Brad Meltzer. Brad has succeeded in every type of writing he’s explored, including television, non-fiction and even children’s books, but he’s best known for his thrillers. Brad is currently on the New York Times best seller list with The Viper. In the interview, he talks about the novel and about how he was faced with the prospect of having his own father arrested. And, are you have trouble getting into a reading routine? Turns out there’s a science behind reading habits. Steve talks reading with Associated Press science writer Adithi Ramakrishnan.

British writer Kazuo Ishiguro has been named the winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature. In 2015, he spoke with WGN Radio’s Steve Bertrand about his novel The Buried Giant:

Kazuo Ishiguro, who has won the Man Booker Prize and been awarded the O.B.E., has been called one of Britain’s most important living novelists. His latest, The Buried Giant, examines the frailty of collective memory with the story of an elderly post-King Arthur era couple on their way to visit their long lost son. Their memories aren’t altogether reliable. In this interview with Steve Bertrand on Books, Ishiguro says ours aren’t either.

The New York Times has called Alan Furst “America’s preeminent spy novelist.” His new book, A Hero of France, about the French Resistance, is the first in a long time set during the war years, rather than the eve of World War II. He talks with Steve Bertrand on Books about the novel and about the importance of learning to look at the world from someone else’s angle.

Let’s go back to Boston in 1721. Historian Stephen Coss says it was one of the most influential years in U.S. history. And why not: We meet a young Ben Franklin, a chastised Cotton Mather and the beginning American arguments over faith and science. You’ll be surprised by who is on which side. Coss talks with Steve Bertrand on Books about “The Fever of 1721.”

Anna Quindlen has been telling us what we’re thinking,  or maybe how we’re thinking, for decades. First as a columnist for Newsweek and the New York Times and now as a novelist. She talks with Steve Bertrand on Books about her latest novel, “Miller’s Valley,” with stops along the way about what it means to be home, keeping current in the fast-moving world of the internet, and, of course, the ubiquitous campaign for president.