Tell Me What You’re Reading

Tell Me What You’re Reading

By Howard AltarescuSociety & Culture
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Tell Me What You’re Reading episodes

  • No. 31: Charlotte Cross - Reading to write, and novels about "marginalized characters" (The Brides of Dracula, etc.)
    Charlotte Cross of Oxford, England is working on a tale of the “Brides of Dracula”, following in the footsteps of other novels that have given voice to “marginalized characters”, characters (usually women) who haven't been given the chance to speak in the originals. These others include The Silence of the Girls, by Pat Barker and Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys. Charlotte discusses those books, and others, as well as her writing process. Charlotte also discusses the books she has recently read: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Bronte, Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, and Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott.
    23 min
  • Ep. #30: Michael Koryta - The Chill, a horror/suspense/disaster/ supernatural novel written under the pen name, Scott Carson

    Recorded March 2020/ COVID Delayed/ Published Nov. 2020  .... Michael Koryta, a New York Times-bestselling author of 14 novels, a novella, and multiple short stories discusses his latest novel, The Chill, written under the pen name Scott Carson. The Chill is a story of the fictional town of Galesburg in the Catskill mountains in upstate New York, and about its residents who many years before, generations before, were displaced by the government when the properties where their homes were located were taken to create a reservoir, the Chillewaukee, to meet the water needs of New York City. Their town, Galesburg, was devastated and the residents at the time have not forgotten. The story, save for the supernatural and certain of the more dramatic elements of Michael’s book, is similar to the story of the building of the Ashokan Reservoir in the Catskills, which I discussed on a podcast last year with our friend, painter and printmaker, Kate McGloughlin.

    19 min
  • Ep. #29: Andrew Wilcox - Richard Ravitz and Paul Volcker memoirs, Lewis’ The Fifth Risk, JFK, Nixon, and Lepore’s masterpiece, These Truths, A History of the United States

    Andrew Wilcox discusses So Much to Do: A Full Life of Business, Politics, and Confronting Fiscal Crises, a memoir by Richard Ravitz, former head of the New York State Urban Development Corporation and of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority; Keeping At It, by former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker; The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis; JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917‒1956, by Fredrik Logevall; Being Nixon: A Man Divided, by Evan Thomas; and These Truths, A History of the United States, by Jill Lepore

    28 min
  • Ep #28: Andrew Rice - Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bronx is Burning 1977, Baseball, Politics, and the Battle for the Soul of a City
    Andrew Rice discusses Jonathan Mahler's book, Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bronx is Burning 1977, Baseball, Politics, and the Battle for the Soul of a City, which includes stories of New York City in 1977, the mayoralty race, Cuomo, Koch (Bess Meyerson), Bella, Giuliani, Bloomberg, LaGuardia, The Daily News, The New York Post, New York Magazine, Murdoch (Succession), Breslin, Hamill, Steinbrenner, Reggie, Billy Martin, Thurman, Cosell, Son of Sam, Bed Stuy, Bushwick, South Bronx, Reverend Jesse Jackson, Saturday Night Live, Rolling Stone, Studio 54, Tavern on the Green, Windows on the World, Elaine’s, Maxwell’s Plum (Warner LeRoy), Jim MacMullen’s,  etc.
    Andrew also discusses his forthcoming book, A Popular History of the Year 2000 in the State of Florida, which will describe the Bush v. Gore election controversy ("the most wild and improbable election outcome you can imagine - so far"); the pilots planning 9/11 who were training at flight centers on Florida, for 18 months before the attacks; Donald Trump's presidential run as a Reform Party candidate; young Cuban kid, Elian Gonzalez, washed up on the shore in Miami; enraged Cuban community in Florida, determinative in Presidential election; resulted in 24hour coverage (the first reality television); and an arms dealing, money laundering case ("the most obscure but most fascinating tale"). giCFrjk28vXx9A4GkET1.
    45 min
  • Ep #27: Rob Chesnut - Intentional Integrity - How Smart Companies Can Lead an Ethical Revolution— and Why That’s Good for All of Us
    Rob Chesnut discusses his new book Intentional Integrity - How Smart Companies Can Lead an Ethical Revolution— and Why That’s Good for All of Us, and explains how intentional integrity and intentional inclusion make companies more attractive to employees and to customers, and make such companies out-performers as well.
    Rob began his journey in the U.S. Justice Department, including as a federal prosecutor, and then he joined eBay as an early employee and ultimately had responsibility for overseeing all site rules and policies for the eBay global community of over 150 million users. Rob later was General Counsel of LiveOps, Inc. and then of Chegg. Most recently, Rob was General Counsel and then Chief Ethics Officer of Airbnb.
    26 min
  • Ep. #26 Allen Guy Wilcox – A Gentleman in Moscow
    Allen Guy Wilcox, founding Artistic Director of The Theater at Woodshill, a not for profit summer Shakespeare festival in central New York, discusses "A Gentleman in Moscow” by Amor Towles, an elegant, historical novel in post revolutionary Moscow, expounding on the literature, poetry and classical music of the time, and on the timelessness of friendship, children, parenting, food and wine, and on the pace of life itself. Grand entertainment, and more, surrounding the life of Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov. "He was wise enough to know that life does not proceed by leaps and bounds. It unfolds. At any given moment, it is the manifestation of a thousand transitions. Our faculties wax and wane, our experiences accumulate, and our opinions evolve - if not glacially, then at least gradually. Such that the events of an average day are as likely to transform who we are as a pinch of pepper is to transform a stew."
    25 min
  • Ep. #25: Camilla Calhoun - The White Moth
    Camilla Calhoun discusses The White Moth, a beautifully told, moving and lovely memoir, both historical and very personal. Much of the story takes place on a 15th century farm villa in Tuscany during very challenging times in Italy, from the 1930s to the 1970s: wars, political upheaval, deprivation, fascism, occupation and change. The book is very much a tribute to Camilla’s rock of a mother-in-law, Alda Innocenti Rafanelli. The tribute is offered in the form of Camilla’s memoir of what was intended to be a sojourn in Italy to pursue her passion for writing, her romance with and marriage to Alda’s son, Aldo and eventually a story of three generations at the villa.
    28 min
  • Ep. # 24: 2020 Book Club - Kendra Dodson Breitsprecher, owner/editor of Dayton Leader newspaper in Iowa, discusses bios written by Dem Pres. caucus candidates.
    When Andrea Phillips, who was then Vice Chair of the Iowa Democratic Party, started a book club to encourage her fellow Iowans to read the books written by the 2020 Democratic party Presidential candidates, my wife Carol and I heard Andrea interviewed on MSNBC. Andrea said that Iowa Democrats take their role in vetting the presidential candidates seriously, and that she hoped the book club would help voters know the candidates better so that people can make a good decision on caucus night, which is on February 3.
    Andrea decided to launch the 2020 Book Club and to put up a 2020 Book Club Facebook page so that Iowans, and others as well, could have a forum to discuss the books written by all of the Democratic presidential candidates.
    After hearing the interview, I immediately thought that we should do a podcast discussion of the books authored by the candidates and I tracked down Andrea on FaceBook.
    Andrea is now busy full time seeking the Iowa House District 37 seat, but we were really fortunate to have the opportunity to have a discussion with Kendra Dodson Breitsprecher, the owner and editor of the Dayton Leader newspaper in Dayton, Iowa, a small town located in the middle of the state. Kendra is also a charter member of the 2020 Book Club.
    38 min
  • Ep. #23 Uli Beutter Cohen: Mona Eltahawy, Alexander Chee, Ocean Vuong, Erin Williams, Lauren Duca
    After discussing the Subway Book Review project in our Episode 22, Uli Beutter Cohen and I discussed five books that Uli has recently read and recommends: How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee, an essay collection by a Korean American artist and activist; The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls by Mona Eltahawy, which has been referred to as a striking anti-patriarchal manifesto written by an Egyptian American activist, “with enough rage to fuel a rocket”; On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong Ocean is a young Vietnamese-American writer — born in Saigon, he was raised in Hartford, Connecticut and his book is semi-autobiographical and speaks to his experiences as an immigrant and a gay man; COMMUTE - An Illustrated Memoir of Female Shame by author and illustrator Erin Williams, which has been referred to as intimate, clever, and ultimately gut-wrenching graphic memoir about the daily decision women must make between being sexualized or being invisible; and How to Start a Revolution, by Lauren Duca. To compliment Chee’s work, Uli also mentioned and discussed Bird by Bird: Instructions on Writing and Life, Anne Lamott; and Devotion: Why I Write, Patti Smith
    23 min
  • Ep. #22 Subway Book Review: Uli Beutter Cohen
    For the last five years, Uli Beutter Cohen has been talking with people on New York City subways about the books she sees them reading on the subway. Uli refers to her Subway Book Review as a social media project.  The project now also has contributors in Washington D.C., London, Berlin, Milan, Barcelona, Mexico City, Sydney, and Santiago.  Discussions with subway readers, pictures of the readers and their books are posted on Instagram @subwaybookreview.
    21 min

About Tell Me What You’re Reading

From the publisher's feed

Talking about books on the streets of New York, in the mountains of the Catskills and on the road. I find that when I ask people about what they’re reading, they tend to start talking about books generally and then start talking to others about books. Encouraging the discussion of books cannot be a bad thing!