The Reading Life

This week on The Reading Life: Susan talks with presidential historian Jeremi Suri of the University of Texas, author of “The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America’s Highest Office.” We’ll also hear from Shannan Cvitanovic, who’s the executive director of YMCA Educational Services, about ways you can make a difference in September, which is national literacy month. **Lagniappe Audio**

This week on The Reading Life: Susan talks with presidential historian Jeremi Suri of the University of Texas, author of “The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America’s Highest Office.” We’ll also hear from Shannan Cvitanovic, who’s the executive director of YMCA Educational Services, about ways you can make a difference in September, which is national literacy month. **Lagniappe Audio**

This week on The Reading Life: Susan talks with poet and memoirist Alice Anderson, author of "Some Bright Morning, I’ll Fly Away: A Memoir. " We’ll also hear from comedian Mike Strecker, whose new books are "The Young Comic’s Guide to Telling Jokes, Books 1 and 2."

This week on The Reading Life: Susan talks with the winners of the 2017 Diana Pinckley Prizes for Crime Fiction. Canadian novelist Louise Penny, whose new Chief Inspector Armand Gamache mystery is Glass Houses, i s the recipient of the Prize for a Distinguished Body of Work. She will make her first visit to New Orleans on her book tour. Former homicide detective and hostage negotiator Trudy Nan Boyce of Atlanta, is the winner of the Debut Novel Prize for Out of the Blues. The Prizes will be

This week on The Reading Life: New Orleans essayist and New Orleans Center for Creative Arts teacher Anne Gisleson talks about her powerful new memoir, "The Futilitarians: Our Year of Thinking, Drinking, Grieving, and Reading. " After you turn the last page, you'll be ready to form your own Existential Crisis Reading Group!

This week on The Reading Life: Susan talks with bestselling author Erica Spindler about her chilling new suspense novel, "The Other Girl , " perfect for that last trip to the beach. And New Orleans native Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, who's making a big debut with her remarkable novel, "A Kind of Freedom ," describes her switch from practicing law to writing wonderful fiction.

This week on The Reading Life: Susan talks with Ladee Hubbard about her debut novel, "The Talented Ribkins." We’ll also hear from journalist Tom Sancton about "The Bettencourt Affair: The World’s Richest Woman and the Scandal that Rocked Paris."

This week on The Reading Life: Bill Fagaly, former curator at the New Orleans Museum of Art, talks about about his wonderful essay in "Pride of Place: The Making of Contemporary Art in New Orleans," about the Arthur Roer Gift to the New Orleans Museum of Art. Literacy activist Megan Holt previews the citywide reading initiative, One Book One New Orleans, and this year's selection, "Counting Descent," by poet Clint Smith.

This week on The Reading Life: Susan talks with Louisiana State Librarian Rebecca Hamilton. We’ll also hear from book artists Jessica Peterson and Sara White, who have an exhibit, "Convergence," up at Antenna Gallery Reading Room. Jessica also offers book arts classes at her studio, Southern Letterpress. **Lagniappe Audio**

This week on The Reading Life: Susan talks with Julia Glass, whose wonderful new novel is A House Among the Trees ; she has fond memories of her career taking off after she won the Pirate's Alley Faulkner Society's prize for novella. Ellen Gilchrist, who's coming to town this week, talks about the hard won wisdom that comes with time in her new collection, Things Like the Truth: Out of My Later Years .