WYPL Book Talk

Martin Clark is a retired circuit court judge from Patrick County, Virginia and is the author of six novels, including Plain Heathen Mischief and The Jezebel Remedy. Today is the first half of a two-part interview about his newest novel, The Plinko Bounce which is published by Rare Bird Books. 

Maureen Corrigan is the Nicky and Jamie Grant Distinguished Professor of the Practice in Literary Criticism at Georgetown University. She is perhaps bet known as the longtime book critic for the NPR program Fresh Air and is the author of Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading, and So We Read On: How “The Great Gatsby” Came to Be and Why It Endures. Earlier this year continuing education company The Great Courses made available her series of lectures, entitled, Banned Books, Burned Books: Forbidden Literary Works. 

Stephan Pastis is best known as the writer and artist for the wildly successful daily comic strip Pearls Before Swine. The latest collection of strips, Pearls Seeks Enlightenment was recently published by Andrews McMeel Publishing. Stephan also writes novels for all ages, but the publisher says that they are great especially for middle schoolers. His Timmy Failure series was successful, even spawning the major motion picture Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made. The Trubble Town books followed in 2021 and 22. His new novel, appropriate for middle grade readers and older, is entitled, Looking Up, and it is published by Aladdin, an imprint of Simon and Schuster. 

Hayley Arceneaux is a physician's assistant with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis. Not only an employee, she is also a successful patient who recovered from pediatric cancer at St. Jude. A couple of years ago, she was offered a seat on a Space X flight to orbit the earth for three days and raise money for St. Jude. In 2022, her Memoir Wild Ride: A Memoir of I.V. Drips and Rocket Ships was published, and 2023 sees the young readers' adaptation Wild Ride: My Journey from Cancer Kid to Astronaut, which is published by Convergent Books.

I’m happy to welcome Jonathan Eig back to the program today for the second of our two-part conversation about his new, exhaustive biography of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Ent, King: A Life which is published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Jonathan is a best-selling and award-winning author of non-fiction. His titles are Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig, Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season, Get Capone: The Secret Plot That Captured America's Most Wanted Gangster, The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution, and the multi-award-winning Ali: A Life, about boxer and activist Muhammad Ali.

Jonathan Eig is a best-selling and award-winning author of non-fiction. His titles are Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig, Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season, Get Capone: The Secret Plot That Captured America's Most Wanted Gangster, The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution, and the multi-award-winning Ali: A Life, about boxer and activist Muhammad Ali. Today, we’ll begin the first of a two-part interview about his new exhaustive biography of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., King: A Life which is published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 

Polly Stewart is an associate professor in the Department of English, Rhetoric, and Humanistic Studies at Virginia Military Institute. Her essays have a appeared in The New York Times, Poets and Writers, among others. Today we will be speaking about her new novel, a thriller, entitled The Good Ones which is published by Harper. 

This week we have the second of a two-part interview as Dr. David Mason speaks with Dr. Julie Carr about her book, Mud, Blood, and Ghosts: Populism, Eugenics, and Spiritualism in the American West published by the University of Nebraska Press. David is the director of the Asian Studies Department at Rhodes College. Julie is the director of the Women’s Studies Department and professor of English at the University of Colorado Boulder. 

This week we have the first of a two-part interview as returning guest host Dr. David Mason speaks with Dr. Julie Carr about her book, Mud, Blood, and Ghosts: Populism, Eugenics, and Spiritualism in the American West published by the University of Nebraska Press. David is the director of the Asian Studies Department at Rhodes College. Julie is the director of the Women’s Studies Department and professor of English at the University of Colorado Boulder.