Shows
Read Learn Live PodcastBeloved Beasts – Ep 87 with Michelle NijhuisA vibrant history of the modern conservation movement―told through the lives and ideas of the people who built it.In the late nineteenth century, as humans came to realize that our rapidly industrializing and globalizing societies were driving other animal species to extinction, a movement to protect and conserve them was born. In Beloved Beasts, acclaimed science journalist Michelle Nijhuis traces the movement’s history: from early battles to save charismatic species such as the American bison and bald eagle to today’s global effort to defend life on a larger scale.She descri...
2021-04-0456 min
Read Learn Live PodcastBeloved Beasts - Ep 87 with Michelle NijhuisHost Jon Menaster interviews author Michelle Nijhuis about the birth and history of the modern conservation movement across the world, and its ongoing efforts to save endangered (and not so endangered) animals from extinction.
2021-04-0456 minRead Learn Live PodcastA Beginner’s Guide to America – Ep 86 with Roya HakakianA stirring, witty, and poignant glimpse into the bewildering American immigrant experience from someone who has lived it. Also, a mirror held up to America.Into the maelstrom of unprecedented contemporary debates about immigrants in the United States, this perfectly timed book gives us a portrait of what the new immigrant experience in America is really like. Written as a “guide” for the newly arrived, and providing “practical information and advice,” Roya Hakakian, an immigrant herself, reveals what those who settle here love about the country, what they miss about their homes, the cruelty of some Americans, and the...
2021-03-1249 min
2021-03-1249 minRead Learn Live PodcastThe Women’s History of the Modern World – Ep 85 with Rosalind MilesThe internationally bestselling author of Who Cooked the Last Supper? presents a wickedly witty and very current history of the extraordinary female rebels, reactionaries, and trailblazers who left their mark on history from the French Revolution up to the present day.Now is the time for a new women’s history — for the famous, infamous, and unsung women to get their due — from the Enlightenment to the #MeToo movement.Recording the important milestones in the birth of the modern feminist movement and the rise of women into greater social, economic, and political power, Miles takes us thro...
2021-02-071h 00
2021-02-071h 00Read Learn Live PodcastMental Illness and Graphic Novel as Memoir – Ep 84 with Joshua KembleJosh thought he was living the artist’s dream. The young, ambitious comic book creator had a hip Portland apartment, an affectionate fiancé, and his whole life ahead of him. Until the night he finds himself on Burnside Bridge, willing himself to jump. How did he get here? Two Stories is a confessional graphic memoir that grapples with questions of faith, mental illness, depravity, and, ultimately, redemption in a fallen world.Here’s a great trailer for the book:Joshua Kemble is a full-time art director, freelance illustrator, and Xeric Award-winning cartoonist. His illustration clients have...
2021-01-051h 04
2021-01-051h 04Read Learn Live PodcastDon’t Judge a College Athlete by Their Cover – Ep 83 with Corey SobelThe Redshirt challenges tenacious stereotypes, shedding new light on the hypermasculine world of American football. Over the course of their first year playing for a Division One college football program that is willing to win at all costs, roommates Miles Furling and Reshawn McCoy are forced to choose between their true selves and the selves that have been imposed on them by the game.Corey Sobel’s debut novel, The Redshirt, was published by the New Poetry & Prose Series at the University Press of Kentucky on October 13, 2020. The Redshirt is a finalist for the Center for Fiction’s Fir...
2020-12-021h 09
Read Learn Live PodcastDon't Judge a College Athlete by Their Cover - Ep 83 with Corey SobelThe Redshirt challenges tenacious stereotypes, shedding new light on the hypermasculine world of American football. Over the course of their first year playing for a Division One college football program that is willing to win at all costs, roommates Miles Furling and Reshawn McCoy are forced to choose between their true selves and the selves that have been imposed on them by the game.
2020-12-021h 09Read Learn Live PodcastA Mayan Creation Story – Ep 82 with Ilan StavansPopul Vuh: A Retelling is an inspired and urgent prose retelling of the Mayan myth of creation by acclaimed Latin American author and scholar Ilan Stavans, gorgeously illustrated by Salvadoran folk artist Gabriela Larios and introduced by renowned author, diplomat, and environmental activist Homero Aridjis.The archetypal creation story of Latin America, the Popul Vuh began as a Maya oral tradition millennia ago. In the mid-sixteenth century, as indigenous cultures across the continent were being threatened with destruction by European conquest and Christianity, it was written down in verse by members of the K’iche’ nobility in what...
2020-11-0149 min
2020-11-0149 minRead Learn Live PodcastStories From a Syrian Refugee – Ep 81 with Perween RichardsDrawn from her experiences of growing up as a young woman in the ‘world’s largest prison’—Gaza—Nayrouz Qarmout’s stories in The Sea Cloak (translated by Perween Richards) stitch together a stirring patchwork of perspectives exploring what it means to be a Palestinian today. Whether following the daily struggles of orphaned children fighting to survive in the rubble of recent bombardments, or mapping the complex tensions between political forces vying to control Palestinian lives, these stories offer a rare insight into one of the most talked about but least understood cities in the Middle East. Taken together, they afford...
2020-10-1545 min
Read Learn Live PodcastStories from a Syrian refugee - Ep 81 with Perween RichardsDrawn from her experiences of growing up as a young woman in the 'world's largest prison'-Gaza-Nayrouz Qarmout's stories stitch together a stirring patchwork of perspectives exploring what it means to be a Palestinian today.
2020-10-1545 minRead Learn Live PodcastYou Ought To Do A Story About Me – Ep 80 with Ted JacksonYou Ought To Do A Story About Me: Addiction, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Endless Quest for Redemption is the heartbreaking, timeless, and redemptive story of the transformative friendship binding a fallen-from-grace NFL player and a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist who meet on the streets of New Orleans, offering a rare glimpse into the precarious world of homelessness and the lingering impact of systemic racism and poverty on the lives of NOLA’s citizens. Author Ted Jackson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist and the author of YOU OUGHT TO DO A STORY ABOUT ME, an unlikely tale that bega...
2020-08-2352 min
Read Learn Live PodcastYou Ought To Do A Story About Me - Ep 80 with Ted JacksonPulitzer-Prize winning photojournalist Ted Jackson is interviewed by Jon Menaster about his unlikely friendship with a homeless NFL player.
2020-08-2352 min
The Faster, Easier, Better ShowThe Jon Menaster Interview episodeIn just our second interview, Lee and Ellen sit down and talk with Jon Menaster of the Read Learn Live Podcast. In this longer than usual episode we talk about: • reading (and not watching television) • using technology to be more efficient, including: - obsessive calendar use (Google Calendar) - the Todoist app for digital to-do lists (https://todoist.com/) - Joplin. An opensource, digital notebook (https://joplinapp.org/) - Garage Band for editing podcasts or other recordings (https://www.apple.com/mac/garageband/) - Pocket app - keep articles to read on the go...
2020-08-0336 minRead Learn Live PodcastE.E. Cummings And The Great War – Ep 79 with Alison RosenblittAn incisive biography of E. E. Cummings’s early life, including his World War I ambulance service and subsequent imprisonment, inspirations for his inventive poetry.E. E. Cummings is one of our most popular and enduring poets, one whose name extends beyond the boundaries of the literary world. Renowned for his formally fractured, gleefully alive poetry, Cummings is not often thought of as a war poet. But his experience in France and as a prisoner during World War I (the basis for his first work of prose, The Enormous Room) escalated his earliest breaks with conventional form?th...
2020-08-0154 min
2020-08-0154 minRead Learn Live PodcastOur Moral Character – Ep 78 with Christian B. MillerWe like to think of ourselves, our friends, and our families as decent people. We may not be saints, but we are still honest, relatively kind, and mostly trustworthy. Author and philosopher Christian B. Miller argues in his new book, “The Character Gap: How Good Are We?” that we are badly mistaken in thinking this. Hundreds of recent studies in psychology tell a different story: that we all have serious character flaws that prevent us from being as good as we think we are – and that we do not even recognize that these flaws exist. But neither are most of us...
2020-07-1656 min
2020-07-1656 minRead Learn Live PodcastIn Praise of Walking - Ep 77 with Shane O'MaraIn this captivating book, neuroscientist Shane O’Mara invites us to marvel at the benefits walking confers on our bodies and brains, and to appreciate the advantages of this uniquely human skill. From walking’s evolutionary origins, traced back millions of years to life forms on the ocean floor, to new findings from cutting-edge research, he reveals how the brain and nervous system give us the ability to balance, weave through a crowded city, and run our “inner GPS” system. Walking is good for our muscles and posture; it helps to protect and repair organs, and can slow or turn bac...
2020-06-2751 minRead Learn Live PodcastHow To Get things DONE – Ep 76 with Ellen GoodwinDONE: How To Work When No One is Watching is a hands-on guidebook that teaches, through stories, examples, and activities how working with (and around) your brain, can make all the difference in what can be accomplished every day; the importance of being in action (and not motion); the best way to prevent obstacles from stopping you; how to easily build stronger and better habits; why it’s more important to manage you energy instead of your time, and why one-size does not fit all when it comes to productivity. It’s also kind of funny.Ellen Good...
2020-06-1457 minRead Learn Live PodcastBaseball's Swing Kings - Ep 75 with Jared DiamondFrom the Wall Street Journal’s national baseball writer, the captivating story of the home run boom, following a group of players who rose from obscurity to stardom and the rogue swing coaches who helped them usher the game into a new age.Swing Kings is both a rollicking history of baseball’s recent past and a deeply reported, character-driven account of a battle between opponents as old as time: old and new, change and stasis, the establishment and those who break from it. Jared Diamond has written a masterful chronicle of America’s pastime at the crossroa...
2020-05-251h 00Read Learn Live PodcastFairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space – Ep 74 with Amanda LeducIf every disabled character is mocked and mistreated, how does the Beast ever imagine a happily-ever-after? Amanda Leduc looks at fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm to Disney, showing us how they influence our expectations and behaviour and linking the quest for disability rights to new kinds of stories that celebrate difference. Amanda Leduc is a disabled writer and author of the non-fiction book DISFIGURED: ON FAIRY TALES, DISABILITY, AND MAKING SPACE (Coach House Books, 2020) and the novel THE MIRACLES OF ORDINARY MEN (2013, ECW Press). Her next novel, THE CENTAUR’S WIFE, is forthcoming from Random House Ca...
2020-05-0853 minRead Learn Live PodcastJimmy and the Kid – Ep 73 with Lee SilberWhen a twelve year-old girl wants to play baseball with the boys, she’s lucky to have the help of Jimmy Parks, a former Major Leaguer and someone with the power to change her life forever. Escaping to the empty baseball fields across the street from the military housing in which she lives, Billie is content to throw a ball against the wall, pitching imaginary games with no one around—until she meets Jimmy Parks, the man who maintains the fields. Not only does the long-retired Major Leaguer teach Billie and her new friends how to p...
2020-04-2246 minRead Learn Live PodcastThe Amateurs – Ep 72 with Liz Harmer“The Amateurs” is a speculative novel of rapture and romance in the vein of Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood and Tom Perotta’s The Leftovers. In the near future, the world’s largest tech company unveils the “Port”, a personal time travel device. It becomes a phenomenon. But soon it is clear that those who pass through its portal won’t be coming back–either unwilling to return or, more ominously, unable to do so. After a few short years, the population plummets. A small group of the one percent still remain in the present, having be...
2020-03-1548 minRead Learn Live PodcastA Flag of No Nation – Ep 71 with Tom HavivA meditation on world invention and collapse, A Flag of No Nation traces the stories of Turkish Jews in the 20th century, blind colonists in a white ocean, and performers enacting new rituals around a nationless flag. Through forms of storytelling that range from allegory to oral history, Tom Haviv investigates the history of Israel/Palestine and the mythologies of nationalism. A warning against imperfect dreams, and invitation to imagine something new, A Flag of No Nation reminds us how the act of remembrance can help us re-envision the future.Tom Haviv is a writer, multimedia artist...
2020-02-2758 minRead Learn Live PodcastThe Lost Book of Adana Moreau – Ep 70 with Michael ZapataThe Lost Book of Adana Moreau is the mesmerizing story of a Latin American science fiction writer and the lives her lost manuscript unites decades later in post-Katrina New Orleans.In 1929 in New Orleans, a Dominican immigrant named Adana Moreau writes a science fiction novel. The novel earns rave reviews, and Adana begins a sequel. Then she falls gravely ill. Just before she dies, she destroys the only copy of the manuscript.Decades later in Chicago, Saul Drower is cleaning out his dead grandfather’s home when he discovers a mysterious manuscript written by none ot...
2020-02-1351 minRead Learn Live PodcastEven That Wildest Hope – Ep 69 with Seyward GoodhandEven That Wildest Hope bursts with vibrant, otherworldly characters—wax girls and gods-among-men, artists on opposite sides of a war, aimless plutocrats and anarchist urchins—who are sometimes wondrous, often grotesque, and always driven by passions and yearnings common to us all. Each story is an untamed territory unto itself: where characters are both victims and predators, the settings are antique and futuristic, and where our intimacies—with friends, lovers, enemies, and even our food—reveal a deeply human desire for beauty and abjection. Seyward Goodhand’s work has been shortlisted for the Writers’ Trust/McClelland & Stewart Journey Priz...
2020-01-0947 minRead Learn Live PodcastAlways Blue – Ep 68 with John Dermot WoodsAlways Blue is a work of literary science fiction that explores how our day-to-day struggles and inconveniences—irritating colleagues, entitled students, aloof administrators, uninspired lunch choices—can make it impossible to see the real threats to our world.John Dermot Woods writes stories and draws comics in Brooklyn, NY. His books include the novel, The Baltimore Atrocities, published by Coffee House Press, and a collection of comics with the title Activities (published by Publishing Genius Press). He recently published a science fiction chapbook, Always Blue, as part of Radix Media’s FUTURES series. He is a founder of the...
2019-12-1947 minRead Learn Live PodcastThe Friar’s Lantern – Ep 67 with Greg HickeyYou may win $1,000,000. You will judge a man of murder.An eccentric scientist tells you he can read your mind and offers to prove it in a high-stakes wager. A respected college professor exacts impassioned, heat-of-the-moment revenge on his wife’s killer—a week after her death—and you’re on the jury. Take a Turing test with a twist, discover how your future choices might influence the past, and try your luck at Three Card Monte. And while you weigh chance, superstition, destiny, intuition and logic in making your decisions, ask yourself: are you responsible for your actions...
2019-12-0600 minRead Learn Live PodcastMy Penguin Year – Ep 66 with Lindsay McCraeFor 337 days, award-winning wildlife cameraman Lindsay McCrae intimately followed 11,000 emperor penguins amid the singular beauty of Antarctica. This is his masterful chronicle of one penguin colony’s astonishing journey of life, death, and rebirth―and of the extraordinary human experience of living amongst them in the planet’s harshest environment.My Penguin Year recounts McCrae’s remarkable adventure to the end of the Earth. He observed every aspect of a breeding emperor’s life, facing the inevitable sacrifices that came with living his childhood dream, and grappling with the personal obstacles that, being over 15,000km away from the comfor...
2019-11-2156 min
Read Learn Live PodcastMy Penguin Year - Ep 66 with Lindsay McCraeHost Jon Menaster speaks with Lindsay McCrae about his book My Penguin Year. For 337 days, award-winning wildlife cameraman Lindsay McCrae intimately followed 11,000 emperor penguins amid the singular beauty of Antarctica. This is his masterful chronicle of one penguin colony’s astonishing journey of life, death, and rebirth―and of the extraordinary human experience of living amongst them in the planet’s harshest environment.
2019-11-2156 minRead Learn Live PodcastCaregiving and Caretaking – Ep 65 with Germ LynnWhat You Call is a glimpse into the future and part of the Radix Media science fiction chapbook series, Futures. It’s the story of a rogue “support unit” that is desperate for a charge and along the way they try to cobble together a sense of purpose in a crumbling world.Germ Lynn is a writer and cellist living in Brooklyn. As a journalist, they have been published by Playboy, Broadly, and Slate. Their short fiction has been published by Hypergraphic Press in the queer literature anthology Spaces We Have Known and their poetry has been publis...
2019-10-1752 minRead Learn Live PodcastLandscape Architecture, California Style – Ep 64 with Kelly ComrasLandscape architect Ruth Shellhorn helped define the distinctive mid-century regional aesthetic of Southern California. Most well known for her work with Walt Disney on the original design of Disneyland, she also designed original landscape plans for the Bullock’s department stores and Fashion Square shopping centers, a landscape master plan for the University of California at Riverside, and a number of private gardens and estates for post-war movie stars, and the business and financial leaders of the Los Angeles region. She developed a distinctive palette of plant materials and her landscape designs refined an indoor-outdoor living concept that perfectly ex...
2019-09-2554 minRead Learn Live PodcastFrench Youth Resistance in World War II – Ep 63 with Ronald RosbottomThe author of the acclaimed When Paris Went Dark, longlisted for the National Book Award, returns to World War II once again to tell the incredible story of the youngest members of the French Resistance—many only teenagers—who waged a hidden war against the Nazi occupiers and their collaborators in Paris and across France. Sudden Courage: Youth in France Confront the Germans, 1940-1945 is available now.Ronald Rosbottom is the Winifred L. Arms Professor in the Arts and Humanities and a professor of French, European Studies, and Architectural Studies at Amherst College. Previously he was the dean...
2019-09-181h 00Read Learn Live PodcastUnlonely Planet – Ep 62 with Jillian RichardsonYou can live the loneliest life while being surrounded by people. You can be the busiest person and still feel unfulfilled. In an age when individualism and self-reliance are prized above all other traits, how can we feel connected? Where are our healthy congregations? Do we even know what those are anymore?Enter, Unlonely Planet. This book is your roadmap to defining joy in your life and reconnecting with the community around you — whether that’s through traditional events and gatherings or by shaking things up and making one of your own. If you’re ready to live a...
2019-09-051h 01Read Learn Live PodcastFamily and Identity – Ep 61 with Hal Y. ZhangIn this episode Jon speaks with Hal Y. Zhang, author of Hard Mother, Spider Mother, Soft Mother. Hard Mother, Spider Mother, Soft Mother is a story about the imprecise nature of memories and how they affect our relationships. You can read an excerpt here.The story follows Ellery Lang, whose mother Valerie has abruptly left their home after several days of spouting increasingly strangeconspiracy theories. In a near future world where citizens are alwayswatched and where “personalization” is part of every day life, Valeriehas managed to stay in an era long...
2019-08-2141 minRead Learn Live PodcastThe Cape Cod National Seashore – Ep 60 with Ethan CarrIn the mid-nineteenth century,Thoreau recognized the importance of preserving the complex and fragilelandscape of Cape Cod, with its weathered windmills, expansive beaches,dunes, wetlands, harbors, and the lives that flourished here, supportedby the maritime industries and saltworks. One hundred years later, theNational Park Service―working with a group of concerned locals,then-senator John F. Kennedy, and other supporters―took on the challenge of meeting the needs of a burgeoning public in this region of uniquenatural beauty and cultural heritage.To those who were settled in
2019-07-0359 minRead Learn Live PodcastDauntless Women – Ep 59 with Caitlin Grace McDonnellIntroducing “Fierce”, thirteen powerful, entwined biographies and memoirs that describe a staunchly Feminist approach: “To thine own self be true.” Historical documentation of human affairs informs the past, but what of the understated and overlooked herstories of half of the world’s population? Fierce explores the lives of “masterless women” in education, entrepreneurship, religion, the armed forces, the arts, adventuring, and activism, celebrating their strengths and achievements while questioning the systems that erased the significance of their influence and importance. The writers range in age from their 20s to their 60s, and they hail from diverse heritages and orientations. By sharing the...
2019-06-2034 minRead Learn Live PodcastAloha Rodeo – Ep 58 with David WolmanIn the spirit of The Boys in the Boat comes the captivating true story of the native Hawaiian cowboys who traveled to Wyoming in 1908 to compete at the “world championships” of rodeo, overcoming prejudice to beat the greatest white cowboys at their own game and return home American legends. David Wolman is a Contributing Editor at Outside and a longtime contributor at Wired. He has written for the New York Times, New Yorker, Nature, BusinessWeek, and many other publications, and his work has been anthologized in the Best American Science and Nature Writing series. David is the auth...
2019-06-0559 minRead Learn Live PodcastThe Casket of Time – Ep 57 with Andri MagnasonThe world, according to Grace, is under an ancient curse. There once was a princess named Obsidiana, who was trapped in time by the greedy king of Pangea. To protect Obsidiana from dark and gloomy days, the king put her in a crystal casket made of spider silk woven so tightly that time itself couldn’t penetrate. The king’s greed for power doomed his kingdom and the trapped princess. Sigrun sees eerie parallels between the tale of Obsidiana and the present-day crisis, and realizes it’s up to her and her friends to break the ancient curse and fix th...
2019-05-221h 01Read Learn Live PodcastWaking Up To The Dark, Part 2 – Ep 56 with Clark StrandWaking Up to the Dark is a book for those of us who awakenin the night and don’t know why we can’t get back to sleep, and a bookfor those of us who have grown uncomfortable in real darkness—which weso rarely experience these days, since our first impulse is always toturn on the light. Most of all, it is a book for those of us who wonder about our souls: When the lights are always on, when there is alwaysnoise around us, do our souls have t...
2019-05-0836 minRead Learn Live PodcastWaking Up To The Dark, Part 1 – Ep 55 with Clark StrandWaking Up to the Dark is a book for those of us who awaken in the night and don’t know why we can’t get back to sleep, and a book for those of us who have grown uncomfortable in real darkness—which we so rarely experience these days, since our first impulse is always to turn on the light. Most of all, it is a book for those of us who wonder about our souls: When the lights are always on, when there is always noise around us, do our souls have the nourishment they need in which...
2019-04-2447 minRead Learn Live PodcastLeading Imperfectly – Ep 54 with James T. RobilottaIn today’s episode, Jon interviews author James T. Robilotta about his book Leading Imperfectly: The value of being authentic for leaders, professionals and human beings.There is a problem in today’s developing leaders-they think they need to be someone they are not to get what they want. In short, none of us is perfect, and when we pretend to be, people quit listening to us. Instead, we need to focus on trying to connect with others. Leading Imperfectly is full of examples for how to make those connections. The book is divided into a series of s...
2019-04-101h 07Read Learn Live PodcastThe Body Papers (Part 2) – Ep 53 with Grace TalusanJon speaks with author Grace Talusan about her book The Body Papers.Born in the Philippines, young Grace Talusan moves with her family to a New England suburb in the 1970s. At school, she confronts racism as one of the few kids with a brown face. At home, the confusion is worse: her grandfather’s nightly visits to her room leave her hurt and terrified, and she learns to build a protective wall of silence that maps onto the larger silence practiced by her Catholic Filipino family. Talusan learns as a teenager that her family’s legal stat...
2019-03-2842 minRead Learn Live PodcastThe Body Papers (Part 1) – Ep 52 with Grace TalusanJon speaks with author Grace Talusan about her book The Body Papers.Born in the Philippines, young Grace Talusan moves with her family to a New England suburb in the 1970s. At school, she confronts racism as one of the few kids with a brown face. At home, the confusion is worse: her grandfather’s nightly visits to her room leave her hurt and terrified, and she learns to build a protective wall of silence that maps onto the larger silence practiced by her Catholic Filipino family. Talusan learns as a teenager that her family’s legal stat...
2019-03-1338 minRead Learn Live PodcastThe Stories of Their Lives – Ep 51 with Lisa GornickJon interviews author Lisa Gornick about her newest novel, The Peacock Feast. Spanning the twentieth century and three continents, The Peacock Feast ricochets from Manhattan to San Francisco, from the decadent mansions of the Tiffany family to the death row of a Texas prison, and from the London consultation room of Anna Freud to a Mendocino commune. With psychological acuity and aching eloquence, Lisa Gornick has written a sweeping family drama, an exploration of the meaning of art and the art of dying, and an illuminating portrait of how our decisions reverberate across time and space.Lisa...
2019-02-2849 minRead Learn Live PodcastWhy Biodiversity is Good – Ep 50 with Rob DunnEven when the floors are sparkling clean and the house seems silent, our domestic domain is wild beyond imagination. In Never Home Alone, biologist Rob Dunn introduces us to the nearly 200,000 species living with us in our own homes, from the Egyptian meal moths in our cupboards and camel crickets in our basements to the lactobacillus lounging on our kitchen counters. You are not alone. Yet, as we obsess over sterilizing our homes and separating our spaces from nature, we are unwittingly cultivating an entirely new playground for evolution. These changes are reshaping the organisms that live with...
2019-01-3157 minRead Learn Live PodcastRobert Murray Sculpture – Ep 49 with Jonathan LippincottSpanning six decades, Robert Murray: Sculpture includes photographs of nearly two hundred works, seen in galleries, museums, and private collections, at public outdoor exhibitions, in his studios, and in the workshops of his fabricators. Jonathan D. Lippincott’s introduction and interview with Murray cover the sculptor’s process of working with fabricators and foundries, issues of public art and the siting of sculpture, Murray’s early years, his close friendship with Barnett Newman and relationships with other artists, his lifelong interest in flying, and more, insightfully illuminating both the work and the life of his remarkable sculptor. Jonath...
2019-01-1750 minRead Learn Live PodcastHow Hormones Control Just About Everything – Ep 48 with Randi Hutter EpsteinA guided tour through the strange science of hormones and the age-old quest to control them. Metabolism, behavior, sleep, mood swings, the immune system, fighting, fleeing, puberty, and sex: these are just a few of the things our bodies control with hormones. Armed with a healthy dose of wit and curiosity, medical journalist Randi Hutter Epstein takes us on a journey through the unusual history of these potent chemicals from a basement filled with jarred nineteenth-century brains to a twenty-first-century hormone clinic in Los Angeles. Brimming with fascinating anecdotes, illuminating new medical research, and humorous details, Aroused introduces the...
2018-12-011h 01Read Learn Live PodcastChasing Prosperity in Mozambique (Part 2) – Ep 47 with Rowan Moore GeretyGo Tell the Crocodiles explores the efforts of ordinary people to provide for themselves where foreign aid, the formal economy, and the government have fallen short. I tell the story of contemporary Mozambique through the stories of people on the margins, from a street kid who flouts Mozambique’s child labor laws to make his living selling muffins, to a riverside community that has lost dozens of people to crocodile attacks. Amy Wilentz captured it well in a blurb saying Mozambique is “a country that has managed the troubling feat of failing its people while showing signs of stunning econ...
2018-11-1122 minRead Learn Live PodcastChasing Prosperity in Mozambique (Part 1) – Ep 46 with Rowan Moore GeretyGo Tell the Crocodiles explores the efforts of ordinary people to provide for themselves where foreign aid, the formal economy, and the government have fallen short. I tell the story of contemporary Mozambique through the stories of people on the margins, from a street kid who flouts Mozambique’s child labor laws to make his living selling muffins, to a riverside community that has lost dozens of people to crocodile attacks. Amy Wilentz captured it well in a blurb saying Mozambique is “a country that has managed the troubling feat of failing its people while showing signs of stunning econ...
2018-10-2757 minRead Learn Live PodcastLands of Lost Borders – Ep 45 with Kate HarrisA brilliant, fierce writer makes her debut with this enthralling travelogue and memoir of her journey by bicycle along the Silk Road—an illuminating and thought-provoking fusion of The Places in Between, Lab Girl, and Wild that dares us to challenge the limits we place on ourselves and the natural world.Buy Lands of Lost Borders on Amazon today.The post Lands of Lost Borders – Ep 45 with Kate Harris appeared first on Read Learn Live Podcast.
2018-09-131h 07Read Learn Live PodcastDangerous Dystopias – Ep 44 with Siobhan AdcockAfter months of disturbing behavior, Gardner Quinn has vanished. Her older sister Fredericka is desperate to find her, but Fred is also pregnant—miraculously so, in a near-future America struggling with infertility. So she entrusts the job to their brother, Carter. In the tradition of The Handmaid’s Tale, The Completionist is speculative fiction at its very best: imaginative and propulsive, revealing our own world in bold and unexpected ways.The post Dangerous Dystopias – Ep 44 with Siobhan Adcock appeared first on Read Learn Live Podcast.
2018-08-2957 minRead Learn Live PodcastA Room Away From The Wolves – Ep 43 with Nova Ren SumaBina has never forgotten the time she and her mother ran away from home. Her mother promised they would hitchhike to the city to escape Bina’s cruel father and start over. But before they could even leave town, Bina had a new stepfather and two new stepsisters, and a humming sense of betrayal pulling apart the bond with her mother—a bond Bina thought was unbreakable.Eight years later, after too many lies and with trouble on her heels, Bina finds herself on the side of the road again, the city of her dreams calling for her...
2018-08-1552 minRead Learn Live PodcastMischief and Mayhem On The Open Road – Ep 42 with Gina WohlsdorfMeet Rainy Cain, a tough, smart seventeen-year-old whose primary instinct is survival. That instinct is tested when her life is upended by the sudden appearance of her father, Sam, who she thought was long dead, but instead had been in prison for his part in an armored truck robbery gone murderously wrong. Now escaped and on the run, he kidnaps Rainy, who he is convinced knows where the money from the robbery, never recovered, is hidden.—Gina Wohlsdorf was born and raised in Bismarck, North Dakota. She graduated from Tulane University, taught English in the south of Fr...
2018-08-0151 minRead Learn Live PodcastThe Simpsons and Springfield Confidential – Ep 41 with Mike ReissMike Reiss has won four Emmys and a Peabody Award during his twenty-eight years writing for “The Simpsons”. He ran the show in Season 4, which Entertainment Weekly called “the greatest season of the greatest show in history.” Mike co-created the animated series “The Critic” and created Showtime’s hit cartoon “Queer Duck” (about a gay duck). In 2006, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Animation Writers Caucus. Mike has been a contributing writer to more than two dozen animated films — including four ICE AGEs, two DESPICABLE MEs, THE LORAX, RIO, KUNG FU PANDA 3, and THE SIMPSONS MOVIE – with a worldwide gross of $...
2018-07-181h 01Read Learn Live PodcastThe History and Science of Wine – Ep 40 with Kevin BegosAfter a chance encounter with an obscure Middle Eastern red, journalist Kevin Begos embarks on a ten-year journey to seek the origins of wine. What he unearths is a whole world of forgotten grapes, each with distinctive tastes and aromas, as well as the archaeologists, geneticists, chemists—even a paleobotanist—who are deciphering wine down to molecules of flavor.The post The History and Science of Wine – Ep 40 with Kevin Begos appeared first on Read Learn Live Podcast.
2018-07-0551 minRead Learn Live PodcastA Spiritual Autobiography – Ep 39 with Bill KellyBill Kelly studied philosophy at NYU and UC Berkeley and then left the U.S. at 26 for travel and adventure. Unexpectedly, Bill ended up living abroad for almost 25 years, five years of which was spent traveling with little money in Africa, India, and Southeast Asia. Eventually settling in Japan, Bill was active during the 1980s and early 1990s organizing groups, giving talks, writing, and teaching first English and then intercultural communication. When Bill returned to the U.S. in 1996, Bill studied for a doctorate in communication studies at the University of New Mexico and taught for 13 years at UCLA...
2018-06-201h 07Read Learn Live PodcastThe Nature Fix – Ep 38 with Florence WilliamsFrom forest trails in Korea, to islands in Finland, to eucalyptus groves in California, Florence Williams investigates the science behind nature’s positive effects on the brain. Delving into brand-new research, she uncovers the powers of the natural world to improve health, promote reflection and innovation, and strengthen our relationships. As our modern lives shift dramatically indoors, these ideas―and the answers they yield―are more urgent than ever.The post The Nature Fix – Ep 38 with Florence Williams appeared first on Read Learn Live Podcast.
2018-06-0649 minRead Learn Live PodcastEunice Kennedy Shriver – Ep 37 with Eileen McNamaraIn this “revelation” of a biography (USA TODAY), a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist examines the life and times of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, arguing she left behind the Kennedy family’s most profound political legacy.While Joe Kennedy was grooming his sons for the White House and the Senate, his Stanford-educated daughter, Eunice, was hijacking her father’s fortune and her brothers’ political power to engineer one of the great civil rights movements of our time on behalf of millions of children and adults with intellectual disabilities. Her compassion was born of rage: at the medical establishmen...
2018-05-2147 minRead Learn Live PodcastThe Human Instinct – Ep 36 with Ken MillerA radical, optimistic exploration of how humans evolved to develop reason, consciousness, and free will.Lately, the most passionate advocates of the theory of evolution seem to present it as bad news. Scientists such as Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, and Sam Harris tell us that our most intimate actions, thoughts, and values are mere byproducts of thousands of generations of mindless adaptation. We are just one species among multitudes, and therefore no more significant than any other living creature.Now comes Brown University biologist Kenneth R. Miller to make the case that this view betrays...
2018-05-041h 08Read Learn Live PodcastJames Van Der Zee – Ep 35 with Andrea J. LoneyJames Van Der Zee was just a young boy when he saved enough money to buy his first camera. He took photos of his family, classmates, and anyone who would sit still for a portrait. By the fifth grade, James was the school photographer and unofficial town photographer. Eventually he outgrew his small town and moved to the exciting, fast-paced world of New York City. After being told by his boss that no one would want his or her photo taken by a black man, James opened his own portrait studio in Harlem. He took photographs of legendary figures...
2018-04-1456 minRead Learn Live PodcastDragon Speaker – Ep 34 with Elana A. MugdanBorn into a world of magic wielders without any powers of her own, Keriya Nameless isn’t exactly hero material, yet she’s chosen to save the last living dragon. She doesn’t know why it happened, and frankly she doesn’t care—this is her chance to prove her worth. Unfortunately, countless others are determined to get their hands on that dragon—everyone from smugglers to kings, from the Empress of Allentria to the most powerful warlord who ever lived—and Keriya quickly realizes she’s at the center of a war that will decide the fate of everything.
2018-03-281h 10Read Learn Live PodcastMidlife: A Philosophical Guide – Ep 33 with Kieran SetiyaHow can you reconcile yourself with the lives you will never lead, with possibilities foreclosed, and with nostalgia for lost youth? How can you accept the failings of the past, the sense of futility in the tasks that consume the present, and the prospect of death that blights the future? In this self-help book with a difference, Kieran Setiya confronts the inevitable challenges of adulthood and middle age, showing how philosophy can help you thrive.You will learn why missing out might be a good thing, how options are overrated, and when you should be glad you...
2018-03-091h 16Read Learn Live PodcastAll The Castles Burned – Ep 32 with Michael NyeSet in the early 1990s, All The Castles Burned is about Owen Webb, the son of working-class parents, receives a scholarship to the prestigious Rockcastle Preparatory Academy. He is befriended by the enigmatic Carson Bly, an upperclassman from a wealthy and powerful family. Their friendship, deepened through a love of basketball, becomes an obsession. During the summer before his sophomore year, Owen’s father is arrested for a shocking and unexpected crime. With his family torn apart, his anger and fear are carefully manipulated by Carson, whose mercurial personality becomes increasingly dangerous. Their once promising future begins to unravel in...
2018-02-141h 04Read Learn Live PodcastThe Stowaway – Ep 31 with Laurie Gwen ShapiroThe Stowaway is the spectacular, true story of a scrappy teenager from New York’s Lower East Side who stowed away on the Roaring Twenties’ most remarkable feat of science and daring: an expedition to Antarctica.It was 1928: a time of illicit booze, of Gatsby and Babe Ruth, of freewheeling fun. The Great War was over and American optimism was higher than the stock market. What better moment to launch an expedition to Antarctica, the planet’s final frontier? There wouldn’t be another encounter with an unknown this magnificent until Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon.Eve...
2018-01-311h 11Read Learn Live PodcastHeartland – Ep 30 with Ana SimoIn a word-drunk romp through an alternate, preapocalyptic America, Ana Simo’s fiction debut, Heartland, turns the classic murder mystery on its head with the story of a thwarted author’s elaborate revenge on the woman who stole her lover, blending elements of telenovela, lesbian pulp noir, and dystopian satire. Ana Simo is a New York playwright, essayist, and lesbian activist. Born and raised in Cuba, she immigrated to Paris in time to witness the May 1968 revolt, and participate in early women’s and gay and lesbian rights groups. Since moving to New York in 1973, she has writte...
2018-01-181h 03Read Learn Live PodcastDarwin Carmichael Is Going To Hell – Ep 29 with Jenn JordanIt’s tough living in the 21st century, when mythical beings not only roam the earth, but camp out on your sofa and raid your refrigerator. Jobs are scarce; angels infest Brooklyn (the demons have taken all the good property in Manhattan) and minor gods bus tables at the local diner. The mortals of New York must balance not only their checkbooks but keep a close eye on their souls’ karmic account.Darwin lives in Brooklyn, the borough of choice for hipsters, artists, deities and an assortment of mythological creatures. Darwin has a problem. Due to an unfo...
2018-01-041h 14Read Learn Live PodcastDaughters of the Air – Ep 28 with Anca SzilágyiTatiana “Pluta” Spektor was a mostly happy, if awkward, young girl–until her sociologist father was disappeared during Argentina’s Dirty War. Sent a world away by her grieving mother to attend boarding school outside New York City, Pluta wrestles alone with the unresolved tragedy and at last runs away: to the streets of Brooklyn in 1980, where she figuratively–and literally–spreads her wings. Told with haunting fabulist imagery by debut novelist Anca L. Szilagyi, this searing tale of love, loss, estrangement, and coming of age is an unflinching exploration of the personal devastation wrought by political repression.Anca L. Sz...
2017-12-2042 minRead Learn Live PodcastThe Paris Secret – Ep 27 with Karen SwanIn this glittering tale of forgotten treasures and long-held secrets, international bestseller Karen Swan explores one woman’s journey to discovering the truth behind an abandoned apartment and a family whose mysteries may be better left undiscovered.When high-powered fine art agent Flora Sykes is called in to assess objets d’art in a Paris apartment that has been abandoned since WWII, she is skeptical at first—until she discovers that the treasure trove of paintings is myriad…and priceless. The powerful Vermeil family to whom they belong is eager to learn more and asks Flora to trace th...
2017-12-061h 08Read Learn Live PodcastJill Tarter and The Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence – Ep 26 with Sarah ScolesFor anyone who has ever looked up at the night sky and wondered, “Are we alone?” Sarah Scoles examines the science behind the search for extraterrestrial intelligence and its pioneer, Jill Tarter, the inspiration for the main character in Carl Sagan’s Contact.Jill Tarter is a pioneer, an innovator, an adventurer, and a controversial force. At a time when women weren’t encouraged to do much outside the home, Tarter ventured as far out as she could―into the three-Kelvin cold of deep space. And she hasn’t stopped investigating a subject that takes and takes without givi...
2017-11-2352 minRead Learn Live PodcastThe Making of Les Bleus – Ep 25 with Lindsay KrasnoffDr. Lindsay Sarah Krasnoff is an international sports writer, historian, and consultant, working at the intersections of sports, international affairs, and global communications. The author of The Making of Les Bleus: Sport in France, 1958-2010, her work on how identity, immigration, race, gender, and diplomacy play into our world today appears in CNN International, Sports Illustrated, Roads & Kingdoms, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Review France Forum, Vice Sport, and more.The Making of Les Bleus traces the Fifth Republic’s quest to create elite athletes in two global team sports, football and basketball, primarily at th...
2017-11-081h 06Read Learn Live PodcastWhat Are We Even Doing With Our Lives? – Ep 24 with Chelsea Marshall and Mary DautermanIn this episode, Jon interviews Chelsea Marshall and Mary Dauterman about their book, What Are We Even Doing With Our Lives?In this a charming, satirical “children’s” book, BuzzFeed’s animals editor turned video producer and acclaimed art director/illustrator poke fun at our contemporary, hyper-connected, and often mundane millennial age and the absurdities of the #blessed time and place in which we all now live.Welcome to “Digi Valley,” the epitome of twenty-first-century urban life! The animal-people who call it home do cool things: life coach, cat landlord, baby DJ teacher, app developer, iPhone photo...
2017-10-251h 12Read Learn Live PodcastAhimsa – Ep 23 with Supriya KelkarSupriya Kelkar was born and raised in the Midwest. She learned Hindi as a child by watching three Bollywood films a week. After college she realized her lifelong dream of working in the film industry when she got a job as a Bollywood screenwriter. She has credits on one Hollywood film and several Hindi films. AHIMSA, inspired by her great-grandmother’s role in the Indian freedom movement, is her debut middle-grade novel.In 1942, when Mahatma Gandhi asks Indians to give one family member to the freedom movement, ten-year-old Anjali is devastated to think of her father risking hi...
2017-09-1340 minRead Learn Live PodcastLightless – Ep 22 with C. A. HigginsC. A. Higgins writes novels and short stories. She was a runner-up in the 2013 Dell Magazines Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing and has a B.A. in physics from Cornell University. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.Jon talks with Catherine about her book, Lightless, the first in a trilogy.NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BUZZFEED AND KIRKUS REVIEWS • With deeply moving human drama, nail-biting suspense—and bold speculation informed by a degree in physics—C. A. Higgins spins a riveting science fiction debut guaranteed to cat...
2017-08-3053 minRead Learn Live PodcastSecret Brooklyn – Ep 21 with Michelle Young and Augustin PasquetMichelle Young is a graduate of Harvard College in the History of Art and Architecture and holds a master’s degree in urban planning from Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, where she is an Adjunct Professor of Architecture. She is the author of Secret Brooklyn: An Unusual Guide, New York: Hidden Bars & Restaurants, and Broadway. Michelle appears regularly as a guest speaker in documentaries, on television, and at conferences on urban issues. She has traveled to over forty countries and is always looking for the next adventure.Augustin Pasquet is from Paris, has li...
2017-08-161h 02Read Learn Live PodcastPolitical Art Diary – Ep 20 with Naomi PitcairnNaomi Pitcairn is an artist and activist committed to advancing the urgent social issues of our times. She is passionate about the rights of immigrants, whistleblowers, native americans and other oppressed minorities. Using disruptive art projects and purposeful pranks along with her arts background (including her time as a Times Square billboard painter) she has masterminded over 50 gigantic street art chalks from the Bay area to Baltimore and garnered a fair amount of positive press for her causes over the years.Naomi’s TwitterThe post Political Art Diary – Ep 20 with Naomi Pitcairn appeared first on R...
2017-08-0259 minRead Learn Live PodcastFinding Yourself – Ep 19 with Krystal ChongKrystal was the former Chief Marketing Officer and advisor to the board for Honey Bun Limited when she resigned to go on a journey to answer the questions that consumed her. Through her Eat-Pray-Love-esque journey, she not only found the answers she was in search of, and a deepened spiritual relationship with life, but the journey healed her struggles with depression and anxiety and has given her a lasting sense of peace and joy, even in turbulent times. She is now a motivational writer and speaker, and runs KrystalChong.com, a company which produces media...
2017-07-191h 05Read Learn Live PodcastFrom FBI Fugitive to Freedom – Ep 18 with Malik WadeMalik Wade has lived three lives. As a teenager, he was an enterprising drug dealer. As a young man, he was a fugitive from the FBI and eventually a prison inmate. As an adult, Malik transformed his life to become a mentor, author, entrepreneur, and the Executive Director of Scholastic Interest Group. When not speaking at universities as a youth advocate, he likes to work out, read, write, and travel to places like Ghana. Malik lives in San Francisco. Buy Pressure: From FBI Fugitive to Freedom on Amazon or Barnes and Noble.Social Media for...
2017-07-0500 minRead Learn Live PodcastHow Videogames Transformed Our World – Ep 17 with Andrew ErvinAndrew Ervin is the author of the novels Burning Down George Orwell’s House and Extraordinary Renditions. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, and many other places. He lives in Philadelphia and teaches at Temple UniversityIn Bit by Bit, a blend of history, memoir, and reportage, Andrew Ervin sets out to understand the explosive popularity of this often maligned cultural form. He travels to government laboratories, junk shops, and art museums. He scientists and hobbyists, critics and game makers. He installs a full-sized and obscenely loud Donkey Kong arcade cabinet in hi...
2017-06-2100 minRead Learn Live PodcastThe Beauty of Space – Ep 16 with Jon RamerJon Ramer is a space artist, writer, President of the International Association of Astronomical Artists, Fellow IAAA member, retired military officer, avid photographer and world traveller. IAAA/Jon Ramer’s Patreon page for the new book, Our Alien Earth.The post The Beauty of Space – Ep 16 with Jon Ramer appeared first on Read Learn Live Podcast.
2017-06-0700 minRead Learn Live PodcastGreat Books Written In Prison – Ep 15 with Ward ReganWard Regan has a Ph.D. in Labor and Cultural History from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He teaches history and philosophy at New York University’s Liberal Studies Program. He edited and contributed to Great Books Written in Prison, published in 2015 by McFarland Press. His chapter “Thomas Paine: life during wartime” was published in the anthology Experiencing the French Revolution, published by Oxford University in 2013. He was also a Consulting Producer for the documentary Obit, released in 2017. Dr. Regan was also the first president of UAW 7902, the adjunct faculty union at New York University and Th...
2017-05-2400 minRead Learn Live PodcastThe Crossroads of Art and Meditation – Ep 14 with John F. Simon Jr.John F. Simon, Jr. is a visual artist and author of “Drawing Your Own Path” (Parallax Press, 2016) As one of the pioneers in the development of Software Art, his seminal work “Every Icon” was included in the 2000 Whitney Biennial and his ‘art appliances’ can be found in the permanent collections of The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and The Museum of Modern Art in New York, among others.Jon speaks with John about his book, Drawing Your Own Path: 33 Practices at the Crossroads of Art and Meditation.Relevant websites:Drawing...
2017-05-1000 minRead Learn Live PodcastHow To Be A Stoic – Ep 13 with Massimo PigliucciMassimo is a philosopher of science and evolutionary biologist at the City College of New York. He holds PhDs in genetics, evolutionary biology, and philosophy. His areas of research include the nature of evolutionary theory and the phenomenon of pseudoscience. He has written for many outlets, including the New York Times, and has written or edited ten books. He blogs at platofootnote.org and howtobeastoic.org.Jon talks with Massimo about his book, How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy To Live A Modern Life.Social media for Massimo:Facebook...
2017-04-2600 minRead Learn Live PodcastPiccolo, An Artist’s Tale – Ep 12 with Eileen MerwinEileen Merwin has been fortunate to write and publish fables and other assorted forms of offbeat fiction for both children and adults. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Brooklyn College– and has been published in acclaimed children’s magazines Cricket and Spider, as well as having received the Vermont Playwrights Award and honorariums from Highlights and TADA Youth Theater in New York City.Currently she writes for Bearport Publishers in New York City and teaches literature & writing at ASA College in the heart of Herald Square where she credits her students with a constant stream of i...
2017-04-1200 minRead Learn Live PodcastTemporary People – Ep 11 with Deepak UnnikrishnanDeepak Unnikrishnan is a writer from Abu Dhabi and a resident of the States, who has lived in Teaneck, New Jersey, Brooklyn, New York and Chicago, Illinois. He has studied and taught at the Art Institute of Chicago and presently teaches at New York University Abu Dhabi. Temporary People, his first book, was the inaugural winner of the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing.In this episode, Jon interviews Deepak about his new book, Temporary People.In the United Arab Emirates, foreign nationals constitute over 80 percent of the population. Brought in to construct the...
2017-03-2900 minRead Learn Live PodcastImproving Mental Health – Ep 10 with Dr. Lloyd SedererDr. Lloyd Sederer is Chief Medical Officer of the New York State Office of Mental Health, the nation’s largest state mental health system; Adjunct Professor at the Columbia/Mailman School of Public Health; Medical Editor for Mental Health at The Huffington Post; and a Contributing Writer to US News & World Report. Dr. Sederer is a monthly regular on Sirius-XM Insight Radio. He has published 7 books for professional audiences and 4 books for lay and student audiences, as well as 500 articles in medical and non-medical publications including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Commonweal Magazine, and Psychology To...
2017-03-0100 minRead Learn Live PodcastFinding Happiness – Ep 9 with Lee SilberWho would have guessed a former surf shop owner would ever become the award-winning author of 22 books and a corporate training working with companies large and small? Nobody. Yet, that’s what Lee Silber did—and he did it by believing in himself (even when others didn’t) and running with his wild ideas.In this episode, Jon interviews Lee about his book Sunshine.Social media for Lee Silber:Facebook pageTwitterYouTubeLee’s BlogAmazon AuthorGoodReadsLinkedInThe po...
2017-02-1500 minRead Learn Live PodcastAmerican Philosophy, A Love Story – Ep 8 with John KaagJohn Kaag is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and is the author of American Philosophy: A Love Story, published in October by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, that was recently named an New York Times Editors’ Choice and one of the Best Books of 2016 by National Public Radio. His writing has been featured in the NYT, WSJ, Harper’s, and the Chronicle of Higher Education.In this episode, Jon interviews John about his book American Philosophy, A Love Story.Social media for John Kaag:TwitterGoodReadsThe...
2017-02-011h 07Read Learn Live PodcastOur Past and Our Futures – Ep 7 with Cecilia GalanteCecilia Galante is the author of three middle grade novels, three young-adult novels, an 8-book chapter book series, and two adult novels. Her first book, The Patron Saint of Butterflies, published in 2008, was the recipient of numerous awards, including an Original Voices Award by Borders, an Oprah Pick for Teens, and a Best Book of the Year by the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association. Her first adult novel, The Invisibles, published by Harper Collins, was released last summer to rave reviews in USA Today and Forbes Magazine. Her second adult novel, The Odds of Me and You, also with...
2017-01-1858 minRead Learn Live PodcastCuban science fiction – Ep 6 with YOSSBorn José Miguel Sánchez Gómez, YOSS assumed his pen name in 1988, when he won the Premio David in the science fiction category for Timshel. Together with his peculiar pseudonym, the author’s aesthetic of an impenitent rocker has allowed him to stand out amongst his fellow Cuban writers. Earning a degree in Biology in 1991, he went on to graduate from the first ever course on Narrative Techniques at the Onelio Jorge Cardoso Center of Literary Training, in the year 1999. Today, Yoss writes both realistic and science fiction works. Alongside these novels, the author produces essays, reviews, and compi...
2017-01-047h 58Read Learn Live PodcastReal Estate and Real Life – Ep 5 with Francis J. GreenburgerIn this episode Jon speaks with Francis J. Greenburger, author of Risk Game: Portrait of an Entrepreneur.Francis J. Greenburger is the founder and CEO of Time Equities, Inc., a multibillion-dollar real estate investment and development company, as well as chairman of Sanford J. Greenburger Associates, a literary agency representing some of the most successful writers of our time. He is the founder of two important not-for-profit organizations, the Omi International Arts Center and the Greenburger Center for Social & Criminal Justice. He has served on the boards of over 15 nonprofit organizations for the arts, education, and criminal...
2016-12-211h 01Read Learn Live PodcastSecessionist Movements and Libertarianism – Ep 4 with William IrwinIn this episode Jon speaks with William Irwin, author of Free Dakota.William Irwin is Herve A. LeBlanc Distinguished Service Professor and Chair of Philosophy at King’s College and is the author of the Free Market Existentialist: Capitalism without Consumerism. He is also the author of Intentionalist Interpretation: A Philosophical Explanation and Defense. Irwin originated the philosophy and popular-culture genre of books with Seinfeld and Philosophy, The Simpsons and Philosophy, and The Matrix and Philosophy. Free Dakota is his first novel.Find Bill on social media:FacebookTwitterThe po...
2016-12-0753 minRead Learn Live PodcastHaitian Folktales with a Twist – Ep 3 with Tracey Baptiste (Part 2)In this episode Jon speaks with Tracey Baptiste. This is part two of a two part discussion.Tracey Baptiste, M. Ed. is the author of the middle grade novel THE JUMBIES and its forthcoming sequel. She is also the author of the young adult novel ANGEL’S GRACE, as well as nonfiction books for children such as THE TOTALLY GROSS HISTORY OF ANCIENT EGYPT. Ms. Baptiste is on the faculty of Lesley University’s Creative Writing MFA program, and runs the editorial company Fairy Godauthor.Find Tracey on social media:Amazon AuthorInst...
2016-09-2034 minRead Learn Live PodcastHaitian Folktales with a Twist – Ep 3 with Tracey Baptiste (Part 1)In this episode Jon speaks with Tracey Baptiste. This is part one of a two part discussion.Tracey Baptiste, M. Ed. is the author of the middle grade novel THE JUMBIES and its forthcoming sequel. She is also the author of the young adult novel ANGEL’S GRACE, as well as nonfiction books for children such as THE TOTALLY GROSS HISTORY OF ANCIENT EGYPT. Ms. Baptiste is on the faculty of Lesley University’s Creative Writing MFA program, and runs the editorial company Fairy Godauthor.Find Tracey on social media:Amazon AuthorInst...
2016-09-2036 minRead Learn Live PodcastExistentialism and Romantic Love – Ep 2 with Skye ClearyIn this episode Jon speaks with Skye Cleary.Skye C. Cleary PhD MBA is a philosopher and author of Existentialism and Romantic Love published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2015. Skye teaches at Columbia University, Barnard College, the City University of New York, and the New York Public Library. She is also the managing editor of the American Philosophical Association’s blog, an advisory board member of Strategy of Mind, a co-founder of the Manhattan Love Salon, and a certified fellow with the American Philosophical Practitioners Association. Her work has been published with TED-Ed, LA Review of Books, The Hu...
2016-09-2046 minRead Learn Live PodcastGrowing Up, Relationships, and Arrested Development – Ep 1 with Nate WaggonerIn this episode Jon speaks with Nate Waggoner.Nate Waggoner is the author of Dilettantes and Heartless Manipulators, a novel from Snow Goose Press. He is the co-editor of The-Tusk.com, on which he and his ex-girlfriend co-host the Invitation to Love podcast. He co-hosts the Funny/Sexy/Sad reading series in Brooklyn. He has written for the Shipwreck erotic fanfiction contest and elsewhere.Find Nate on Social Media:FacebookTwitterInstagramAmazon AuthorGood ReadsThe post Growing Up, Relationships, and Arrested Development – Ep 1 with Nate Waggoner appeared first on Read Learn Live Podcast.
2016-09-1648 min