Book Dreams

Latest Episodes:

Ep. 118 - Civil Rights Queen Constance Baker Motley, with Tomiko Brown-Nagin Aug 11, 2022

Show notes

Constance Baker Motley was a groundbreaking civil rights lawyer and the first Black woman to become a federal judge. Her “world-changing accomplishments, which made her a ‘queen’ in her time, should place her in the pantheon of great American leaders,” alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. and Thurgood Marshall. And yet,“far too few Americans today know Motley’s name and deeds. Students do not routinely study her work and example—[she was] King’s lawyer, Marshall’s co-counsel, and a tactician praised by both as phenomenally talented. Despite her tremendous role in the effort to slay Jim Crow, most books and articles on the civil rights movement understate her importance.”

Addressing this deficit, Tomiko Brown-Nagin has written a definitive biography, Civil Rights Queen: Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality. In this episode of Book Dreams, we speak with Dean Brown-Nagin about Motley’s trailblazing accomplishments as both attorney and judge; the discrimination Motley faced as a result of her race and sex; the societal forces in play as she and her colleagues sought to transform civil rights law; the highs and lows of her formative and longlasting professional relationship with Thurgood Marshall; and her likely reaction to the inequities Black Americans confront still today.

Dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin is Dean of Harvard's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the Daniel P.S. Paul Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School, and Professor of History at Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Science. In 2019, she was appointed Chair of the Presidential Committee on Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery. She is the author of Civil Rights Queen: Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality. Her previous book, Courage to Dissent, won the Bancroft prize in 2011.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ep. 117 - Tell Me Everything, with Erika Krouse Aug 04, 2022

Show notes

One pivotal afternoon, Erika Krouse met an attorney in a bookstore when they both reached for the same Paul Auster novel. Much to his surprise, he soon found himself confiding in her. She told him not to worry–strangers divulged secrets to her all the time–whereupon he offered her a job as a private investigator. And so, with no prior experience, Erika wound up investigating sexual assaults by members of a Division I college football team for what became the first Title IX sexual assault case in the country. She did so notwithstanding her own history as a victim of sexual assault by a family member–a history her mother refuses to acknowledge.

Now, Erika has written a memoir, Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation, about the case and her related life experience. In this episode of Book Dreams, Erika speaks with Julie and Eve about the techniques she used to get people to talk when they were often deeply reluctant to do so; what it was like to meet with football players who had been told, in essence, that she was the enemy; and why she sometimes thinks the subtitle of the memoir should be How I Became an Asshole. Erika relays, too, the many complicated ways that her family trauma intertwined with her pursuit of justice in the Title IX case.

Erika Krouse’s short story collection, Come Up and See Me Sometime, won the Patterson Fiction Award, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and is translated into six languages. Her short fiction has been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and many other publications. Her stories have been shortlisted for Best American Short Stories, Best American NonRequired Reading, and the Pushcart Prize. She's also the author of the novel Contenders. Tell Me Everything is her first nonfiction book. It was a Book of the Month Club Pick, a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and a People Magazine People Pick.

Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com.

We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and more.

Book Dreams is a part of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy.

Since you’re listening to Book Dreams, we’d like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows about literature, writing, and storytelling like Storybound and The History of Literature.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ep. 116 - The Author Who Terrified Neil Gaiman, with Julie and Eve Jul 28, 2022

Show notes

Tensions are running high at Book Dreams! Why? The fantasy novels of author Susanna Clarke, that's why. After Julie--and multiple Book Dreams guests--strongly recommended Clarke's novel Piranesi, Eve gave it a try, only to quickly toss it on her DNR pile. Outraged, Julie insisted that Eve not only finish Piranesi, but also dig into Clarke's 800-page doorstopper Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. Can Eve see the error of her ways? (Can you tell who is writing this description?) Is she still speaking to Julie? Should you read the work of this divisive maestro? Take a listen to this week's episode to find out.

Susanna Clarke's debut novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, was first published in more than 34 countries and was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award and the Guardian First Book Award. It won British Book Awards Newcomer of the Year, the Hugo Award, and the World Fantasy Award in 2005. The Ladies of Grace Adieu, her collection of short stories, some set in the world of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, was published by Bloomsbury in 2006. Piranesi was a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller, and shortlisted for the Costa Novel of the Year Award, the RSL Encore Award, and the Women's Prize for Fiction.

Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com.

We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and more.

Since you’re listening to Book Dreams, we’d like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows about literature, writing, and storytelling like Storybound and The History of Literature.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ep. 115 - How Fiction Helps Us Understand the Path We're On, with Vauhini Vara Jul 21, 2022

Show notes

Fiction can invite the reader into unknown worlds and perspectives, or it can hold up a mirror so that we can see the familiar more clearly. In this episode of Book Dreams, Eve and Julie talk to first-time novelist Vauhini Vara about her new book, The Immortal King Rao. Together they explore how fiction helps us understand the path we’re on now, whether we can or should transcend global capitalism, how technology has played a role in the fracturing of family relationships and can also help give voice to what was once inexpressible–and the reason we exist at all.

Vauhini Vara has worked as a Wall Street Journal technology reporter and as the business editor for The New Yorker. From a Dalit background, she is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and an O. Henry Prize winner. The Immortal King Rao was her first novel. It was a New York Times Editor's Choice and was named a Best Book of the Year by NPR and Esquire.

Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com.

We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and more.

Since you’re listening to Book Dreams, we’d like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows about literature, writing, and storytelling like Storybound and The History of Literature.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ep. 114 - What Neanderthals and Other Ancient Hominins Teach Us About Being Human, with Gregory Forth and Rebecca Wragg Sykes Jul 14, 2022

Show notes

What makes us human? It’s a question we keep coming back to, in part because it's got no definitive answer. In this week’s episode we explore the ultimate existential query by looking at two of our most recent human ancestors–Homo floresiensis and Neanderthals–with two experts, anthropologist Gregory Forth and archeologist Rebecca Wragg Sykes.

Discovered by archeologists in 2003 on the Indonesian island Flores, Homo floresiensis were nicknamed “Hobbits” for their small stature and large feet. They hunted and may have used fire and made stone tools. Despite their small brains, some scientists believe they may have had mental abilities similar to ours. As for Neanderthals, the last thirty years of research have led to a portrait of a species that is very far from bumbling cavemen wielding heavy clubs. In fact, Neanderthals were sophisticated thinkers, creators, explorers, and innovators, much like Homo sapiens. Eve and Julie talk with Gregory and then Rebecca about what our ancient relatives teach us about ourselves–and whether it’s possible that one of these hominins is still alive today.

Gregory Forth received his doctorate at the University of Oxford and was a professor of anthropology at the University of Alberta for more than three decades. He's a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and is the author of more than a hundred scholarly papers and several academic books. Between Ape and Human: An Anthropologist on the Trail of a Hidden Hominoid is his first book for a general audience.

Rebecca Wragg Sykes is an archeologist, author, and honorary Fellow in the School of Archeology, Classics, and Egyptology at the University of Liverpool. Her doctoral thesis, awarded in 2010, was the first synthesis of evidence for late Neanderthals in Britain. Her critically acclaimed and bestselling first book, Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art, is a deep dive into the 21st century science and understanding of these ancient relatives. Kindred won the 2021 PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History, was awarded Book of the Year by Current Archeology, and was selected as one of 2021’s 100 Notable Books by The New York Times and a Book of the Year by the Sunday Times.

Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com.

We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and more.

Since you’re listening to Book Dreams, we’d like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows about literature, writing, and storytelling like Storybound and The History of Literature.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ep. 113 (Re-Release) - The Women Ahead of the Women Who Were Ahead of Their Time, with Sally Roesch Wagner Jul 07, 2022

Show notes

(RE-RELEASE) How do you write a trailblazing woman back into history after her iconic colleagues wrote her out? Dr. Sally Roesch Wagner--founder and executive director of the Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation and Center for Social Justice Dialogue; a founder of one the first college-level women’s studies programs in the United States; and author of The Women’s Suffrage Movement and Sisters in Spirit--introduces Eve and Julie to Matilda Joslyn Gage, the should-be household name of the suffrage movement whom Gloria Steinem called “the woman who was ahead of the women who were ahead of their time.” Sally has dedicated her life’s work to restoring Gage to her rightful place in history. In this episode, Sally, Eve, and Julie explore how power dynamics (in politics, in social changes movements) followed a familiar playbook in the 19th century; how Indigenous women modeled an egalitarian society for 19th century feminists; why L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz was a gender-bending, revolutionary text ahead of its time, in no small part because of Matilda Gage; and how Susan B. Anthony erased Matilda Gage’s name from the pages of history. (This episode was originally released on 4/1/21.)

Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com.

We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and more.

Since you’re listening to Book Dreams, we’d like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows about literature, writing, and storytelling like Storybound and The History of Literature.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ep. 112 - Spook Fish, Star-Nosed Moles, Vampire Bats, and Us, with Jackie Higgins Jun 30, 2022

Show notes

Sometimes finding hope requires shifting our gaze from humanity. In this episode of Book Dreams, we take an up-close and uplifting look at the four-eyed spook fish, the great gray owl, the star-nosed mole, and even the bloodthirsty vampire bat. Our guest, Jackie Higgins–author of Sentient: How Animals Illuminate the Wonder of Our Human Senses–shares riveting details about the sensory capabilities of these animals: the great gray owl’s soundlessness and uncanny hearing, for instance; the spook fish’s ability to see in the lightless depths of the ocean; the star-nosed mole’s lightning-fast touch. Jackie explains, too, how a consideration of the sensory capabilities of these creatures helps us, in turn, better understand similar talents that often lie dormant within us. Finally, we talk with Jackie about how an in-depth knowledge of the sensory capacities of other animals is helping scientists who are grappling with issues like noise pollution and sustainable development.

Jackie Higgins is a science writer whose first book, Sentient: How Animals Illuminate the Wonder of Our Human Senses, was deemed a “masterpiece of science and nature writing” by The Washington Post. A graduate of Oxford University with an MA in zoology, Jackie has worked for Oxford Scientific Films for over a decade, as well as for National Geographic, PBS Nova, and the Discovery Channel. She has also written, directed, and produced films at the BBC Science Department.

Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com.

We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and more.

Since you’re listening to Book Dreams, we’d like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows about literature, writing, and storytelling like Storybound and The History of Literature.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ep. 111 - “A Really Superb Novel and a Film That Should Probably Be Burned,” with Jack Zipes Jun 23, 2022

Show notes

Fairy tales. Why have they survived a thousand years of re-telling? How do they adapt to reflect changing times, places, and storytellers? And what is it about them that captivates us from early childhood and continues to intrigue us throughout our lives? In this episode of Book Dreams, Eve and Julie explore the magic of these familiar stories with scholar, author, and teacher Jack Zipes, one of the world’s leading authorities on fairy tales, folklore, and children’s literature. They talk about the lasting power of classics like Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood, and also about Jack’s new translation of The Original Bambi: The Story of a Life in the Forest, by the Austro-Hungarian Jewish writer Felix Salten, which was the source material for the 1942 Disney film.

Jack explains that the novel is “a brilliant and profound story of how minority groups throughout the world have been brutally treated,” an “allegory about the weak and powerless” that is both “dystopic and sobering.” By contrast, “The stupidity of the movie is so outrageous that as I was doing research on this book, I literally almost threw up.” They talk, too, about how Jack’s experiences as an activist leader during the social upheavals of the 1960s lead him to a career in children’s literature: “I realized if there's going to be a movement that really digs in and has roots in the majority of people, we have to learn how to teach critically and develop methods in which children would be able to begin to think for themselves and continue to be curious, ask questions, and also take interest in groups in the United States with which they are not familiar.”

Jack Zipes is Professor Emeritus of German and Comparative Literature at the University of Minnesota. He has written, translated, and edited dozens of books, including The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, Why Fairy Tales Stick, and Don't Bet on the Prince: Contemporary Feminist Fairy Tales of North America and England. In addition to his scholarly work, Jack is an active storyteller in public schools and has worked with children's theaters in Europe and the United States. Among his many awards are a Guggenheim Fellowship, the International Brothers Grimm Award, and the World Fantasy Convention Award for Lifetime Achievement. In 2018, Jack founded the publishing house, Little Mole & Honey Bear, which republishes historical children’s books with timeless values in order to “preserve the things that make us human and stand up to forces that would tear our society apart.”

Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com.

We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and more.

Since you’re listening to Book Dreams, we’d like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows about literature, writing, and storytelling like Storybound and The History of Literature.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ep. 110 - That Compelling Unputdownable Quality, with Sara Gran Jun 16, 2022

Show notes

"I always think of that moment in North by Northwest, the Hitchcock movie, when someone is falling off one of the mountains in Mount Rushmore, and he grabs someone's hand, and then he loses their hand, and then he grabs their jacket. And then the jacket starts to rip."

In this week's episode of Book Dreams, beloved mystery writer Sara Gran talks about how suspense writers create that "compelling unputdownable quality" that keeps readers turning pages from the start to finish. With refreshing candor, Sara also assesses the traditional publishing business, which she refers to as "Simon's Random House of Penguins," and reveals why she has launched–with tremendous early success–a new small press called Dreamland Books. With characteristic incisiveness, Sara says of her decision to release books outside of the traditional publishing industry after spending more than twenty years as an author within it, "I feel like if you are not a successful writer, get the f*ck out of the industry 'cause it's not working for you. And if you are a successful writer, get the f*ck out of the industry because you can."

Sara Gran is the author of the Claire DeWitt mystery series. One of our prior guests, Nancy Pearl–a librarian so renowned, she inspired a librarian action figure–has this to say about the first book in the series: "The more I think about it (and I've been thinking about it a lot), the more I believe that Sara Gran's Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead is one of the very best mysteries I've ever read." Sara's latest novel, The Book of the Most Precious Substance, which the New York Times deems "palpably seductive,” was published by Sara's new small press, Dreamland Books.

Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com.

We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and more.

Since you’re listening to Book Dreams, we’d like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows about literature, writing, and storytelling like Storybound and The History of Literature.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ep. 109 - Black Food, with Bryant Terry Jun 09, 2022

Show notes

The best cookbooks are so much more than collections of recipes. They’re windows into a life or a place or a time or a way of thinking. The very best cookbooks are all of these things at once. Black Food: Stories, Art, and Recipes from Across the African Diaspora is one of these rare books. Edited by author-activist Bryant Terry, and published by his new imprint 4 Color Books, Black Food is the work of more than a hundred chefs, artists, and scholars who contributed recipes, artwork, and essays to a book that is as visually stunning as it is thought-provoking. Think Toni Morrison’s The Black Book (which served as a template for Black Food), but also think sweet potato leaves with eggplant and butter beans, and peach cobbler with nutmeg sauce.

In this episode of Book Dreams, Eve and Julie talk with Bryant about the making of Black Food, his childhood experiences on his grandfather’s urban farm, and his evolution from carnivorous high school athlete to vegan cookbook author. They also discuss the future of 4 Color Books and its mission to “push forward more diversity within the food system” by publishing visually arresting books by authors of color.

Bryant is the author of six cookbooks. He's also a James Beard and NAACP Image Award-winning chef, educator, and author, renowned for his activism to create a healthy, just, and sustainable food system. Bryant is the Founder and Editor in Chief of 4 Color Books, a new imprint of Penguin Random House and Ten Speed Press. Since 2015, he has been the Chef in Residence at the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco, where he creates public programming at the intersection of food, farming, health, activism, art, and culture. Bryant's most recent book, Black Food: Stories, Art, and Recipes from Across the African Diaspora, was the first book to be published by his new imprint and the most critically acclaimed American cookbook published in 2021. It landed on the Best Of lists of The New Yorker, Boston Globe, The Washington Post, NPR, Los Angeles Times, Glamour, and many other publications.

San Francisco Magazine included Bryant among the 11 Smartest People in the Bay Area Food Scene and Fast Company named him one of Nine People Who Are Changing the Future of Food. Bryant's mentor, Alice Waters, says, “Bryant Terry knows that good food should be an everyday right, and not a privilege.”

Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com.

We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and more.

Since you’re listening to Book Dreams, we’d like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows about literature, writing, and storytelling like Storybound and The History of Literature.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected