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Year in Review 2017: Live at Politics and Prose Dec 29, 2017

Show notes

This episode features seven authors, who visited Politics and Prose this year and were not featured on a previous episode. First, Bob Schieffer tells a story about where he was the day President Kennedy was shot. Then, Jacqueline Woodson reads from her memoir "Brown Girl Dreaming". Angie Thomas discusses her inspiration for her debut young adult novel "The Hate U Give". Next, comedian John Hodgman shares his thoughts on white privilege, and Patricia Lockwood reads from her irreverent Catholic memoir "Priestdaddy". Astronaut Leland Melvin discusses his difficult road to outer space. And finally, Dan Rather reflects on the current divide in our country and reveals why he is optimistic for the future.

Dar Williams: Live at Politics and Prose Dec 22, 2017

Show notes

Williams has recorded nine albums, most recently Emerald, and her tours have taken her to small towns across the country. Deliberately avoiding stadiums, Williams plays in smaller venues and cultivates a direct, personal rapport with audiences. Williams’s deep affection for the communities she’s visited comes through in her book, which spotlights the decline of small-town America in the post-industrial, corporate age. Williams is as well known for her activism on environmental and social justice issues as she is for her music, and her book is a heartfelt and hopeful call to action on behalf of an imperiled way-of-life.

http://www.politics-prose.com/book/9780465098965

Deb Perelman: Live at Politics and Prose Dec 15, 2017

Show notes

Perelman’s The Smitten Kitchen Cookbookwon the IACP Julia Child First Book Award and was named one of Cooking Light magazine’s Top 100 Cookbooks of the Last 25 Years. In her second book, the creator of smittenkitchen.com, Time magazine’s Best Blog of the Year and a Saveur Best Cooking Blog, presents nearly one hundred new recipes, along with variations on a few old favorites. Beautifully illustrated with Perelman’s full-color photos, the dishes range from breakfast treats to dessert and include Sticky Toffee Waffles, Kale Caesar with Broken Eggs and Crushed Croutons, Leek, Feta, and Greens Spiral Pie, and four different one-bowl cakes for all occasions, with mix-and-match frostings.

Perelman is in conversation with The Splendid Table’s Sally Swift.

http://www.politics-prose.com/book/9781101874813

Carmen Maria Machado: Live at Politics and Prose Dec 08, 2017

Show notes

Machado’s electrifying stories destabilize the familiar truths of psychological realism with jolts of a surreality that’s usually more at home in speculative fiction or outright horror. Writing in the vein of Angela Carter and Clarice Lispector, Machado focuses on women and the unequal power structure that affects all facets of their lives, especially their relation to their own bodies. In one story, she tracks a mysterious epidemic that causes women to evaporate. In another a woman recovering from a trauma develops the power to hear the unspoken thoughts of actors in porn films. Original and subversive, Machado doesn’t just suggest that culture needs an overhaul. She reimagines every episode of Law & Order, turning mere police procedural into something haunting and deeply true.

http://www.politics-prose.com/book/9781555977887

Reza Aslan: Live at Politics and Prose Dec 01, 2017

Show notes

Reza Aslan is an acclaimed religious scholar, the host of the CNN series Believer, and the author of books including Zealot, Beyond Fundamentalism, and No God but God. In his new book, Aslan focuses on the notion of a humanized god and traces how the idea has developed in diverse times and places. As Aslan shows, the conception of a deity as a super-human power has been a fundamental part of most societies from the hunter-gatherers to today's modern urban dwellers, and he explores how this common vision can help unite people of different faiths and cultures.

Aslan is in conversation with Michelle Boorstein, who is a religion reporter at the Washington Post, covering the busy marketplace of American faith.

http://www.politics-prose.com/book/9780553394726

Masha Gessen: Live at Politics and Prose Nov 22, 2017

Show notes

Since the 2016 election, Gessen’s articles and commentary on Trump, Putin, hypocrisy, demagogues, and related issues have become essential reading. A long-time journalist who has worked in both Russia and the U.S., and author of the acclaimed biography of Putin The Man Without a Face, Gessen in her latest book traces Russia’s unsettling post-Soviet trajectory by looking closely at the lives of four different people. All were born into a time that promised freedom; all have been bitterly disappointed. As she examines how the state has crushed not only these people’s dreams but their sense of individual agency, Gessen tells a powerful cautionary tale deeply relevant to the West.

Gessen is in conversation with Susan B. Glasser, POLITICO's chief international affairs columnist and host of its new weekly podcast, The Global Politico.

http://www.politics-prose.com/book/9781594634536

Nikki Giovanni: Live at Politics and Prose Nov 17, 2017

Show notes

From her work in the 1960s with the Black Arts Movement and SNCC to her iconic status in today’s hip-hop community, Giovanni has been a vital public presence for more than four decades. Her many accomplishments as an activist, educator, and one of the country’s most inspiring poets, have earned her honors including the Rosa Parks Woman of Courage Award and a place on Oprah Winfrey’s list of twenty-five “Living Legends.” Giovanni has published more than two dozen books, and her latest collection of poems offers intimate looks at some of the most joyous and painful moments of her life. She recalls her parents’ violent marriage and the grandparents who took her in, and she celebrates her long friendship with Maya Angelou.

Khizr Khan: Live at Politics and Prose Nov 10, 2017

Show notes

Khan came to national prominence with his passionate speech at the Democratic Convention, where he chastised Trump for his anti-immigration stand. As the Gold Star father of an American Muslim Army Captain killed while preventing a suicide attack in Iraq, Khan is a living rebuke to xenophobia in mainstream politics, and his memoir is an inspiring look at the American dream. Expressing his “continued faith and belief in the innate goodness of America, even in these challenging times,” Khan recalls growing up on a poultry farm in rural Pakistan. He and his wife came to the U.S. in 1980 and became citizens in 1986, the same year Khan graduated from Harvard Law School. The couple raised three sons, one of whom joined the ROTC in college, was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart, and laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery.

Khan is in conversation with Wajahat Ali, who is a journalist, writer, lawyer, award-winning playwright, TV host, and consultant for the U.S. State Department.

Caitlin Doughty: Live at Politics and Prose Nov 03, 2017

Show notes

Doughty’s memoir, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, was a funny and irresistible account of her experiences working in a crematorium. The job was a life-changer: Doughty now runs a nonprofit funeral home in Los Angeles and hosts the web series “Ask a Mortician.” Her second book is a fascinating catalog of funeral rituals and burial practices from around the world. Visiting Indonesia, Doughty reports on a family that dresses and cleans their grandfather’s mummified body—two years after the man’s death. In Bolivia, she encounters natitas, skulls that can grant wishes. Closer to home, she investigates green burials. Death is universal, but the ways of understanding it are myriad and thought-provoking.

Colin Dickey: Live at Politics and Prose Oct 27, 2017

Show notes

Whether or not the Salem witch hunts found any real witches, the story itself still gives us chills. Tourists flock to Salem, hoping to see—what, exactly? That’s one of the questions Dickey explores in this intriguing tour of some of the nation’s haunted places. Guiding us through haunted houses, institutions, and ghost towns around the country, Dickey, co-editor of The Morbid Anatomy Anthology, lays out the facts about the various strange goings-on and, more importantly, notes how the accounts have changed over the years. By focusing on how ghosts are perceived rather than on the uncanny itself, Dickey taps into deeper truths about the American psyche. Join us for the paperback release of this smart and entertaining study of why we need ghosts.

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