Carla Kaplan, "Troublemaker: The Fierce, Unruly Life of Jessica Mitford" (Harper, 2025)
My guest today is Carla Kaplan, the author of Troublemaker: The Fierce, Unruly Life of Jessica Mitford (Harper, 2025). In Troublemaker, Kaplan tells the wild and unlikely story of Jessica Mitford, fi...
18 Helmi 1h 5min
Brian Hallstoos, "Sol Butler: An Olympian's Odyssey through Jim Crow America" (U Illinois Press, 2026)
A superstar in both football and track and field Sol Butler pioneered the parlaying of sports fame into business prosperity. In Sol Butler: An Olympian's Odyssey through Jim Crow America (U Illinois ...
17 Helmi 59min
Cindy Schweich Handler, "A German Jew's Triumph: Fritz Oppenheimer and the Denazification of Germany" (McFarland, 2025)
Cindy Schweich Handler’s work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek, Redbook, The Huffington Post, and a host of other national publications. She is a former editor and wri...
16 Helmi 57min
Ian Gittins, "The Cure: A Perfect Dream" (Gemini Books, 2025)
The story of The Cure: a tall tale of a truly unique British band. The Cure's story is a fantastical pop fable, but their trajectory has not been one of unbroken success. Along the way, their uneven,...
12 Helmi 36min
Elizabeth A. DeWolfe, "Alias Agnes: The Notorious Tale of a Gilded Age Spy" (UP of Kentucky, 2025)
Jane Armstrong Tucker was a Boston stenographer scrabbling to get by as a single woman in the Gilded Age, until she was offered a once-in-a-lifetime chance. Madeleine Pollard was a Kentuckian with hum...
11 Helmi 49min
Karen Bermann, "The Art of Being a Stranger: A Family Memoir" (New Jewish Press, 2025)
Karen Bermann grew up in the mad orbit of her father, Fritz, the rebellious child of a Viennese Orthodox Jewish family who fled Europe alone as an adolescent in the late 1930s. An irreverent, comic, r...
11 Helmi 28min
Nicholas Boggs, "Baldwin: A Love Story" (FSG, 2025)
Baldwin: A Love Story (FSG, 2025) the first major biography of James Baldwin in three decades, reveals how profoundly the writer’s personal relationships shaped his life and work. Drawing on newly unc...
10 Helmi 38min
Marc Mierowsky, "A Spy Amongst Us: Daniel Defoe's Secret Service and the Plot to End Scottish Independence" (Yale UP, 2026)
In 1706, Edinburgh was on the brink of a popular uprising. Men and women took to the streets to protest the planned union with England, fearing the end of Scottish sovereignty. But unbeknownst to the ...
10 Helmi 57min
