Phuc Tran, "Sigh, Gone: A Misfit's Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the Fight to Fit In" (Flatiron Books, 2020)
For anyone who has ever felt like they don't belong, Sigh, Gone: A Misfit's Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the Fight to Fit In (Flatiron Books, 2020) shares an irreverent, funny, and moving tal...
2 Nov 202436min
Richard Schoch, "How Sondheim Can Change Your Life" (Atria Books, 2024)
For fans of musical theatre, Stephen Sondheim is one of the true titans – the genius who brought us Sweeney Todd and West Side Story, Into the Woods, and Company. With acclaimed revivals of his landma...
1 Nov 202457min
Ronald Drabkin, "Beverly Hills Spy: The Double-Agent War Hero Who Helped Japan Attack Pearl Harbor" (William Morrow, 2024)
Frederick Rutland—”Rutland of Jutland”—was a war hero, renowned World War I aviator…and a Japanese spy. In the years leading up to Pearl Harbor, Rutland shared information on U.S. aviation and naval d...
31 Okt 202440min
Rajbir Singh Judge, "Prophetic Maharaja: Loss, Sovereignty, and the Sikh Tradition in Colonial South Asia" (Columbia UP, 2024)
How do traditions and peoples grapple with loss, particularly when it is of such magnitude that it defies the possibility of recovery or restoration? Rajbir Singh Judge offers new ways to understand l...
30 Okt 202447min
Sharon Kinoshita, "Marco Polo and His World" (Reaktion Books, 2024)
Sharon Kinoshita talks with Jana Byars about her new book, Marco Polo and His World (Reaktion Press, 2024). A lavishly illustrated tour of the famed adventurer's globetrotting travels, written by a ce...
26 Okt 202446min
Bob Frishman, "Edward Duffield: Philadelphia Clockmaker, Citizen, Gentleman, 1730-1803" (APS Press, 2024)
Edward Duffield (1730–1803) was a colonial Philadelphia clockmaker, whose elegant brass, mahogany, and walnut timekeepers stand proudly in major American museums and collections. Duffield, unlike othe...
23 Okt 202444min
John Freed, “Frederick Barbarossa: The Prince and the Myth” (Yale UP, 2016)
For all of his importance as a medieval ruler, there are surprisingly few biographies in English of the German emperor Frederick Barbarossa (c. 1122-1190). John Freed fills this gap with his new book,...
22 Okt 20241h 11min
S. L. Wisenberg, "The Adventures of Cancer Bitch" (Tortoise Books, 2024)
It’s 2006, and S. L. Wisenberg is teaching writing at one of Chicago’s great universities and living a busy life when she’s gobsmacked by a sudden cancer diagnosis. In small but powerful journal entri...
22 Okt 202425min
