Podcast Episodes

Mai Serhan, "I Can Imagine It for Us: A Palestinian Daughter's Memoir" (American University in Cairo Press, 2025)

I Can Imagine It for Us: A Palestinian Daughter's Memoir (American University in Cairo Press, 2025) is a young woman’s search for connection with her…

4 months, 1 week ago

Ray Yep, "Man in a Hurry: Murray MacLehose and Colonial Autonomy in Hong Kong" (Hong Kong UP, 2024)

In Man in a Hurry: Murray MacLehose and Colonial Autonomy in Hong Kong (Hong Kong UP, 2024), Ray Yep explores the latest available archival material…

4 months, 1 week ago

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…

4 months, 1 week ago

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 Olymp…

4 months, 1 week ago

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 na…

4 months, 1 week ago

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…

4 months, 2 weeks ago

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 ad…

4 months, 2 weeks ago

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 …

4 months, 2 weeks ago

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 relations…

4 months, 2 weeks ago

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 e…

4 months, 2 weeks ago