Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchSheila Curran Bernard, "Bring Judgment Day: Reclaiming Lead Belly's Truths from Jim Crow's Lies" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
Episode 15
Known worldwide as Lead Belly, Huddie Ledbetter (1889-1949) is an American icon whose influence on modern music was tremendous - as was, according to…
2 years, 2 months ago
Robyn Hitchcock, "1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left" (Akashic Books, 2024)
Episode 246
1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left (Akashic Books, 2024) explores how that pivotal slice of time tastes to a bright, obsessive-compulsive boy…
2 years, 2 months ago
Justin B. Stein, "Alternate Currents: Reiki’s Circulation in the Twentieth-Century North Pacific" (U Hawaii Press, 2023)
Episode 159
In the second half of the twentieth century, Reiki went from an obscure therapy practiced by a few thousand Japanese and Japanese Americans to a glob…
2 years, 2 months ago
Naomi Westerman, "Happy Death Club: Essays on Death, Grief, and Bereavement Across Cultures" (404 Inklings, 2024)
Episode 256
Playwright Naomi Westerman was an anthropology graduate student studying death rituals around the world when her whole family died, turning the end o…
2 years, 2 months ago
Steven Powell, "Love Me Fierce In Danger: The Life of James Ellroy" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
Episode 310
Love Me Fierce In Danger: The Life of James Ellroy (Bloomsbury, 2023) is the story of James Ellroy, one of the most provocative and singular figures …
2 years, 3 months ago
Dan Morrison, "The Poisoner of Bengal: The 1930s Murder That Shocked the World" (Juggernaut, 2024)
Episode 196
It’s the 1930s. Amarendra Chandra Pandey, the youngest son of an Indian prince, is about to board a train when a man bumps into him. Amarendra feels …
2 years, 3 months ago
David Burke, "The Puppet Masters: How MI6 Masterminded Ireland's Deepest State Crisis" (Mercier Press, 2024)
Episode 1460
In The Puppet Masters: How MI6 Masterminded Ireland's Deepest State Crisis (Mercier Press, 2024), David Burke uncovers the clandestine activities of …
2 years, 3 months ago
Francis X. Clooney, S.J., "Hindu and Catholic, Priest and Scholar: A Love Story" (Bloomsbury, 2024)
Episode 346
This autobiography--Hindu and Catholic, Priest and Scholar: A Love Story (Bloomsbury, 2024)--traces Francis X. Clooney's intellectual and spiritual j…
2 years, 3 months ago
Suzanne Scanlon, "Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen" (Vintage, 2024)
Episode 255
Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen (Vintage, 2024) is a critical memoir about women, reading, and mental illness. When Suzanne Scanlon was a student …
2 years, 3 months ago
Yanagawa Seigan, "The Same Moon Shines on All: The Lives and Selected Poems of Yanagawa Seigan and Kōran" (Columbia UP, 2024)
Episode 158
Yanagawa Seigan (1789–1858) and his wife Kōran (1804–79) were two of the great poets of nineteenth-century Japan. They practiced the art of tradition…
2 years, 3 months ago