Bob Edwards Weekend Highlights – February 12-13, 2011
HOUR ONE
After 18 years in America, Tony and Janina Wasilewski’s family is torn apart when Janina is deported back to Poland, taking their 6 year old son Brian with her. Set on the backdrop of the Chicago political scene, and featuring Illinois Congressman Luis Gutierrez at the heart of the immigration reform movement, this film follows the family’s three year struggle to be reunited, as their senator, Barack Obama, rises to the Presidency. Bob talks with director Ruth Leitman about her documentary Tony and Janina’s American Wedding.
Bob and Dan Gediman talk about the new book, This I Believe: On Love. Gediman and his colleagues combed through tens of thousands of essays they have received over the past five years to find 60 for this book. Those represent a wide spectrum of what it means to love a husband, a mother, a child, and even a house.
In this week’s installment of our ongoing series This I Believe, we hear the essay of Louise V. Gray. Happily ever after was not the ending of Gray’s story of young love. Over many years, she and her boyfriend came close to marriage, fell apart, reconciled, and eventually grew distant. Gray writes about the gifts of this difficult love, and what it taught her to look for in a soulmate.
HOUR TWO
Mark Pendergrast’s new book, Inside the Outbreaks, is a history of the Epidemic Intelligence Service, the front-line disease detectives of the CDC. It covers an amazing array of medical mysteries all over the world, from an insider’s perspective. Pendergrast spent more than five years researching and writing the book.
Beloved children’s book writer Norton Juster is the author of classics like The Phantom Tollbooth and The Dot and The Line. He recently teamed up again with friend and illustrator Jules Feiffer for a new book, titled The Odious Ogre. Juster talks with Bob about his career, his new book and his collaboration with illustrators.