This Weekend’s Show

Bob Edwards Weekend Highlights – June 11-12, 2011

HOUR ONE:

“Not all pioneers went west,” writes historian David McCullough. For his newest book, this two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize focuses his attention on the Americans who headed across the Atlantic to Paris. McCullough tells the stories of the ambitious men and women who lived, studied and worked in Paris between 1830 and 1900 and had serious influence on American literature, medicine, art, architecture, and history. Some of the characters are well known — James Fenimore Cooper, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., and Harriet Beecher Stowe. McCullough’s book is titled The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris.

Each week on this program, we feature an essay from the vast archives of This I Believe. Even after more than two years, we’ve heard just a small fraction of the tens of thousands of essays that exist. Now, a few more are appearing in the new book This I Believe: On Fatherhood. Bob talks with the organization’s Executive Director Dan Gediman about the new collection.

In this week’s installment of our ongoing series This I Believe, we hear the essay of Johnnie Barmore.  She is a therapist at an orphanage in Cincinnati and her biggest challenge is getting abused children to trust her enough to talk. Barmore’s favorite method is to take them fishing. It reminds her of the countless hours she spent with her father on the banks of a pond or a river, playing while he fished, and letting the comfort of their connection grow.

 

HOUR TWO:

Best-selling writer Ann Patchett takes her remarkable imagination and gift for storytelling into the heart of the Amazon with her new novel State of Wonder.  Here, Patchett tells the story of Marina Singh, a 42 year old doctor who travels the jungles of Brazil to investigate the suspicious death of a colleague.  The author of Bel Canto, The Magician’s Assistant and others, Patchett is the recipient of the PEN/Faulker, the Orange Prize, and a number of other writing awards.

Bob talks with 20-year-old multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter Sarah Jarosz. She signed a recording contract as a senior in high school and her first album earned a Grammy nomination for Best Country Instrumental. Jarosz left Texas to study music at The New England Conservatory in Boston and has just released her second album called Follow Me Down.

Bob Edwards Weekend is heard on XM 121 & Sirius 205 Saturdays from 7-9 AM EST.

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