THE BOB EDWARDS SHOW HIGHLIGHTS – August 22-26, 2011
Monday, August 22, 2011: Legendary American journalist William L. Shirer first-hand reporting on the rise of the Nazis and on World War II brought the devastation alive for millions of Americans. With access to Shirer’s archives—including never-before-seen journals and letters, Newsday senior editor Steve Wick details Shirer’s adventures in Europe in his new book The Long Night: William L. Shirer and the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011: English musician Dave Stewart says he’s more of a “collaborator than a producer,” even though that’s his title on innumerous albums. After a romantic split with Annie Lennox, the two formed the Eurythmics and since then, he created Nelson Mandela’s 46664 Project, and worked with Mick Jagger, Bono, George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Eric Clapton and many more. His most recent album is The Blackbird Diaries and features duets with Stevie Nicks, Martina McBride, and Colbie Caillat.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011: In 2009, Gourmet magazine ceased monthly production, but not before Barry Estabrook authored a scathing exposé of the tomato industry and the inhumane treatment of its workers. “Politics of the Plate: The Price of Tomatoes” earned Estabrook a James Beard award for magazine feature writing and he’s expanded his work into a book, titled Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit. Steve Winick and Nancy Groce delve into the Library of Congress’s folk life collection and bring sounds and songs having to do with law and order.
Thursday, August 25, 2011: New Yorker Executive editor Dorothy Wickenden didn’t have to look far for the subject of her book Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West. Here, she charts the tale of her grandmother Dorothy Woodruff, who, along with her best friend Rosamond Underwood, traveled from the society world of Auburn, New York, to the disappearing frontier in northwestern Colorado to teach school. Then, musicians Jens and Uwe Kruger were born and raised in Switzerland. How they have become a national treasure on the Bluegrass circuit here in the United States is a curiosity. The brothers left home at age 16, eventually ventured west, picking up New Yorker Joel Landsberg along the way, formed The Kruger Brothers, and are now based in North Carolina. The three chat with Bob about their unlikely paths which helped them earn a National Endowment for the Arts grant in 2007. Their most recent album is Appalachian Concerto, a concerto for banjo, bass, guitar, and string quartet.
Friday, August 26, 2011: Doyle McManus, Washington columnist for the Los Angeles Times joins Bob to talk about politics and other news. Next, inspired by the wartime experiences of her late father-in-law, award-winning author Bobbie Ann Mason has written a novel about an American World War II pilot shot down in Occupied Europe. Marshall Stone, a U.S. flyboy stationed in England had nine exhilarating bombing raids under his belt when enemy fighters forced his B-17 to crash-land in a Belgian field near the border of France. When Stone returns to his crash site decades later, he finds himself drawn back in time to the brave people who helped him escape from the Nazis. He especially recalls one intrepid girl guide who risked her life to help him—The Girl in the Blue Beret. Then, in this week’s installment of our ongoing series This I Believe, we hear the essay of Sara Roahen. She is a Yankee who found “her heart’s home” in New Orleans. In the six years before Hurricane Katrina, Roahen and her husband put down roots in the Crescent City. The storm sent them away, but they returned — home for good — in 2008.