The Bob Edwards Show, September 24-28, 2012
Monday, September 24, 2012: Sadakat Kadri writes about the history of Islamic law is his book, Heaven on Earth: A Journey Through Shari’a Law From the Deserts of Ancient Arabia to the Streets of the Modern Muslim World. Then, How to Survive a Plague is a film that captures the plight of ailing activists who fought to save their own lives and six million others through the worst of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. Filmmaker David France and advocate Peter Staley discuss the historical relevance of how HIV-positive patients forced government officials and health organizations to take up their cause and unite to tame the deadly virus.
Tuesday, September 25, 2012: Author Paul Tough believes that character is the most important factor in early childhood development. In fact, Tough argues, that skills such as perseverance, curiosity, conscientiousness, optimism, and self-control are more important than intelligence in determining success. Tough’s latest book is titled How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character. Then, Sonia Manzano was the only Maria on Sesame Street in the 1970’s. She’s racked up 15 Emmy Awards since then, and now Manzano has published her first novel. The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano is a young girl’s coming-of-age tale set in Spanish Harlem circa 1970 as young Evelyn struggles with adolescence… and ancestry. Bob talks to Manzano about her book and her life.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012: After 30 years reporting for the Wall Street Journal, Roger Thurow left his job to focus exclusively on the issues of hunger, food supply and agriculture as a senior fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. His first book, published in 2009, was the critically acclaimed, Enough: Why the World’s Poorest Starve in an Era of Plenty. For his newest book, Thurow followed 4 small farmers in Kenya through one full year of farming. It’s titled The Last Hunger Season: A Year in an African Farm Community on the Brink of Change. Then, German physicists devoted to Nazi ideology rejected Albert Einstein’s work and derided it as ‘Jewish science.’ In his latest book, author and professor Steven Gimbel takes a closer look at this claim, examining Einstein’s contributions to physics through the lens of his cultural and religious background. Gimbel’s book is titled, Einstein’s Jewish Science: Physics at the Intersection of Politics and Religion.
Thursday, September 27, 2012: English writer and satirist Craig Brown chronicles the 20th century’s most bizarre celebrity meetings in his book Hello Goodbye Hello: A Circle of 101 Remarkable Meetings. Each chapter focuses on one of the odd pairs he uncovered, from Groucho Marx and T.S. Eliot to Martha Graham and Madonna. Next, Bob talks sports with John Feinstein, Washington Post columnist and co-host of SiriusXM’s “Beyond the Brink” (Mad Dog Radio, channel 86). Then, every year since 1934, the U.S. postal service has released the duck stamp. The image that adorns the stamp comes from an annual art contest, the only juried art competition run by the U.S. government. Marty Smith takes readers inside the peculiar world of competitive duck painting in his new book, The Wild Duck Chase: Inside the Strange and Wonderful World of the Federal Duck Stamp Contest.
Friday, September 28, 2012: Doyle McManus, Washington columnist for the Los Angeles Times, joins Bob to discuss the latest political news. Next, Lee Gutkind started the nation’s first MFA program in creative nonfiction at the University of Pittsburgh and is the founder of the literary magazine Creative Nonfiction. His new book is You Can’t Make This Stuff Up: The Complete Guide to Writing Creative Nonfiction from Memoir to Literary Journalism and Everything In Between. Then, in this week’s installment of our ongoing series This I Believe, we hear the essay of Kevin Kelley. He lives his life through the kindness of strangers. Whether hitch hiking or traveling through foreign countries alone, Kelly has found that if you give people an opportunity, someone will always be good to you.