The Bob Edwards Show, October 29 – November 2, 2012
Monday, October 29, 2012: Published in 1993, writer Lois Lowry’s book The Giver won the Newbery Medal and became one of the 20th century’s most important young adult novels. Now, Lowry’s book Son concludes the story The Giver started 19 years ago. Then, Sandra Cisneros, the much-loved award winning writer of The House on Mango Street and Caramelo, shares with Bob her thoughts from her new book Have You Seen Marie?. This fable about death and longing was written in the wake of Cisneros’ mother’s death. Internationally acclaimed visual artists Ester Hernandez provides illustrations.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012: There’s brain drain, reverse brain drain, and something immigration reform and public policy expert Vivek Wadhwa describes as a “halt in [America’s] high-growth, immigrant founded start-ups.” Wadhwa is Director of Research at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization for Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering; he’s also a columnist for the Washington Post and Bloomberg Businessweek. Bob and Wadhwa discuss this and more from his book The Immigrant Exodus: Why America Is Losing The Global Race To Capture Entrepreneurial Talent. Then, at the end of World War II, 12 to 14 million German-speaking people, overwhelmingly women and children, were forced from Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and other East European countries—and sent to bombed-out Germany which had no means to sustain them. Many were loaded onto rail cars just as Germans had done to the Jews. Indeed, Auschwitz was one of the places used as a refugee camp. At least 500,000 and possibly three times that number died as a result of this ethnic cleansing. The U.S. and Britain supported it. R.M. Douglas tells the story and the fall-out from it that is still going on in his book, Orderly and Humane.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012: Man Booker Prize recipient John Banville talks with Bob about his career and new novel. In Ancient Light, Banville addresses memory through the story of an elderly actor looking back at an affair that changed his life. Then, Ben Taylor, son of James Taylor and Carly Simon, chats with Bob and performs songs from his new album, Listening.
Thursday, November 1, 2012: The end of World War II brought a flood of optimism and dreams of great aspiration, both for the country as a whole and for many individuals. This is the back drop of Mark Helprin’s new novel, In Sunlight and in Shadow. It’s a complicated love story that pairs a former paratrooper with an heiress in Manhattan. Helprin is also the author of Winter’s Tale, A Soldier of the Great War, and many other books. Then, what has ten fingers, two ears for the past and one sharp mind? A folklorist of course! Steve Winick and Nancy Groce are back on the program toting treasures from the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. This time around their theme is riddles.
Friday, November 2, 2012: Doyle McManus, Washington columnist for the Los Angeles Times, joins Bob to discuss the latest political news. Next, how does one console a terminally ill friend? Author Bonnie Draeger’s new book When Cancer Strikes A Friend: What to Say, What to Do, and How to Help grapples with this difficult question and others like it. Draeger shares her insight and knowledge with Bob. Then, in this week’s installment of our ongoing series This I Believe, we hear the essay of Susie Green. After they have children, some parents decide they have even more love to give. Green was divorced, with two birth children, when she adopted a two-year-old boy who had been living in homeless shelters and foster homes. He needed lots of attention and love, and Green says that as he grew physically, she grew spiritually and emotionally. Green says that when considering adoption, many people do not fear whether the child will love them, but whether they have the capacity to understand and to love the child.