The Bob Edwards Show, January 7-11, 2013
Monday, January 7, 2013: University of Pennsylvania Law School Deputy Dean William Burke-White talks to Bob about his recent article in The Atlantic “A Wife Accused of War Crimes: The Unprecedented Case of Simone Gbagbo.” Gbagbo is the first woman and first non-governmental official indicted for crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court. Then, over the years, jazz pianist and composer Dick Hyman has played with luminaries like Benny Goodman, Teddy Wilson, Marian McPartland and Ralph Sutton. Now, Hyman plays with someone a little closer to home. Late Last Summer: A Collection of Original Waltzes is a collaboration between Hyman and his daughter, musician Judy Hyman, a founding member of The Horse Flies. This February, Dick Hyman and jazz vocalist Heather Masse release their collection of standards titled Lock My Heart.
Tuesday, January 8, 2013: The National Institute for Civil Discourse, based in Tucson, Arizona, was established after the Gabrielle Giffords’ shooting. The organization’s executive director, Carolyn Lukensmeyer, talks to Bob about how to return confidence in American government by encouraging civil discourse. Then, Nick & Jake is the title of new book by brothers Jonathan and Tad Richards. In what’s billed as “an epistolary novel,” the two famous literary characters, Nick Carraway and Jake Barnes, refugees from Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, strike up a correspondence and then friendship and romp through 1950s America with a bizarre cast of fictional and historical figures including Sartre and Joe McCarthy. Jonathan Richards reviews movies for the Santa Fe New Mexican and his political cartoons are seen regularly in the Huffington Post. He illustrated Alan Arkin’s children’s book Cosmo. Tad Richards is the author of seventeen novels and various works of nonfiction, poetry, plays, screenplays and songs, most recently “Banks of the Hudson” on an album by singer/Congressman John Hall.
Wednesday, January 9, 2013: Bob speaks with journalist Deborah Scroggins about two Muslim women who have become world famous for their diametrically opposed political views. The Somali-born Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Pakistani Aafia Siddiqui offer a striking contrast in the issue of Islamic women’s rights and the often-overlooked place of women in that society. In her book, Wanted Women: Faith, Lies, and the War on Terror, Scroggins offers a comprehensive dual biography of these two women who, despite their divergent ideological paths, share similarities in their backgrounds, age and education. It’s now available in paperback. Then, starting his career at just eight years old, Ricky Nelson soon became America’s most famous little brother on the popular 1950s TV show The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. As a teenager, Nelson sang Billboard’s first number one single, “Poor Little Fool,” and went on to have a successful career as a musician. Bob talks with music journalist Sheree Homer about her book Rick Nelson: Rock ‘n’ Rock Pioneer.
Thursday, January 10, 2013: More than seventy-five percent of Americans eat peanut butter (our own Chad Campbell not being among them until his mid-30s). Jon Krampner explains how and why it became everyone’s favorite sandwich spread in his new book Creamy & Crunchy: An Informal History of Peanut Butter, the All-American Food. Then, Award-winning English writer Edward St. Aubyn’s novel At Last is the final installment of his acclaimed Patrick Melrose series. A master of dark comedy and difficult truths, St. Aubyn is one of contemporary literature’s finest novelists. His book is now available in paperback. Then, Bob talks sports with veteran sports columnist John Feinstein.
Friday, January 11, 2013: Doyle McManus, Washington columnist for the Los Angeles Times, joins Bob to discuss the latest political news. Then, journalist and historian Nick Turse spent 10 years researching Pentagon archives and interviewing Vietnam War veterans and survivors for his book Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam. Finally, the latest installment of our ongoing series This I Believe.