The Bob Edwards Show, July 8-12, 2013
Monday, July 8, 2013: Jon Mooallem traveled all over North America to study the plight of three endangered species – polar bears, whooping cranes and Lange’s metalmark butterflies. He uses their stories to frame a larger one about American’s precarious relationship with wild animals, one that starts when we are very small and surrounded by animal imagery on everything from bouncy seats to PJ sets. Mooallem’s book is titled Wild Ones: A Sometimes Dismaying, Weirdly Reassuring Story About Looking at People Looking at Animals in America. Then, in his book Freedom’s Forge, Pulitzer Prize Finalist Arthur Herman tells a little-known story from World War II: how two American businessmen—the President of General Motors William Knudsen and construction giant Henry Kaiser—oversaw an output of weapons, tanks, planes, guns, and ammunition that almost defies imagination. Herman calls it the greatest industrial miracle in history, and makes the case that these men changed the face of not only American business and industry but of American society. His book is now available in paperback.
Tuesday, July 9, 2013: Military journalist and author Stephen Harding tells an unlikely but true story in his book The Last Battle: When U.S. and German Soldiers Joined Forces in the Waning Hours of World War II in Europe. Then, children’s book author and illustrator Daniel Pinkwater talks with Bob about the importance of good early children’s primer books, and recommends Caldecott Medal winner Chris Raschka’s Everyone Can Learn to Ride a Bicycle.
Wednesday, July 10, 2013: Over the course of three albums, 13 Songs, Pages, and her latest, Clocks, Irish musician Julie Feeney has grown as an artist, singer, songwriter, composer, conductor, label head and now, fundraiser. Over two hundred of Feeney’s fans (including at least one Bob Edwards Show producer) crowdfunded Clocks, released on her own independent label, “mittens.” Holding master’s degrees in psychoanalysis, sonology (the study of sound) and music & media technologies, it is difficult to discern what, if anything, eludes Feeney’s capability.
Thursday, July 11, 2013: Two-time Man Booker Prize winner Hilary Mantel may seem like an overnight success to her recently acquired fans on this side of the Atlantic, but she’s been a working novelist for over 25 years. Bob talks with Mantel about her career and the success she’s found by telling the story of Henry VIII’s England in Wolf Hall and her latest Bring Up the Bodies. Then, The New Yorker calls How A Person Should Be by first-time novelist Sheila Heti “..a vital and funny picture of the excitements and longueurs of trying to be a young creator in a free, late-capitalist Western City.” Bob talks to Heti about the book and her promising career.
Friday, July 12, 2013: Doyle McManus, Washington columnist for the Los Angeles Times, joins Bob to discuss the latest political news. Next, last August, Tig Notaro began her stand-up comedy set with this line: “Good evening! Hello. I have cancer! How are you?” What came next “was one of the greatest standup performances I ever saw,” wrote Louis C.K., who then posted the set on his website and brought immediate fame to comedy’s now it-girl. Notaro turned a string of horrors – cancer, double mastectomy, death of her mother, bad break-up – into a gut-wrenching but still very funny comedy routine. It’s now being released on a cd, “Live,” for the first time this summer. Finally, the latest installment of our ongoing series This I Believe.