The Bob Edwards Show, September 16-20, 2013
Monday, September 16, 2013: Al Gini, Chicago Public Radio’s philosopher-in-residence and professor of Business Ethics, returns to the show. This time he shares his research on what attributes make for a good leader —— not the hatchet-wielding CEO types whose success is measured by profit margins and stock dividends, but the ones who view leadership as stewardship, serving the needs and well-being of the people that they lead. Gini’s new book is titled 10 Virtues of Outstanding Leadership. Then, Jean Shepherd is an almost mythical figure in radio history. His radio program started first in Cincinnati and took him to New York City, where he became something of a cult figure. Editor Eugene B. Bergmann transcribed a collection of Shepherd’s stories about his years in the U.S. Army Signal Corps for a new volume titled Shep’s Army: Bummers, Blisters, & Boondoggles.
Tuesday, September 17, 2013: As one of America’s over 200,000 doctors, Brendan Reilly has managed to stand out. Profiled in Malcolm Gladwell’s best-seller, Blink, Reilly was also the chair of medicine at Chicago’s Cook Country Hospital during the years the hospital served as inspiration and setting for the TV show ER. Reilly writes about his years in the medical world in his book One Doctor: Close Calls, Cold Cases, and the Mysteries of Medicine. Then, Bob talks with Gloria Estefan about her long music career…from her early days with the Miami Sound Machine and their hit Conga to her brand new album of jazz standards. Estefan has won seven Grammy Awards during her three decades of recording. The Cuban-born singer has also won the Ellis Island Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest award given to a naturalized US citizen.
Wednesday, September 18, 2013: In reviews of her new book, Lara Feigel is being praised for capturing the mood of wartime London when “each moment had the exhilarating but unreal intensity of the last moment on earth.” The Love-Charm of Bombs: Restless Lives in the Second World War chronicles the love lives of five prominent writers: Graham Greene, Elizabeth Bowen, Rosa Macaulay, Henry Yorke (aka Henry Green), and the Austrian exile Hilde Spiel. Then, British writer Zadie Smith burst onto the literary scene in 2000 with the publication of her debut novel White Teeth. Instantly hailed as a classic, White Teeth became a best-seller and won a trove of literary awards. Smith’s most recent book, NW, follows a cast of characters living in the northwest corner of London and it’s now available in paperback.
Thursday, September 19, 2013: Still Within the Sound of My Voice is the latest release from American music legend Jimmy Webb. Webb is the Chairman of the Songwriters Hall of Fame and for good reason. He has written many well-known classics for other musicians including “Wichita Lineman,” “MacArthur Park,” “Up, Up and Away,” and “All I Know.” Several artists he’s written songs for are now repaying the favor with guest appearances on this new album including Lyle Lovett, Carly Simon, Keith Urban, Joe Cocker, Kris Kristofferson and Art Garfunkel. Webb is the first and only artist to receive Grammys for music, lyrics and orchestration.
Friday, September 20, 2013: Doyle McManus, Washington columnist for the Los Angeles Times, joins Bob to discuss the latest political news. Next, income disparities in the United States are now more vast than at any point since the Great Depression. The average CEO makes over $11 million dollars a year while the median household income for African Americans is just over $32,000 a year. Peter Edelman explains why it’s so hard to end poverty in America in his new book, So Rich, So Poor, which is now out in paperback. Finally, the latest installment of our ongoing series This I Believe.
not that anyone but your comment moderators will ever read this
Ok, maybe someone else…
Bob Edwards' Weekend shows are some of the best extended moments of collaborative idea-gathering and exploration on the American bandwidths.
And imagine, this is a cut-down version of the interviews presented on The Bob Edwards Show. Now if I could just catch up on the backlog of shows I haven't heard yet…
Just so it's written down somewhere, and not that anyone but your comment moderators will ever read this, but Bob Edwards' Weekend shows are some of the best extended moments of collaborative idea-gathering and exploration on the American bandwidths. The 2-hour format allows ample time for his guests to translate their experiences into our own without him either getting in the way of, or inserting himself into, the unfolding narrative by telegraphing the response he thinks we should have (or not). Think of the popular, but narrow set of storytelling skills display in a reality TV show or any of the happy-talking flagship news programs of NPR. And it's not that I think there should be more shows exactly like this on the air. I celebrate that a unique zygote of creativity and quality can still be formed in an otherwise barren womb of media consolidation.