Forthcoming on The Bob Edwards Show (Dec 16-20, 2013)

The Bob Edwards Show, December 16-20, 2013

 

Monday, December 16, 2013:  Antoinette van Heugten’s novel The Tulip Eaters was inspired by her mother’s experience as a Dutch resistance fighter during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. Over 20,000 people starved to death in The Netherlands during World War II, many in 1945, the year called “The Hongerwinter.” van Heugten’s mother was one of many who survived by digging up the country’s national flower and making water soups out of ground tulip bulbs.  The novel explores how decisions made long ago can shape the lives of future generations.  Then, The Valley Of Amazement is novelist Amy Tan’s first book in eight years. She joins Bob to discuss her book and hiatus.

 

Tuesday, December 17, 2013:  Buck Owens invented the “Bakersfield Sound,” hosted Hee-Haw and became one of country music’s biggest stars – all while breaking every rule of Nashville. Bob talks with Grammy-nominated record producer Randy Poe about his new biography of Owens titled Buck ‘Em!  Poe drew from nearly a hundred hours of cassette tapes on which Owens recorded his life story in his own words.

 

Wednesday, December 18, 2013:  Bob talks to author James Bamford about the significance of everything we’ve learned so far from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.  Then, Bob talks to Andrew Solomon, author of Far From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award last year.  Solomon’s book is now out in paperback.   

 

Thursday, December 19, 2013:  The Byzantine Empire spanned some 1000 years and consumed most of the countries surrounding Mediterranean.  This largely Greek speaking empire was also predominately Christian, a fact that we often forget today in light of the Near East’s association with Islam and Judaism.  Historian Roger Crowley is the author of 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West and talks with Bob about this often-overlooked civilization.  Next, curator Susan Arensberg talks with Bob about the National Gallery of Art’s exhibition Heaven and Earth: Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections.  The show runs through March 2, 2014 and is the first major Byzantine exhibition at the National Gallery.  Finally, when English writer E.M. Forster discovered the work of the Greek poet Constantine Cavafy (1863-1933), he commented that if Cavafy’s work was not translated into English, “the English speaking world will be definitely poorer.”  In this anniversary year of both Cavafy’s birth and death, Bob talks with noted literary critic Daniel Mendelsohn about Cavafy’s work and legacy.  Mendelsohn is the translator of C.P. Cavafy: Collected Poems. 

 

Friday, December 20, 2013:  Doyle McManus, Washington columnist for the Los Angeles Times, joins Bob to discuss the latest political news. Then, actor Oscar Isaac stars as the title character in the new Coen Brothers’ film Inside Llewyn Davis.  Set in 1960s Greenwich Village during the folk music scene, the film charts a week-in-the-life of Isaac’s struggling musician.  Finally, the latest installment of our ongoing series This I Believe.