NLS Conducting Survey
The Library of Congress National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) would like to know how to better serve the needs of readers of talking books and braille. To take their survey online or to learn more about it, go to www.LibraryOfCongressSurvey.com. Or, you can call 1-866-545-1618 to schedule a time to take the 25 minute survey over the phone. You do not have to be a current NLS reader to take the survey. If you aren’t currently using NLS, let them know what services you want and how they can add you to their list of NLS readers. If you are a current NLS reader, let them know what they are doing well, where they can improve, and what new services you would like NLS to offer. Your answers to the survey questions will be kept confidential. Take the survey now to help Library of Congress NLS better serve all readers who use talking books and braille!
Weekend Program Books
Your Personal World (Saturday at 1 p.m.) is airing You Can Buy Happiness (and It’s Cheap), by Tammy Strobel; For the Younger Set (Sunday at 11 a.m.) is airing Touched, by Cyn Balog; Poetic Reflections (Sunday at noon) is airing Everyday People, by Albert Goldbarth; The U.S. and Us (Sunday at 4 p.m.) is airing Prairie Silence, by Melanie Hoffert, and Everything You Wanted to Know about Indians But Were Afraid to Ask, by Anton Treuer.
Books Available Through Faribault
Books broadcast on the Minnesota Radio Talking Book Network are available through the Minnesota Braille and Talking Book Library in Faribault, MN. Their phone is 1-800-722-0550 and hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Their catalog is also online, and you can access it by going to the main website, www.mnbtbl.org, and then clicking on the link Search the Library Catalog. If you live outside of Minnesota, you may obtain copies of our books via an inter-library loan by contacting your own state’s Network Library for the National Library Service.
Listen to the Minnesota Radio Talking Book, either live or archived programs from the last week, on the Internet at www.mnssb.org/rtb. Call the staff at the Radio for your password to the site.
Chautauqua
Tuesday – Saturday 4 a.m
Consider the Fork, Nonfiction by Bee Wilson, 2012. 14 broadcasts. Began March 27. Since prehistory, human shave braved sharp knives, fire, and grindstones to transform raw ingredients into something edible, and sometimes delicious. The tools and tricks we’ve learned have shaped modern food culture. Read by Yelva Lynfield.
What Are You Looking At? Nonfiction by Will Gompertz, 2012. 16 broadcasts. Begins April 17. Art historian Will Gompertz is also the BBC Arts editor, and probably the world’s first art-history stand-up comedian. In What Are You Looking At?, his goal is to change the way people look at modern art, from Claude Monet to Andy Warhol. Gompertz does not want to tell people if a work of art is good; he wants to give people the knowledge to decide for themselves. Read by Leila Poullada.
Past is Prologue
Monday – Friday 9 a.m.
Former People, Nonfiction by Douglas Smith, 2012. 18broadcasts. Began March 19. Two aristocratic familieswere caught in the maelstrom of the Bolshevik Revolutionand the creation of Stalin’s Russia. Some survived.L – Read by John Potts.
Rise to Greatness, Nonfiction by David Von Drehle, 2012. 18 Br. Begins April 15. When 1862 began, it seemed likely that the Confederacy was going to win the Civil War. By the end of 1862, Abraham Lincoln had changed that and the blueprint for modern America had been indelibly inked. Read by Art Nyhus.
Bookworm
Monday – Friday 11 a.m.
Those We Love Most, Fiction by Lee Woodruff, 2012. 11 Br. Began April 1. One day, Maura Corrigan begins with a loving husband and three healthy children. By the end of the day, her world and everything she knows will have changed. In the aftermath of tragedy, the fractures and fissures in her life and marriage become clear. A sudden twist of fate can force people to confront their choices, examine mistakes, fight for their most valuable relationships, and ultimately, find their way back to each other. Read by Marie Dick.
Two-Part Inventions, Fiction by Lynne Sharon Schwartz, 2012. 9 Br. Begins April 16. When Suzanne, a widely-admired pianist, dies suddenly, her record-producer husband, Philip, becomes deeply agitated. Suzanne’s reputation is based on a fraud about to be exposed in the classical music world. Philip has built Suzanne’s career by altering her CDs, using portions from recordings of other pianists. He has created a wide repertoire of flawless music with Suzanne getting sole credit. L – Read by Esmé Evans.
The Book of Summers, Fiction by Emylia Hall, 2012. 12 Br. Begins April 29. What began as a vacation to Hungary, ended with nine-year-old Beth’s parents separating with her mother, Marika, left behind. For the next seven summers, Beth left her distant father at home to be with Marika in Hungary. But at sixteen, she discovered a secret which brought the summers to an end. As an adult, Beth gets a scrapbook of her summers with Marika, and is forced to confront the betrayal that destroyed her and to search her heart for forgiveness. Read by Kristi Sullivan.
The Writer’s Voice
Monday – Friday 2 p.m.
The Life of an Unknown Man, Fiction by Andrei Makine,2012. Seven broadcasts. Began March 26. Shutov, a disenchanted writer, is inspired by Volsky, an old man he meets in St. Petersburg. Shutov feels like just another unknown man, but Volsky has known great happiness in spite of a life of suffering. L – Read by Phil Rosenbaum.
Opium Fiend, Nonfiction by Steven Martin, 2012. 13 Br. Begins April 18. While researching an article on opium in Southeast Asia, Steven Martin began collecting rare 19th century opium equipment, amassing a valuable collection. Then he starting putting it to use. His recreational use grew into a thirty-pipe-a-day habit that left him incapable of work, exacting a frightful physical and financial toll. Read by Don Lee.
Choice Reading
Monday – Friday 4 p.m.
The Ruins of Lace, Fiction by Iris Anthony, 2012. 8 Br. Began April 3. The passion for forbidden lace has infiltrated France, pulling all into its web. For Lisette, lace begins her downfall; but for Katharina, lace is her salvation. The most lucrative contraband in Europe threatens to cost them everything. Read by Jenny O’Brien.
Wife 22, Fiction by Melanie Gideon, 2012. 12 Br. Begins April 15. Alice Buckle answered an e-mail about an anonymous study about marriage and shortly started to question all she assumed to be true about her own marriage. Her anonymous correspondence as Wife 22, her online identity, has begun to take a very personal turn. L – Read by Laura Rohlik.
PM Report
Monday – Friday 8 p.m.
The Passage of Power, Nonfiction by Robert A. Caro, 2012. 36 broadcasts. Began March 20. By 1958, Lyndon Johnson had become the greatest Senate Leader in our history. But he traded that in, in 1960, to become the powerless vice-president under John F. Kennedy in an administration that disdained and distrusted him. Yet it was that position by which the presidency, the goal he had always pursued, would be thrust upon him in the moment it took an assassin’s bullet to reach its mark. L – Read by Leila Poullada.
Night Journey
Monday – Friday 9 p.m.
You Don’t Want to Know, Fiction by Lisa Jackson, 2012.18 broadcasts. Begins March 20. Ava’s son, Noah, hasbeen missing for two years but his body was never found.But she still hears him crying in the nursery and has seenhim walking near the dock. Read by Amy Morris.
The Woman Who Died a Lot, Fiction by Jasper Fforde, 2012. 12 Br. Begins April 15. The Bookworld’s leading enforcement officer, Thursday Next has been forced into semiretirement following an assassination attempt. Her new assignment is chief librarian of the Swindon All-You-Can-Eat-at-Fatso’s-Drink-Not-Included Library. But where Thursday goes, trouble follows. Impressively engineered synthetic Thursdays called Day Players are not only waking up in the stacks, they are downloading her very consciousness. Read by Pat Kovel-Jarboe.
Off the Shelf
Monday – Friday 10 p.m.
The Technologists, Fiction by Matthew Pearl, 2012. 20 broadcasts. Began March 25. In 1868, the latest war isone between tradition and technology. There is resistance as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology opens its doors to harness science for the benefit of all.L – Read by Neil Bright.
Sutton, Fiction by J.R. Moehringer, 2012. 15 Br. Begins April 22. Born in the squalid Irish slums of Brooklyn, Willie Sutton seemed trapped in a cycle of panics, depressions, and soaring unemployment. He saw only one way out, and only one way to win the girl of his dreams. So he became America’s most successful bank robber. L – Read by John Beal.
Potpourri
Monday – Friday 11 p.m.
The Unconquered, Nonfiction by Scott Wallace, 2011. 19 broadcasts. Begins April 11. There are tribes in the Amazon rainforest that have avoided contact with modern civilization. Deliberately hiding from the outside world, they are the unconquered, the last survivors of a culture that predates Columbus in the New World. They greet intruders with showers of deadly arrows. But those who would protect them need to enter their world. Read by Andrea Bell.
Good Night Owl
Monday – Friday midnight
The Chocolate Money, Fiction by Ashley Prentice Norton, 2012. 8 Br. Began April 3. Babs is an impossibly rich heiress who enjoys breaking all rules. Her daughter, Bettina, is sensitive and bookish. What she wants more than anything is her mother’s affection and approval. L,S – Read by Natasha DeVoe.
What Comes Next, Fiction by John Katzenbach, 2012. 18 Br. Begins April 15. A retired professor is diagnosed with a disease leading him to lose his memory and die in a few years. On the way home from the doctor’s, he sees a young girl kidnapped and he realizes if he doesn’t act, the girl may never be found alive. V,L,S – Read by Dan Sadoff.
After Midnight
Tuesday – Saturday 1 a.m.
Harvesting Ashwood – Minnesota 2037, Fiction by Cynthia Kraack, 2012. 10 broadcasts. Began April 3. Hard work and determination have brought a sense of security to Anne and her family. Anne’s greatest concern is finding people who can harvest the crops in 2037, now that government-assigned labor is no longer available. L,S – Read by Carol Lewis.
Illusion, Fiction by Frank Peretti, 2012. 17 Br. Begins April 17. Mandy, supposedly dead from a crash, awakens as the girl she was in 1970 and finds she can pass through time and space. She uses this power to eke out a living performing magic. Dane sees her and is transfixed by the magic he sees and by this woman identical to the one he married forty years earlier. L – Read by Steve Hebert.
Abbreviations: V – violence, L – offensive language, S – sexual situations
