Radio Talking Book made more accessible
This last fall, Chief Engineer Hal Schardin completed a task that made the computer-streamed and archived versions of the Radio Talking Book more accessible. It can now be downloaded in multiple formats. Michael Malver, one of the RTB listeners said, “This is exactly what I was hoping would be implemented. For whatever reason, the new radio’s reception isn’t great in the building where I live. With the archives, I can plug my iPhone into its dock, and listen to whatever RTB stuff I want at my convenience. Can’t wait to listen to the newspaper while I’m on the bus…There is something to be said for live readers. Thanks for getting this feature set up.”
Weekend Program Books
Your Personal World (Saturday at 1 p.m.) is airing The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth, by John C. Maxwell, and To Heaven and Back, by Mary C. Neal, M.D.; For the Younger Set (Sunday at 11 a.m.) is airing The Dragon’s Tooth, by N.D. Wilson; Poetic Reflections (Sunday at noon) is airing The June Fourth Elegies, by Xiabo Liu, and Y, by Leslie Adrienne Miller; The U.S. and Us (Sunday at 4 p.m.) is airing My Mother Is Now Earth, by Mark Anthony Rolo, and Prairie Silence, by Melanie Hoffert.
Chautauqua
Tuesday – Saturday 4 a.m
The Book of Job: When Bad Things Happened to a Good Person, Nonfiction by Harold S. Kushner, 2012. The story of Job is one of unjust things happening to a good man. Yet after losing everything, Job refuses to reject his faith, although he challenges some central aspects of it. Read by Dan Sadoff. 7 broadcasts. Began February 8.
The Social Conquest of Earth, Nonfiction by Edward O. Wilson, 2012. The fundamental questions of “Where did we come from? What are we? and Where are we going?” can never be sufficiently answered by religion, philosophy, and introspection alone. Only rigorous scientific scholarship can help. Read by Myrna Smith. 11 broadcasts. Begins February 19.
Past is Prologue
Monday – Friday 9 a.m.
To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918, Nonfiction by Adam Hochschild, 2012. World War I stands as one of history’s most senseless spasms of carnage, defying rational explanation. Why did so many nations get swept up in the violence? Why couldn’t cooler heads prevail? Read by Marylyn Burridge. 19 Br. Began February 5.
Bookworm
Monday – Friday 11 a.m.
The Barbarian Nurseries, Fiction by Héctor Tobar, 2011. Araceli, the live-in maid in the Torres-Thompson household, wakes one morning to find the parents have left and she is the only adult for the two boys that she barely knows. She sets out with the boys on the bus to find their grandfather. Read by Jeffrey Weihe. 19 broadcasts. Began February 5.
The Writer’s Voice
Monday – Friday 2 p.m.
Citizen Soldier, Nonfiction by Aida D. Donald, 2012. Harry S. Truman was from a family of poor farmers who rose to preside over the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War. He entered politics because of his many business failures but became entangled in a political machine, a stigma that followed him the rest of his career. Read by Nancy Bader. 9 Br. Began February 5.
Paris in Love: a Memoir, Nonfiction by Eloisa James, 2012. In 2009, Eloisa James took a leap many dream about: she sold her house, took a sabbatical from her job as a professor, and moved her family to Paris. She got to revel in the ordinary pleasures of life, in a city that wasn’t her own. Read by Judith Johannessen. 8 Br. Begins February 18.
Most of Me, Nonfiction by Robyn Michele Levy, 2012. Robyn Michele Levy was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease at age forty-three and, eight months later, with breast cancer. In her memoir, she chronicles her life since then dealing with her diverse disease portfolio. Read by Diane Ladenson. 8 broadcasts. Begins February 28.
Choice Reading
Monday – Friday 4 p.m.
Perlmann’s Silence, Fiction by Pascal Mercier, 2012. Phillip Perlmann is an internationally known linguist who has decided the solution to his lack of creativity is to plagiarize the work of a missing colleague. But when the colleague is going to show after all, Perlmann is driven to the brink of murder. Read by Don Lee. 25 broadcasts. Began January 14.
Bereft, Fiction by Chris Womersley, 2012. Sergeant Quinn Walker fled his home after being falsely accused of a horrific crime. He returns home after the Great War to convince his mother of his innocence and finds she is dying of the flu. Read by Charles Torrey. 10 broadcasts. Begins February 18
PM Report
Monday – Friday 8 p.m.
My Two Moms, Nonfiction by Zach Wahls, with Bruce Littlefield, 2012. On January 31, 2011, nineteen-year-old Zach Wahls addressed the Iowa House Judiciary Committee regarding a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in Iowa. His speech was posted on the Internet where it quickly went viral. Read by Scott Brush. 8 broadcasts. Began February 6.
Drift, Nonfiction by Rachel Maddow, 2012. In 1792, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “One of my favorite ideas is, never to keep an unnecessary soldier.” Neither Jefferson nor other founders could have envisioned the modern national security state. Rachel Maddow says we have drifted away from America’s original ideals and become a nation at peace with perpetual war, with all the financial and human costs that entails. Read by Malcolm McLean. 10 broadcasts. Begins February 18.
Night Journey
Monday – Friday 9 p.m.
Fireproof, Fiction by Alex Kava, 2012. Special Agent Maggie O’Dell is called in to investigate an act of arson with a human casualty. It seems the work of a serial arsonist. A reporter makes her part of his news story, bringing up parts of her past she’d like to forget. Maggie’s half-brother is often called in to help fight these fires and, as the acts of arson become more brazen, Maggie’s professional and personal worlds begin to collide Read by Nancy Felknor. 9 broadcasts. Began February 9.
Off the Shelf
Monday – Friday 10 p.m.
Heft, Fiction by Liz Moore, 2012. Arthur Opp weighs 550 pounds and hasn’t left his home in a decade. Twenty miles away, seventeen-year-old Kel Keller is struggling to untangle himself from his family life. When they connect, it changes both their lives. Read by Denny Laufenberger. 10 broadcasts. Began February 4.
The Ordinary Truth, Fiction by Jana Richman, 2012. When Nell buried her husband in 1975, she also buried her relationship with her daughter and a number of secrets. Now her granddaughter wants to unbury the past and repair those relationships. Read by Connie Jamison. 13 broadcasts. Begins February 18.
Potpourri
Monday – Friday 11 p.m.
The Tree of the Doves, Nonfiction by Christopher Merrill, 2012. In three extended essays, Christopher Merrill poses fundamental but provocative questions. Read by Jim Gregorich. 11 broadcasts. Began January 30.
Presumed Guilty, Nonfiction by Jose Baez, 2012. Caylee Anthony was reported missing in July 2008. Jose Baez captured national attention when he won a not-guilty verdict for Casey Anthony, a woman the nation had assumed was guilty of her daughter Caylee’s death. Read by Tom Speich. 17 broadcasts. Begins February 14.
Good Night Owl
Monday – Friday midnight
The Solitary House, Fiction by Lynn Shepherd, 2012. Charles Maddox makes a living tracking down criminals but his latest case has escalated into something more major than he had expected. V,S – Read by Eileen Barratt. 12 broadcasts. Began January 28.
The Frozen Rabbi, Fiction by Steve Stern, 2010. Teenaged Bernie Karp discovers a secret in a block of ice that has survived pogroms, a trans-Atlantic voyage, a New York ice-house fire, and a train ride to Tennessee. The discovery will have miraculous and disastrous consequences. L,S – Read by Tony Lopez. 18 Br. Begins February 13.
After Midnight
Tuesday – Saturday 1 a.m.
Lost Memory of Skin, Fiction by Russell Banks, 2011. The Kid is a convicted sex offender who lives under a freeway ramp with other sex offenders, until the Professor finds him a subject for research on homelessness and recidivism among convicted sex offenders. Then the Professor’s past resurfaces. L – Read by Neil Bright. 17 Br. Began Feb. 6.
Abbreviations: V – violence, L – offensive language, S – sexual situations
