A Reminder about ways to get the Radio Talking Book
Many people do not like to be tied down to a specific place to listen to what is on the Radio Talking Book. You can hear the Radio Talking Book signal on the internet, both live and archived programs. You can also hear it on a phone app called iBlink Radio. And for those who like to hear their books in entirety, the books aired on the Radio Talking Book are available from our local regional library of the National Library Service and are also available as downloads through BARD. The monthly newsletters should help you determine which books you are interested in listening to. For more information about any of these programs, you may speak with an SSB counselor.
Weekend Program Books
Your Personal World (Saturday at 1 p.m.) is airing Down Size, by Ted Spiker; For the Younger Set (Sunday at 11 a.m.) is airing The Eye of Minds, by James Dashner, and The Song of the Quarkbeast, by Jasper Fforde; Poetic Reflections (Sunday at noon) is airing Blue Horses, by Mary Oliver, and The Last Two Seconds, by Mary Jo Bang; The U.S. and Us (Sunday at 4 p.m.) is airing Stolen from the Garden, by William Swanson.
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.
Audio information about the daily book listings is also on NFB Newsline. Register for NFB Newsline by calling 651-539-1424.
Chautauqua Tuesday, Tuesday – Saturday 4 a.m
The Big Ratchet, Nonfiction by Ruth DeFries, 2014. 9 Br. Began July 9. Human history is a story of continual innovations, enabling us to surpass existing limits, even as they create new problems in their wake. Understanding the cycle will show how we reached this point in our history and how we might survive it. Read by Lannois Neely.
More Awesome than Money, Nonfiction by Jim Dwyer, 2014. 14 Br. Begins July 22. Four computer nerd undergrads wanted to build a social network that would allow users to control the information they shared, instead of surrendering their privacy to big businesses like Facebook. Their project was called Diaspora. Read by Chris Colestock.
Past is Prologue, Monday – Friday 9 a.m
Hell before Breakfast, Nonfiction by Robert H. Patton, 2014. 15 Br. Began July 6. During the decades when America was emerging as a great power and the monarchies of Europe battled for dominance, war correspondents led the most romantic and thrilling of lives. They were correspondents who saw the world and broke the story.
Read by Bonnie Smith-Yackel.
The Story of the Jews, Nonfiction by Simon Schama, 2014. 22 Br. Begins July 27. The Jewish world has been immersed in and imprinted by the peoples among whom they have dwelled, from Egyptians to Greeks, from Arabs to Christians. Their story, therefore, is everyone’s story.
Read by Audray Rees.
Bookworm, Monday – Friday 11 a.m.
What the Lady Wants, Fiction by Renée Rosen, 2014. 13 Br. Began July 2. Socialite Delia Spencer’s world changed the night of Chicago’s Great Fire when she met Marshall Field. He reopened his dry goods store, transforming it into a palace of a department store. Read by Pat Lelich.
Secret of a Thousand Beauties, Fiction by Mingmei Yip, 2015. 8 Br. Begins July 21. Spring Swallow was promised in marriage before she was born. When the groom died before the wedding, she was ordered to become a ghost bride, meaning she would be little more than a servant to her in-laws. Refusing to accept her fate, Spring Swallow flees.
Read by Nancy Felknor.
The Writer’s Voice, Monday, Monday – Friday 2 p.m.
Was Blind, but Now I See, Nonfiction by Jim Hindman, 2015. 5 Br. Began July 6. Jim Hindman, entrepreneur and founder of Jiffy Lube International faced the biggest challenge of his life at age 57 when he was diagnosed with macular degeneration. Throughout his career, nothing prepared him for the impact it would have on his life. Read by Art Nyhus.
Misdiagnosed, Nonfiction by Nika C. Beamon, 2014. 8 Br. Begins July 13. Nika Beamon suffered from an auto-immune disease that her medical professionals found baffling. For two decades, she navigated through the medical labyrinth searching for answers to her condition. S – Read by Yelva Lynfield.
The Daring Heart of David Livingstone, Nonfiction by Jay Milbrandt, 2014. 10 Br. Begins July 23. The quest for the source of the Nile will forever be associated with David Livingstone, and his adventures in the name of scientific ambition make for a compelling story. But the most overlooked part of David Livingstone’s life is his contribution to the abolition of the slave trade.
Read by Bonnie Smith-Yackel.
Choice Reading, Monday, Monday – Friday 4 p.m.
Under the Wide and Starry Sky, Fiction by Nancy Horan, 2014. 20 Br. Began July 6. Leaving her philandering husband, Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne takes her children to Belgium to start a new life. But tragedy strikes and Fanny and her children go to a quiet artists’ colony in France where she meets Robert Louis Stevenson. Read by Laura Rohlik.
PM Report, Monday – Friday 8 p.m.
Just Mercy, Nonfiction by Bryan Stevenson, 2014. 12 Br. Began June 29. Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, who was sentenced to die for a murder he insisted he didn’t commit. Read by Chris Colestock.
Latino America, Nonfiction by Matt Barreto and Gary Segura, 2014. 11 Br. Begins July 15. The U.S. is undergoing a substantial and irreversible shift in identity. So are the Latinos whose populations are responsible for this change. Barreto and Segura show how Latinos have transformed the country politically and socially.
Read by Tony Lopez.
Bad Paper, Nonfiction by Jake Halpern, 2014. 7 Br. Begins July 30. Through the story of a couple debt collectors, Jake Halpern tells of high-pressure call centers and the selling of social security numbers and account information. The world of consumer debt collection is unregulated and operators make unwarranted threats and collect debts that are not theirs. L –
Read by Nualle Schallenberger.
Night Journey, Monday – Friday 9 p.m.
Windigo Island, Fiction by William Kent Krueger, 2014. 13 Br. Began July 1. Private Investigator Cork O’Connor investigates the disappearance of a teenage girl, Mariah, and the death of her friend who the Natives consider killed by Windigo or a vengeful spirit, Michi Peshu. Cork believes the culprits are sex traffickers and he vows to find Mariah. L – Read by Mike Piscitelli.
The Empire of Night, Fiction by Robert Olen Butler, 2014. 15 Br. Begins July 20. Christopher Marlowe Cobb, known as Kit, is a spy working undercover at a castle on the Kentish coast, owned by a suspected mole, Sir Albert Stockman. Kit’s mother is also a spy, Isabel Cobb, and a famous stage actress, one of whose fans is this same Sir Albert Stockman. L – Read by John Mandeville.
Off the Shelf, Monday – Friday 10 p.m.
The Silkworm, Fiction by Robert Galbraith, 2014. 18 Br. Began June 18. When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife thinks he might have just gone off on his own for a bit. But he’s written a manuscript with poison-pen portraits of everyone he knows and there are a lot of people who want to silence him. L – Read by Eileen Barratt.
O, Africa!, Fiction by Andrew Lewis Conn, 2014. 14 Br. Begins July 14. In the summer of 1928, twins Micah and Izzy Grand are at the pinnacle of their moviemaking careers, when Micah’s vices catch up to him. As danger looms, they go to Africa to compile stock footage of flora and fauna, and to film a movie. Instead, they discover themselves. Read by John Holden.
Potpourri, Monday – Friday 11 p.m.
Gloria Swanson, Nonfiction by Stephen Michael Shearer, 2013. 21 Br. Began July 7. Gloria Swanson was Hollywood’s first successful glamour queen, but her role in Sunset Boulevard overshadowed the true story of her life. She was a star in the 1920s, but through her business acumen, was able to extend her career more than sixty years.
Read by Audray Rees.
Good Night Owl, Monday – Friday midnight
Nora Webster, Fiction by Colm Tóibín, 2014. 12 Br. Began July 6. Nora Webster was widowed in her forties with four children and not enough money. She lost the love of her life, Maurice, who rescued her from the world in which she was born and which she may be drawn back to. L,S –
Read by Judy Woodward.
Citizens Creek, Fiction by Lalita Tademy, 2014. 15 Br. Begins July 22. Born into slavery in Alabama in 1810 and sold to a Creek Indian chief, Cow Tom possessed an extraordinary ability to master languages. As the U.S. expanded westward, he became a key translator between his Creek master and military generals. L – Read by Joan Sanaker
After Midnight, Tuesday – Saturday 1 a.m.
The Book of Strange New Things, Fiction by Michel Faber, 2014. 21 Br. Began July 8. Peter, a devoted man of faith, is called to the mission of a lifetime, galaxies away from his wife, Bea. But Peter is rattled when Bea’s letters from home become increasingly desperate. L – Read by Tom Speich.
Abbreviations: V – violence, L – offensive language, S – sexual situations
