EpisodeAuto Biography
The lives of thirteen people are featured in a new book–but the real star is a 1957 Chevrolet Townsman wagon. Auto Biography, tells the true story of the car and its …
EpisodeTomorrow City
In his new novel Tomorrow City, Kirk Kjeldsen (Virginia Commonwealth University) tells the story of an ex-con who is trying to reinvent himself in a new place. The backdrop for …
EpisodeModern-Day Slavery
Most of us learned in history class that slavery in the U.S. ended with the Thirteenth Amendment. But the trade in human beings—for sex and labor—is actually the fastest growing …
EpisodeHaints
A tornado that devastated Fayetteville, Tennessee the week author Clint McCown (Virginia Commonwealth University) was born is the setting for his latest award-winning novel, Haints. The real-life tornado reached wind …
EpisodeReplay: From Combat to College
With the end of the War in Iraq, tens of thousands of soldiers have returned home, and many of them are going to college. But the transition to academia can …
EpisodeReplay: Butterfly in the Typewriter
A Confederacy of Dunces, by New Orleans-born John Kennedy Toole, is one of the great stories of American literature. Published almost 12 years after his tragic suicide, the book went …
EpisodeGoodnight Moon!
First published in 1947, Goodnight Moon has become one of the most popular books for young children. Yet the book’s author, Margaret Wise Brown, always wanted to write for adults. …
EpisodeBlack in Cuba
Two years after his 1959 speech at the Havana Labor Rally Fidel Castro declared that the age of racism and discrimination was over. Geoffroy de Laforcade (Norfolk State University) and …
EpisodeSheer Good Fortune: Celebrating Toni Morrison
Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison was born Chloe Wofford in 1931. She was 39 when she published her first novel about a black girl’s painful coming of age in a white …
Episode1619: The Making of America
1619 was the year the first Africans arrived on the North American continent. There were at least 20 of them and they came as slaves from Angola. But what’s often …
EpisodeThe Censorship of “Dorian Gray”
When Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray was first published in 1890, it was a substantially altered version of Wilde’s original text. Material considered scandalous for its day had …
EpisodeKing of Clubs
In the “Great Golf Marathon of 1938” an eccentric Chicago stockbroker attracted international attention by wagering he could play 33 rounds of golf in just 96 hours in 8 different …
