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Interviews with authors of new, bestselling books. Primary Format : Blogs Language : English Also Listed as: City : Washington State/Province : DC Country : USA Region : NA User Tags: User Votes: RSS Feed Website People found this Podcast Searching for: View this Podcast on a Google Map. Podcast iTunes Link Text Only listing of Eye on Books BOOKCAST Podcasts Methings.com listings of Eye on Books BOOKCAST Podcasts If you like this podcast, you might also like:

The Fate of the World in the Hands of Two Teenagers To others at his new high school, Kaden is a typical teenage boy. To her friends and teachers, Aren is a typical teenage girl. But neither is what they appear to be, in Charles Pulsipher‘s fantasy novel “The Crystal Bridge.” Kaden, we learn, can open wormholes to distant worlds. Aren has a jaw-dropping gift of empathy that allows her to experience not just the memories but the souls of others. So what happens when these two earnest young people meet and merge their unique ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Fate of the World in the Hands of Two Teenagers To others at his new high school, Kaden is a typical teenage boy. To her friends and teachers, Aren is a typical teenage girl. But neither is what they appear to be, in Charles Pulsipher‘s fantasy novel “The Crystal Bridge.” Kaden, we learn, can open wormholes to distant worlds. Aren has a jaw-dropping gift of empathy that allows her to experience not just the memories but the souls of others. So what happens when these two earnest young people meet and merge their unique ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website A Love Story Across the Centuries Over a hundred years ago, in a small town near the California coast, lived a young woman named Daphne Lindstrom. She was not only a beautiful woman, she was newly married to the most prominent citizen of Red Gap. Her strange disappearance created a local legend. Someone even wrote a book based on Daphne’s story. Now, in the present day, Red Gap is no longer a redwood logging town. As Christina Dudley imagines it, in her novel “Everliving,” it’s a tourist destination. ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website A Love Story Across the Centuries Over a hundred years ago, in a small town near the California coast, lived a young woman named Daphne Lindstrom. She was not only a beautiful woman, she was newly married to the most prominent citizen of Red Gap. Her strange disappearance created a local legand. Someone even wrote a book based on Daphne’s story. Now, in the present day, Red Gap is no longer a redwood logging town. As Christina Dudley imagines it, in her novel “Everliving,” it’s a tourist destination. ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Knife Is Her Only Comfort A young and successful, but emotionally troubled artist in search of self-acceptance is at the heart of the new novel by Tiffany Lovering called “Alone.” Buy the book Willow is 23 years old, and has been cutting herself almost half her life, because sometimes a knife provides the only comfort Willow knows. Tiffany says that “Alone” was a “labor of love” book, and although not autobiographical, it was nevertheless a very personal story. Listen to Tiffany L ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website ‘American Psycho’ Meets ‘Sex & the City’ After years of sexual abuse, then the loss of his mother, then the loss of his faith and finally the loss of his one true love, David Howard finally cracks. Buy the book In S.C. Cunningham‘s intense thriller “The Penance List” David has turned from a mama’s boy to a psychotic killer, and is terrorizing London. Yet’s a character who elicits from readers mixed feelings – empathy for a killer. Understanding. Fear. Mostly fear, as David targets and stalks tho ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Her “Addiction” Will Delight You Mina Kitchen is a forty-something single woman, a New Jersey native currently living in Lancaster, Pennsylvania — and true to her surname, Mina loves to cook. In fact, you could say Mina has a “catering disorder.” Buy the book We meet Mina in Lizz Lund‘s book “Kitchen Addiction.” We also meet Mina’s Swiffer-addicted neighbor Vito, her godmother who has unusual methods for encouraging new members to join St. Bart’s church, and Mina’s enor ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website One Man’s Search for a New Life – On An Asteroid Have you ever wondered what it might feel like if the world just started moving too fast for you to keep up with it? You know that feeling – you think you can no longer handle the pace and the pressure. You’d love to escape the madness. Buy the book Neville Lansdowne escaped. Well, he let go. And the world spun away without him, leaving him standing in the middle of a dark nothingness. Until a nice asteroid field came along, and suddenly Neville has his choice of hundreds of new ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website A Kidnapping? Or Something Far Worse? Mallory Petersen is a private investigator in Des Moines, Iowa, whose caseload usually runs to the routine, even the mildly offbeat. But when a young mom named Cheryl McGee comes to her with a heartbreaking story, Mallory is drawn into a nightmare of a case, in Stephen Brayton‘s mystery “Beta.” Cheryl’s 8-year-old daughter Cindy has disappeared, the apparent victim of a kidnapping. But there is no ransom demand, no word at all about what may have happened. Buy the bo ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Small Town, Big Intrigue Small towns in America aren’t always like Mayberry or River City or Lake Wobegone. Sometimes they’re like Exeter, Massachusetts, the setting of Jennie Coughlin’s book “Thrown Out: Stories from Exeter.” Buy the book This is a town of grudges, and secrets, and regrets. Alliances form and reform, the past becomes the future, where young boys find bodies in the marsh — and where nothing is ever quite what it looks like on the surface. Who better to write such ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Small Town, Big Intrigue Small towns in America aren’t always like Mayberry or River City or Lake Wobegon. Sometimes they’re like Exeter, Massachusetts, the setting of Jennie Coughlin‘s book “Thrown Out: Stories from Exeter.” Buy the book This is a town of grudges, and secrets, and regrets. Alliances form and reform, the past becomes the future, where young boys find bodies in the marsh — and where nothing is ever quite what it looks like on the surface. Who better to write such ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Will This Teenager Step Up and Save His World? Sometime in the near future, a bright fourteen-year-old named Nick Lyons is trying to get back home – to the Lunar Colony from which he was brought to Earth a few years earlier by his parents. Buy the book Nick has it figured out. All he has to do is build a solar transference machine, win a million-dollar prize, and he can buy a one-way transworld shuttle ticket back to the Trafalgar Lunar outpost. So it comes as quite a shock for Nick, then, to learn that he is both steward over the ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Does He Really Want to Know The Family Secrets? What do you know about your ancestors? You know what they look like, if you have photo albums. Perhaps they left some letters, maybe an old newspaper clipping. But what does that really tell you about them? Buy the book Imagine learning the truth about your family. I mean, the real truth, the parts no one talks about anymore, the details no newspaper clipping contains. In his novel “Faded Lives” Edward T. Vaughan introduces us to one young man, Mark Stephens, who’s about t ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Stand By Her Man? Not Any More. It has become an iconic image in American politics – the philandering husband, coming clean under the hot television lights, with his suffering but loyal wife by his side. Buy the book It makes you wonder. Why would a woman who knows her husband is a serial adulterer stick around? Tara Woolpy‘s novel “Releasing Gillian’s Wolves” helps us understand. Gillian is the wife of a successful politician who has trouble keeping his pants on. But before Gillian’s p ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Treasure Hunt That Will Change Her Life Birdie Kaminsky steals things for a living. And now Birdie is on her way to the little town of Liberty, Ohio where her plan is, she figures, to steal a treasure that’s been hidden since the Civil War. How does she know about it? Because Birdie has a deliciously-cryptic clue passed down in her family for generations. And that’s just the first clue she uncovers, in her quest for riches and the good life that will surely follow. Buy the book But Birdie would also like to go straigh ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website What Got This (Good) Dad Arrested As parents we’ve all done things from time to time that, if we’d taken a minute to think about it, we probably wouldn’t have done. Virtually every parent has, at some point, threatened to make their misbehaving kid walk home from church, the mall, a restaurant. Usually the threat is enough to get the bad behavior to stop. Buy the book But suppose you actually DID drive off, to leave your kid to walk home. Then suppose the police got involved, and suddenly you’re bein ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Then a Stunning, Leggy Blonde Walks In… A sexy blonde with a missing, and maybe dead, husband wants Reed Ferguson’s help in finding him. Reed is a private eye. Or will be as soon as he gets his first client, and this dame looks like she could be just the ticket. Oh, that’s not me talking, that’s Reed, who loves Raymond Chandler books and Humphrey Bogart movies. And wants badly to be just like those old noir detective heroes. Buy the book In her mystery “This Doesn’t Happen In The Movies,” autho ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Geraldine Brooks "People of the Book" A centuries-old Jewish religious book manages to survive into modern times, in the new novel by Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist and novelist Geraldine Brooks. Clues to its provenance come from the wing of an insect, crystals of salt, a single white hair, and what appears to be a wine stain -- each carefully explored in vignettes that Brooks brings to life. Her book is called "People of the Book." [Interview taped at Politics and Prose, Washington, DC] Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Felicia Pearson "Grace After Midnight" Felicia Pearson didn't get off to a very good start in life -- born to a crack-addicted mother in East Baltimore, her childhood was spent in the company of some of Baltimore's toughest characters. Snoop, as she was eventually dubbed, became a "baby gangsta," killed a woman in self-defense at age 15, and wound up in prison. On being paroled, she nearly fell right back into the old, dangerous life, before a chance encounter in a nightclub with a cast member from HBO's gritty series "The Wire ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Jarrett Krosoczka "Punk Farm On Tour" While Farmer Joe is en route to a Tractor Society Conference a couple of thousand miles away, back at the farm the members of a most unusual underground rock band are preparing to go on tour. Jarrett Krosoczka's book for children, "Punk Farm on Tour," tells the story of the talented Cow, Sheep, Pig, Goat and Chicken. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Judith Jones "The Tenth Muse" Over five decades, book editor Judith Jones has successfully combined her love of literature with a lifelong passion for fine food. Jones became muse to such towering figures as Julia Child and Claudia Roden, among many others, while shepherding her authors' books to the bestseller lists. Now Jones tells her own story, in a memoir called "The Tenth Muse." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Thomas DeFrank "Write It When I'm Gone" The late Gerald Ford was often much more opinionated than he appeared to be. And funnier, and more gossipy. But he had a public face he kept on, out of respect for others -- even those he disdained -- and respect for the office he held for two and a half years. For sixteen years, however, Ford revealed his private thoughts to a reporter. Veteran journalist Thomas DeFrank had long conversations with Gerald Ford, with the only condition being that they not be published until after his death. ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Sally Bedell Smith "For Love of Politics" Many have opined that Bill and Hillary Clinton's is a marriage of convenience or expediency. But no, argues a respected biographer, it is a marriage of love - a mutual love of politics. Washington-based Sally Bedell Smith has spoken with dozens of people who know the Clintons well, to untangle the personal, professional, and political aspects of their relationship. Smith's book is called "For Love of Politics." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Vince Flynn "Protect and Defend" A nuclear Iran is something the U.S. and Israel would never tolerate, and in Vince Flynn's new thriller "Protect and Defend," Israel carries out an audacious operation deep inside Iran that leaves a gaping hole in the ground and an Iranian government bent on revenge. That's where Flynn's series hero Mitch Rapp comes in, persuading the president to push Iran over the edge once and for all. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Sir David Frost "Frost/Nixon: Behind the Scenes of the Nixon Interviews" History has paired television interviewer Sir David Frost and former President Richard Nixon in a way neither may have ever anticipated. A series of landmark interviews in 1977 afforded the disgraced Nixon a means to begin his rehabilitation with the American public. But Frost recalls that the interviews might just as easily have never happened. There were obstacles aplenty, as he tells in his book "Frost/Nixon: Behind the Scenes of the Nixon Interviews." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website A.J. Jacobs "The Year of Living Biblically" Many people follow Biblical rules, starting with the basics, the Ten Commandments. But let's face it, even the most pious among us is unlikely to be able to live by ALL the rules in the Bible. But A.J. Jacobs -- whom last we met after he had read the entire encyclopedia, from A to Z -- decided to give the Bible laws a try. For one full year, he would do exactly what the Bible said to do. His chronicle of that effort is called "The Year of Living Biblically." [Interview taped at Borders, B ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website David Michaelis "Schulz and Peanuts" Charlie Brown had to pay Lucy a nickel every time he sought psychological advice. It seems his creator, Charles Schulz, sought some measure of therapy in the beloved comic strip he drew for decades. Now, in the book "Schulz and Peanuts," biographer David Michaelis draws a picture of the artist whose deeply troubled life can be seen in the panels of his cartoons. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Dinesh D'Souza "What's So Great About Christianity" For years, it has been fashionable in some circles to dismiss Christianity and its beliefs as obsolete, discredited, disproven by science, even harmful. So what's so great about Christianity? Scholar and former White House domestic policy analyst Dinesh D'Souza takes on the challenge of defending the faith, in his book called "What's So Great About Christianity." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Joseph Grenny "Influencer" How much influence do you have, and would you like to have more? And we're not talking just about influence as a business or political leader. Parents have influence, and just ordinary folks have and use influence. So how DO you get more? Joseph Grenny is one of the influencers at VitalSmarts, which is in the business of training Fortune 500 companies. He's also one of the authors of the new book "Influencer." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Laurence Bergreen "Marco Polo" The adventures of Marco Polo are world renowned. His 13th-century trade-diplomatic-possibly-espionage travels to Mongolia and China have become the stuff of legend - in fact, many people think it is just a legend. There's always been doubt that Polo even went to China. Did he go, or did he just pick up other people's stories and sell them as his own? That's just one of the things biographer Laurence Bergreen wanted to know. His book is called "Marco Polo." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Rachel Louise Snyder "Fugitive Denim" Ever wonder where your clothes come from? Before you say The Gap or Sears or Abercrombie and Fitch, think .. before that. The wholesaler? No, before that. The manufacturer? Yes, but before that, too. Journalist Rachel Louise Snyder takes us to places as diverse as Azerbaijan, Cambodia, New York, and Italy as she traces the progress of a pair of jeans, from cotton farm to retail store. Her book is called "Fugitive Denim." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Walter Mosley "Blonde Faith" Since his debut in 1990, Easy Rawlins has taken his place as one of America's favorite literary characters, in a series of mystery-thrillers by Walter Mosley. The series has followed Easy from the years right after World War Two up through the year in which his latest book takes place, 1967. And now, in "Blonde Faith," Easy is trying to make sense of what his life has become. But the bigger story about "Blonde Faith" is that it may mean the end of the line for Easy. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Thomas Laird "The Story of Tibet" If you had exclusive access, for hours at a time over the course of three years, to the Dalai Lama, what would you ask? Journalist Thomas Laird knew exactly what he wanted to do with his unique access to Tibet's exiled leader. With His Holiness as his guide, Laird explores Tibet's history, in the process gaining great insight into science, reincarnation, and the nature of Buddhism. And, of course, a rare glimpse into the life of the Dalai Lama himself. [Interview taped at Borders, Washing ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Bert Rockman "The George Bush Legacy" How has George W. Bush done as President? What will his legacy be? A new book published by the nonpartisan CQ Press, an arm of Congressional Quarterly, aims to put "Bush 43's" two terms in perspective. One of the three editors of the book is Purdue University political scientist Bert Rockman. The book's called "The George Bush Legacy." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Emily Benedek "Red Sea" When journalist Emily Benedek was working on an article for Newsweek on counterterrorism, once of the sources she turned to was a senior Israeli counterterrorism expert. So much of what she learned from him could not be told in the Newsweek article, only in fiction. The result is her first novel, a troublingly-realistic thriller that begins with a series of plane crashes and races toward an ending that could be catastrophic. It's called "Red Sea." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Amy Bloom "Away" Russian Jewish immigrant Lillian Leyb has "endured the murder of her family, the loss of her daughter, an ocean crossing like a death march, intimate life with strangers in her cousin's two rooms, smelling of men and urine and fried food and uncertainty and need." And all of this by the age of 22. But in Amy Bloom's second novel "Away," Lillian faces her most difficult test yet: a journey across 1920s America, for the reunion with her daughter she longs for above everything else. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website John Basedow "Fitness Made Simple" You're out of shape. You know it. You see the looks people give you. And you've seen that guy on the TV commercials, the young buff guy who says fitness can be simple. Now, John Basedow has put his formula for fitness in a book for the first time. He says it's a total fitness program that goes way beyond just losing weight. His book is called "Fitness Made Simple." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Deborah Norville "Thank You Power" Thank you. Amazing, isn't it, the power commanded by two little words? And the life-changing strength of another word, gratitude. Television personality Deborah Norville has long studied the positive effects of gratitude, and why true thankfulness is a blessing for the person who is thankful. Norville's book is called "Thank You Power." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Frank Warren "A Lifetime of Secrets" Hey - you want to know a secret? Who can resist an invitation like that? Apparently there is also a pretty fair number of people who can't resist the opportunity to tell a secret, sometimes a secret they have never told anyone. Maybe a secret they never even openly admitted to themselves. And Frank Warren has solicited, and collected, and lovingly maintains a library of thousands of them. He has shared them since 2005 on his wildly popular blog "PostSecret," and in bestselling books, the l ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Garry Wills "Head and Heart" There is a common assumption that underlies almost any discussion of faith in America, and that is the notion that the founding fathers sought to establish a Christian nation, and that we have strayed steadily further from their vision. The new book by historian Garry Wills reveals, however, that the founding fathers were, for the most part, not practicing Christians as we might think of that term today. But that, he writes, turned out to be the greatest blessing religion in America could e ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Vicente Fox/Robert A. Schuller/Tom Brokaw Vicente Fox was president of Mexico from 2000 to 2006. Fox has remained active and high-profile in his country. His memoir is called "Revolution of Hope." As the son of one of the nation's best-known evangelists, the Reverend Robert H. Schuller, founding pastor of the Crystal Cathedral, Robert A. Schuller could very easily have found himself overwhelmed by the pressure to live up to someone else's notion of what he was supposed to be. But his new book is about finding the unique path God h ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Donald McCaig "Rhett Butler's People" Seven decades on, Margaret Mitchell's "Gone With the Wind" continues to fascinate and captivate readers. Of course, having her book made into one of the greatest movies of all time didn't hurt. But Mitchell never wrote a sequel - indeed, never wrote another book. In 1991 Alexandra Ripley, with the blessing of the Mitchell estate, wrote "Scarlett." But until now, the backstory of Rhett Butler had gone untold. Novelist Donald McCaig gives the Charleston gentleman his due in an authorized sequ ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Mark Z. Danielewski "Only Revolutions" There are two sides to every story. Especially in Mark Z. Danielewski's unique story of the journey taken by teen lovers Hailey and Sam, called "Only Revolutions." But is it a road trip, or an extended metaphor? One story, or two? We get Hailey's version .. then Sam's. Or is it vice versa? Danielewski carefully -- and literally -- dispenses the narrative measure by measure, in a design that Publishers Weekly says "is a marvel" and "a feat of Pynchonesque puzzlebookdom." [Interview taped at ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website John Elder Robison "Look Me In the Eye" As early as nursery school, it was apparent that John Elder Robison was not like the other kids. But it wasn't until he was 40 that a therapist finally diagnosed what it was about him that was different: he has a high-functioning form of autism called Asperger Syndrome. Now, in a new memoir, Robison describes his painful childhood -- and life with his brother. You may have heard of him, too -- he changed his name to Augusten Burroughs, and wrote "Running With Scissors." John Elder Robison' ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Ann Packer "Songs Without Words" Two women, friends since childhood, have their friendship severely tested when one faces a family crisis, in Ann Packer's novel "Songs Without Words." The challenge to Liz and Sarabeth's relationship comes when Liz's teenage daughter nearly loses her life. This is the second novel for the acclaimed author of "The Dive From Clausen's Pier." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Wendell Jamieson "Father Knows Less" Every parent knows how inquisitive young children are. Questions, questions, questions, all day every day. And the best thing about kids' questions is, they're perfectly honest, innocent, and transparent -- why DO cops like donuts so much? How does a whip make that noise, if it doesn't hit anything? Wendell Jamieson, the city editor for the New York Times, has spent his professional life finding answers to bigger, more adult questions. But when his seven-year-old son, Dean, started asking ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Leslie Sanchez "Los Republicanos" For a long time now, it's been assumed that America's Hispanic voters are Democrats. Republicans have assumed that, Democrats have assumed that, even many Hispanics have assumed that. But entrepeneur and Republican strategist Leslie Sanchez argues in her new book "Los Republicanos" that Hispanics and the GOP may have a lot more in common than they thought. In fact, she says, they need each other. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Diana Gabaldon "Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade" Lord John Grey is an English aristocrat, soldier, and gentleman, fighting in the Seven Years' war in the mid-18th century in Europe. He is also gay. And in the new Diana Gabaldon novel "Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade," there is a truth to be uncovered: the real story behind the death of Lord John's father 17 years ago. Oh, and did we mention that Lord John also has a new love interest? One who could put his very life in danger? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Junot Diaz "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" Meet Oscar Wao, a chubby fanboy nerd who lives in New Jersey with his mother and his sister. Oscar's a first-generation Dominican-American, dreaming of being a sci-fi author but dealing in the meantime with the challenges of youth, including the longing for a romance. In the debut novel by Junot Diaz, called "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao," we come to understand Oscar not by meeting him or hearing directly from him, but through those who know him. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Kiron Skinner & Serhiy Kudelia "The Strategy of Campaigning" In the waning days of the Cold War, two political figures emerged -- one on each side of the long standoff -- who changed the entire conversation, and remade the world. Ronald Reagan is one of those leaders. But the other is not Mikhail Gorbachev, it's Boris Yeltsin. Now scholars Kiron Skinner and Serhiy Kudelia, along with co-authors who include Condoleezza Rice, show us what Reagan and Yeltsin did, and why it was so significant, in their book called "The Strategy of Campaigning." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Kris Carr "Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips" In 2003 actress and photographer Kris Carr was diagnosed with cancer. Not just any cancer, either -- the rare and incurable kind. As she puts it, "I thought my life was over, I had no idea it was just getting started!" Carr has made it her mission to give cancer a kick in the rear, and a makeover at the same time. First she made a documentary about her own medical journey. And now she has a book, filled with encouragement, advice, guidance and humor -- her own, and that of over a dozen me ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Mike O'Connor "Crisis, Pursued by Disaster, Followed Closely by Catastrophe" An old cigar box, filled with the miscellany of a life, provides the inspiration and the jumping-off point for one journalist's mission to find the truth about his own family. All that Mike O'Connor had at the outset was obscure memories from the 1950s of his mother and father taking Mike and his sisters, loading up the car, and heading to Mexico, leaving everything and everyone behind. His book is called "Crisis, Pursued by Disaster, Followed Closely by Catastrophe." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Peter Yarrow "Puff, the Magic Dragon" "Puff, the Magic Dragon" is a musical icon. Written by Peter Yarrow and Lenny Lipton in 1959, and first recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary in 1963, it has become one of the best-known and best-loved songs of our time. But there has never been a children's picture book adaptation of the song -- until now. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Jerry Kammer, George Condon, Marcus Stern "The Wrong Stuff" Duke Cunningham was a true hero. In Vietnam, Cunningham, a fighter pilot, became the first Naval "ace" since the Korean War. Cunningham parlayed his renown into a career in politics, ultimately going to Congress representing a district in Southern California -- and becoming one of the most corrupt Congressmen in U.S. history. The details are now told in a new book by the Pulitzer Prize-winning Copley News Service journalists who first broke the Cunningham story. Jerry Kammer, George Condon, ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website James Dale "The Obvious" Woody Allen once famously observed that "80 percent of success is just showing up." Maybe it's no coincidence, then, that one of James Dale's common-sense tips for success, in his book "The Obvious," is to "show up." Dale is a former ad agency CEO who says, after years of personal experience and observation, that it's the "obvious" things like that, that work best. So he's assembled a book full of "The Obvious." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Ridley Pearson "Killer Weekend" A high-profile politician is set to announce that she's running for President, at an exclusive weekend conference at an even more-exclusive Sun Valley, Idaho resort. As Ridley Pearson lays it out for us in his new thriller "Killer Weekend," there is someone at the resort who figures that Elizabeth Shaler's announcement would be the perfect venue for an assassination. And it may be up to the local sheriff, Walt Fleming, to prevent it -- just like he saved Shaler's life several years before. ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Floyd Landis "Positively False" Floyd Landis won the Tour de France in 2006, only to be stripped of the title three days later, after testing positive for elevated testosterone levels. He has insisted, however, that he is neither a doper, nor a liar, nor a cheater. Now in his memoir "Positively False," Landis tells how this kid who grew up in a Mennonite community in Pennsylvania ultimately won the most prestigious race of his career, then had it all taken away. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website W.E.B. Griffin & Bill Butterworth IV "The Double Agents" As Allied forces prepared for the decisive D-Day invasion, one of the most critical tasks was to mislead Adolf Hitler and the Axis powers about where the invasion was going to happen. The nascent Office of Strategic Services employed a portfolio of deceptive tactics, including the dangerous use of double agents. Now veteran novelist W.E.B. Griffin, along with his son, Bill Butterworth IV, bring the suspense of that time to life in the latest installment in the "Men at War" series, "The Doub ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Jeffery Deaver "The Sleeping Doll" A prison break has left a psychopathic, Manson-esque killer on the loose, in Jeffery Deaver's new mystery "The Sleeping Doll." In mad pursuit of him is the California Bureau of Investigation agent who inadvertently let him escape, Kathryn Dance. We first met her in Deaver's The Cold Moon; now she's got a story all her own. She'll need to find and catch killer Daniel Pell, before he can find the only witness to his most horrendous crime. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Claire Cook "Life's a Beach" Ginger's 41. Her sister Geri's almost 50 -- and freaked out by it -- and their hippie parents are about to sell the house, in Claire Cook's sister story "Life's a Beach." One sister's married, the other's single -- and both are still growing up. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Claire Cook "Life's a Beach" Ginger's 41. Her sister Geri's almost 50 -- and freaked out by it -- and their hippie parents are about to sell the house, in Claire Cook's sister story "Life's a Beach." One sister's married, the other's single -- and both are still growing up. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Sheila Lukins & Julee Rosso "Silver Palate Cookbook - Anniversary Edition" Hard to believe, but the "Silver Palate Cookbook" has been around for a quarter of a century. Before Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins published the book in 1982, quality cooking was something "gourmets" did, not ordinary folks. But Julee and Sheila showed how anyone could cook and host like a gourmet. Now, for their 25th anniversary, they've redone the book from front to back. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Lee Child "Bad Luck and Trouble" It starts with a man being dumped out of a helicopter three thousand feet up. Lee Child's series hero Jack Reacher is very quickly drafted into a mission that reunites him with the members of the Army special investigation unit he last worked with a decade earlier. And as Reacher finds out in "Bad Luck and Trouble," class reunions are rarely what they're cracked up to be. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website At the American Library Association Annual Conference This week, over 21,000 librarians gathered in Washington, DC for the annual conference of the American Library Association, or ALA. In addition to the librarians, there were over 7,000 exhibitors, including publishers, distributors, digitizers, even furniture makers. Librarians came in all varieties, too -- so come with me, to the American Library Association's annual conference. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Barry Eisler "Requiem for an Assassin" John Rain is a professional assassin, who wants desperately to become a retired professional assassin. But in Barry Eisler's new thriller "Requiem for an Assassin," Rain will have to postpone his plans just a while longer, because someone with a terrifying agenda has drafted Rain to do yet another job. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Ann Brashares "The Last Summer (Of You and Me)" Growing up, summers on Fire Island were always something that sisters Alice and Riley looked forward to. Well, that and seeing their lifelong friend Paul. But they're all adults now, and the world has changed. Their world has changed. In Ann Brashares' first novel for adults, "The Last Summer (Of You and Me)," the changes have become both exciting and painful. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website David Baldacci "Simple Genius" A scientist who has committed suicide, a former Secret Service agent who seems to be trying to, and a super-secret government intelligence installation all figure into David Baldacci's new thriller "Simple Genius." There's a clock ticking, too -- a girl's life is in danger. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Lama Surya Das "Buddha Is As Buddha Does" Lama Surya Das is one of the foremost American Buddhist teachers, and a leading spokesperson for the emerging American Buddhism. The Dalai Lama calls him "The Western Lama." Now, in a new book, Surya Das offers a guide for spiritual development, whether you're a new seeker or an experienced practitioner of Buddhism. The book is called "Buddha Is As Buddha Does." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Michael Ondaatje "Divisadero" In Northern California in the 1970s, a widower is raising his daughter Anna, an adopted daughter named Claire, and an orphan boy nicknamed Coop. Theirs is an unorthodox family, three siblings related by common bond instead of blood. But when two of them begin a sexual relationship, their father explodes in a stunning moment of violence, and the family is shattered. This is Michael Ondaatje's new novel "Divisadero," a story spanning years and continents as it tells the story of these three ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Marisha Pessl "Special Topics in Calamity Physics" Blue Van Meer is the teenage daughter of a single father, a precocious young woman who annotates and footnotes her own life in real time. After years of wandering from one college town to the next, she and her father settle down in North Carolina for the duration of her senior year of high school -- and what a momentous year it turns out to be, for Blue is soon enmeshed in a murder mystery. All of this happens in the impressive fiction debut by Marisha Pessl called "Special Topics in Calam ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Michael Connelly "The Overlook" There is no such thing as a "routine" homicide investigation, as the LAPD's Harry Bosch knows all too well. Now, in his thirteenth Bosch novel, author Michael Connelly pairs Harry with a new partner, reunites him with an old love interest who's now with the FBI, and hands him a case that threatens to spin out of control almost from the word go. And it all happens in a matter of hours, in "The Overlook." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Rita Mae Brown "Puss 'n Cahoots" Mrs. Murphy goes to Kentucky, in the new Rita Mae Brown mystery "Puss 'n Cahoots." So does her fellow feline Pewter, and their canine companion Tucker, all of them on a trip with their human companion Mary Minor Haristeen to a prestigious Saddlebred horse show -- where, of course, there is first a robbery, then a murder. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website William Cohen & Janet Langhart Cohen "Love in Black and White" William Cohen was born and raised in Maine. His father was Jewish, his mother, Protestant. Janet Langhart, an African-American, was raised in Indiana by her mother, a Southern Baptist. Bill Cohen became a U.S. Senator, Janet a prominent television personality, businesswoman and author. They met in 1974, and married in 1996. Now they tell their "opposites attract" story in a book called "Love in Black and White." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Frank Warren "The Secret Lives of Men and Women" Frank Warren is singlehandedly responsible for setting free thousands of secrets that people all over the world have been holding captive, some of them all of their lives. It was in the fall of 2004 that Warren started the website postsecret.com, inviting people to anonymously send him postcards on which they had revealed a secret. Sometimes it's just a little secret, sometimes it's a huge one. Now, in his third compilation of secrets, Frank Warren highlights the different ways men and wome ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Robert Crais "The Watchman" In a series of increasingly popular mystery/thrillers, Robert Crais has painstakingly crafted the character of private eye Elvis Cole, who now ranks among America's favorite crime-fiction characters. But in the newest Crais thriller, "The Watchman," it's Cole's enigmatic partner Joe Pike who gets the lead role. Pike is called upon to act as bodyguard for a spoiled young heiress whose life is inexplicably, but indisputably, in serious danger. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Dr. Sherwin Nuland "The Art of Aging" Most of us are not exactly comfortable with aging. But, as the wag said, it's better than the alternative. Now comes Dr. Sherwin Nuland, National Book Award winner and author of the new book "The Art of Aging," and he says aging not only doesn't need to be avoided, it can be a gift. In chapters that blend medical details of aging with firsthand accounts of vitality at age eighty, ninety, or beyond, Dr. Nuland wants to arm us with a new attitude about our autumn years. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Paula Poundstone "There's Nothing in This Book That I Meant to Say" It's not that comedian Paula Poundstone had nothing to say about herself, it's just that when a publisher asked her to write a book she couldn't get started. Luckily for us, she found a way to write it, and the result is a book unlike any other memoir. She calls it "There's Nothing in This Book That I Meant to Say." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Laura Lippman "What the Dead Know" Thirty years before the story begins in Laura Lippman's new mystery-thriller "What the Dead Know," two young sisters vanish from a Baltimore-area shopping mall. The public memory of their disappearance has long since faded -- until the day a middle-aged woman shows up, claiming to be one of the long-lost sisters. But as her claim is subjected to scrutiny, even more questions arise. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Gigi Anders "Men May Come and Men May Go ... But I've Still Got My Little Pink Raincoat" Cuban-American journalist and author Gigi Anders brings fashion sense to her search for Mr. Right in a collection of spot-on, hilarious vignettes based on her own obsessions. Recalling a variety of clothing and accessories, Anders tells of her sartorial sojourn in a book called "Men May Come and Men May Go ... But I've Still Got My Little Pink Raincoat." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website James Mann "The China Fantasy" America's policy toward China is evolving, as China evolves. As the world's most populous country becomes an ever more prominent player, that policy will have to keep up, and author James Mann worries, in his new book "The China Fantasy" that it may not be keeping up very well. And that could have far-reaching consequences. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Yael Goldstein "Overture" A woman's difficult relationship with her daughter is complicated by the fact they are both highly talented musicians, in Yael Goldstein's debut novel "Overture." It's a coming-of-age story, with a stormy romance or two thrown in for good measure. It's also a story of sacrifices and painful choices. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Sweet Potato Queens' First Big-Ass Novel After a series of bestselling nonfiction books that combine over-the-top humor with relationship advice and recipes, Jill Conner Browne turns, in her latest book, to fiction. Browne -- otherwise known as Her Royal Highness, Boss Queen of the Sweet Potato Queens -- uses the new book to explain, albeit in fiction, the history of the SPQ. Publishers Weekly calls Browne's debut "hilarious and heartwarming." It's called "The Sweet Potato Queens' First Big-Ass Novel Stuff We Didn't Actually Do, ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Linda Fairstein "Bad Blood" Manhattan assistant DA Alexandra Cooper faces a huge challenge, in Linda Fairstein's ninth mystery "Bad Blood." Alex is prosecuting an upscale young Manhattan businessman for the murder of his wife, but the evidence is circumstantial, and the man has a great alibi, and a great defense attorney. And then the plot takes a bizarre twist that tests, and ultimately proves, Fairstein's skill as a storyteller. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Elizabeth Gilbert "Eat, Pray, Love" After her marriage ended, and ended badly, Elizabeth Gilbert needed some way to recharge and redirect her life. She decided that what she needed was a systematic change of scenery, so she planned a yearlong journey to Italy, India, and Bali. Now she tells us about her twelve months of self-rediscovery in a bestselling book called "Eat, Pray, Love." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Richard Clarke "Breakpoint" It's the year 2012 in Richard Clarke's new thriller "Breakpoint," and new technology is emerging that promises -- or threatens -- to change the very definition of what it means to be human. And that has upset enough people, that some are driven to destruction. Communication networks, satellites, research labs are suddenly very naked and vulnerable targets. All this, from a man who is a longtime government counter-terrorism expert. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Donovan "The Autobiography of Donovan" Among the rock music superstars of the mid and late 1960s, there were the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan ... and Donovan, the Scottish-born original "flower child" whose musical influence was immense, for fans and fellow musicians alike. Now he talks about his youth, his music, and his legacy, in a book called "The Autobiography of Donovan." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Carl Weber "The First Lady" Bishop T.K. Wilson is a popular pastor, whose wife Charlene has recently died from cancer, in Carl Weber's new novel "The First Lady." There are plenty of women who would like to become the next First Lady of the church, a circumstance Charlene foresaw -- and that's why she wrote deathbed letters to each of the four leading contenders, and to her husband. But will the letters have the effect Charlene had in mind? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Kinky Friedman "The Christmas Pig" Kinky Friedman's quixotic bid for Governor of Texas did nothing to diminish his desire to tell a good story. It did, however, diminish his time to write one, so his latest book is considerably shorter than his bestselling mysteries were. And this one is not a mystery, it's a Christmas tale, the story of a young boy and the task he is given that will change him. The book is called "The Christmas Pig." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website September 11th, Five Years Ago As you know, THE BOOKCAST is normally all about presenting interviews with the authors of the newest and most-talked-about books. But tomorrow is a sober anniversary for the U.S., and indeed, the world. It's been five years since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. So I wanted to use this occasion to offer another chance to hear interviews with a few of those who published important books in the two years or so after the attacks. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Derek Leebaert "To Dare and to Conquer" Military special operations have become well known to Americans in the years since the first Gulf War. We're all familiar, for example, with the laser-guided efficiency that toppled the Taliban just weeks after the 9/11 attacks. But special ops are nothing at all new, says historian Derek Leebaert. His book "To Dare And to Conquer" is a history of several centuries' worth of history-changing commando operations, going back to Biblical days. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Sen. Byron Dorgan "Take This Job and Ship It" For years the U.S. has been exporting something that critics say has been steadily weakening our economy -- we're exporting jobs. Veteran North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan gives us the numbers, and shows us the consequences, of continuing to make more and more of the U.S. economy dependent on foreigners, at the expense of our own workers, in his book "Take This Job and Ship It." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Robin Hazelwood "Model Student" Can a bright, intelligent, and very attractive 17-year-old succeed both as a highly-sought-after model, and a student at a demanding Ivy League college? We find out, in former model and Ivy League grad Robin Hazelwood's novel "Model Student." The heroine is 17-year-old Emily Woods, fresh from Wisconsin, who is learning that the big city isn't exactly what she thought it would be. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Carolyn Parkhurst "Lost and Found" A group of TV reality show contestants find that the game is changing them in ways both subtle and profound, in the novel by Carolyn Parkhurst called "Lost and Found." While competing with each other, the pairs of contestants are also forming alliances, declaring some relationships dead, and admitting to secret desires. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Brad Thor "Takedown" In the post-9/11 world New York remains a prime terrorist target, but in Brad Thor's thriller "Takedown" a horrific -- and utterly believable -- attack on Manhattan is only the beginning of the trouble, because it's not what it appears to be. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Carolyn See "There Will Never Be Another You" In the Los Angeles of the very near future, a societal post-9/11 anxiety is a constant companion as one family tries to deal with smaller, family-type anxieties, in Carolyn See's novel "There Will Never Be Another You." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website New satires by Gary Shteyngart and Scott Anderson Today, the absurdities of war, U.S. foreign intervention, politics, and, not least, love are carefully drawn out in two new novels. Journalist Scott Anderson calls his new satire, set in a fictitious Arab kingdom, "Moonlight Hotel." We'll meet Scott Anderson in a few minutes, but first, Gary Shteyngart, whose new book is called "Absurdistan." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Michele Turk "Blood, Sweat and Tears" Anytime and anyplace there is a disaster, natural or manmade, there will soon afterward be volunteers from the Red Cross. The American Red Cross has been coming to the aid of those in need for 125 years. Now journalist and former Red Cross employee Michele Turk tells the organization's story, in an oral history called "Blood, Sweat and Tears." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Philip Beard and DBC Pierre Today we'll talk with the authors of two new and noteworthy novels. DBC Pierre joins us for a talk about his book "Ludmila's Broken English," in which a young woman who gets involved in a Russian-brides internet scam comes to meet two men who, until very very recently, had actually been conjoined twins. We'll meet DBC Pierre in a few minutes, but first, Philip Beard, whose debut novel "Dear Zoe" was told in the voice of a grieving teenager. His new one, "Lost in the Garden" is told by a ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Gay Talese "A Writer's Life" Whether it's profiling boxer Floyd Patterson, or trying to track down Frank SInatra, or chronicling an American mob family, or revealing the true nature of modern American mores about sex, journalist and author Gay Talese has always been at the cutting edge of his profession. Now, in his first substantially new book since 1992, called "A Writer's Life," Talese pulls back the curtain just enough to let us see how he works. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Gloria Loring "Living With Type 2 Diabetes" When her son was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes several years ago, actress and singer Gloria Loring made it her business to do what she could to fight the disease that affects millions of Americans. Her book, for those with diabetes as well as their family members, is called "Living With Type 2 Diabetes." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Ross King and Joyce Chaplin Today we're going back to 19th century Paris, where the era of Impressionism in art is beginning to take hold, as we talk with Ross King about his new book "The Judgment of Paris." But first we're going back even further, to the 18th century, as historian Joyce Chaplin reveals the scientific side of the most iconic of American founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, in her new book "The First Scientific American." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Barry Werth, Robert Dallek and Terry Golway Barry Werth joins us to talk about his new book "31 Days," which focuses on that tense month between the 1974 resignation of Richard Nixon and the historic pardon from Gerald Ford. We'll hear from Barry Werth in a few minutes. But first, Robert Dallek and Terry Golway, whose new book reexamines the political career of John F. Kennedy through his public speeches. It's called "Let Every Nation Know." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Louis Uchitelle "The Disposable American" Why have layoffs reached epic proportions in America? How did we get here? And can we ever again have real job security, like our parents and grandparents had? New York Times business reporter Louis Uchitelle shows how layoffs have become a first resort, instead of a last, in his book "The Disposable American." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Paul Rusesabagina "An Ordinary Man" He's been called Rwanda's Oskar Schindler. He was portrayed by actor Don Cheadle in the movie "Hotel Rwanda." And now Paul Rusesabagina has written a memoir, putting the full horror of the 1994 Rwandan genocide in heartbreaking clarity and perspective. His book is called "An Ordinary Man." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams & Tom Graham March Madness comes to a conclusion tomorrow night with the crowning of the NCAA men's basketball champion. It wasn't that long ago that college basketball was for whites only. The man who broke through that barrier was named Bill Garrett, and author Tom Graham tells his story in a new book called . We'll talk with Tom Graham in a few minutes. But first, the book the entire nation is talking about, the book that claims to have the proof that prominent athletes have used steroids, including ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Steven Heine "White Collar Zen" There are all kinds of philosophies for succeeding in the modern workplace -- not sweating the small stuff, extreme success, how full is your bucket -- and then there are the ancient principles of Zen Buddhism. Steven Heine is a professor of religious studies and history at Florida International University and a prominent authority on Buddhism. His purpose in writingWhite Collar Zenwas to show how Zen concepts can be much more useful than anything you picked up reading Dilbert. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Linda Greenhouse "Becoming Justice Blackmun" As the U.S. Senate prepares to begin confirmation hearings for the president's Supreme Court nominee John Roberts, it's a good time to look back a few years, to the high court career of a Nixon appointee who achieved his greatest notoriety on the Supreme Court just three years into his 24-year tenure. Harry Blackmun died in 1999, leaving behind an astounding collection of paper that New York Times Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse has used in writing her new bookBecoming Justice Blac ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Marc Romano "Crossworld" Every day millions of Americans go through a common ritual, an intellectual exercise that is as addictive as it can be exhilarating -- or maddening. It's the crossword puzzle. Among its acknowledged devotees is writer Marc Romano, whose book is calledCrossworld. 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