Thursday, March 17, 2011
Lincecum
Art and Madmen
For women coming of age in the post war America of the late 50's and early 60's, it was a complicated piece of business. Then, if women wanted to have it all, the only road was through the work of men. If smart, creative women wanted to have a hand in the creation of art or literature, that world and the men in it, were even more complicated. To navigate this minefield was a feat of both sheer intelligence and sexual cunning, all coupled with a remarkable bout of courage.Few did this better then award winning writer Anne Roiphe. Growing up in the 40's and 50's in a world of privilege on Park Avenue, she would become a kind of muse to many of the great writer of the mid 20th Century. Writers like Plimpton, Mailer, Styron and others, would today be her "friends" on Facebook. Her new memoir, Art and Madness: A Memoir of Lust Without Reason
, takes us into this often romanticized, but very real world.My conversation with Anne Roiphe:
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
The Celestine Insight
Most writers and thinkers are lucky if their work touches or impacts thousands of people. For the greats, it might be even more. But for James Redfield, author of the mega bestseller THE CELESTINE PROPHESY and its subsequent installments, he has impacted millions. What nerve has he continued to touch for 17 years?In an age of religious extremism he has found the sweet spot that he calls "authentic spirituality." In so doing he not only co-opts, but incorporates all of the world's great belief systems. Now, in his first book in twelve years, he brings us the forth installment of the Celestine series, The Twelfth Insight.
My conversation with James Redfield:
Monday, March 14, 2011
The Moral Underground
While the media is quick to give us lifestyles of the rich and famous, and anxious to point out the good deeds of wealthy philanthropists and the importance of a market driven culture, most of the middle class today are leading lives of quiet desperation. For many though, being “quiet” means taking small progressive steps to try and make the system more equitable. Sometimes those steps are outside the boundaries of what is right, but well within the bounds of what is moral. That is the focus of Lisa Dodson book The Moral Underground: How Ordinary Americans Subvert an Unfair Economy
.My conversation with Lisa Dodson:
Friday, March 11, 2011
A Visit From the Goon Squad
The way that music short circuits time and makes yesterday's events, todays reality; the state of the music business today and pushing the boundaries of the literary from, are all part of A Visit from the Goon Squad. Jennifer Egan's fascinating novel, that's this years winner of the National Book Critics Circle award for Fiction.My conversation with Jennifer Egan:
5 big ideas for putting Kids First
In much of our debate about education policy today, it seems we leave out the kids. The kids sometimes seem like fungible chess pieces that we move around some kind of public policy Monopoly board. To often, to many of these kids go directly to jail, without ever passing go! A good example of our misguided policy priority is how little we fund the Head Start program. It's efficacy should be a settled issue. The statistics are clear that those kids with quality, early education are more likely to graduate from high school, go to college, stay healthy and earn 35% more. Economists calculate the benefit to cost ratio at an amazing seventeen-to-one. Yet today's N.Y. Times has a story about how Republicans still want to severely cut the funding for Head Start. Education policy expert David Kirp strongly disagrees.David Kirp thinks we need a new kind of policy. A simple one really. One that puts kids at the center of the discussion. Starting with 5 simple ideas, he seeks to reshape America's failing approach to our kids and outlines it in his book Kids First: Five Big Ideas for Transforming Children's Lives and America's Future
.My conversation with David Kirp:
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
The Other Eighties
Much as we might like it to be otherwise, our times are often defined by our leaders. Certainly in contemporary times, we remember the post war 50’s, reflected by Ike. The country moving forward again under Kennedy. The chaos of the Great Society and Vietnam under Johnson and then Nixon. We've talked a lot recently of the prosperity of the 90’s under Bill Clinton, and certainly the nation's shift to the right under Reagan in many ways, even more then disco, defined the 80’s.Even though history is already kind to the Reagan legacy, perhaps because he seems so moderate by the Republican standards of today, it’s important to remember the impact of Reagan on the nation and more importantly of his polarizing presence and the opposition that Reagan gave rise to. An opposition that sought to consolidate the progressive gains of the 60’s and 70’s, even as the nation was lurching rightward. It truly was the political equivalent of the irresistible force vs. the immovable object. That’s the social and political backdrop of Bradford Martin's look at the Reagan years, The Other Eighties: A Secret History of America in the Age of Reagan
.My conversation with Bradford Martin:
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
King of the Hackers!
We tend to think of hackers as misanthrope teenagers locked in the back bedroom. In fact hacking, or at least the modern variant of it, is part of a sophisticated international crime network, that stretches from the Bay Area to the furthest reaches of the world. Fueled by the easy and international movement of money in a globalized economy, stolen data is turned into billions of illegal dollars. Kevin Poulsen, once a hacker himself, now the senior editor of Wired.com, in his book Kingpin: How One Hacker Took Over the Billion-Dollar Cybercrime Underground
, takes us through the story of Max Butler, a hacker extraordinaire who would ultimately receive the longest prison sentence ever handed out to a hacker.My conversation with Kevin Poulsen:
Monday, March 7, 2011
The Science of Immortality
Yesterday's New York Times Magazine had a story about business tycoon David Murdock and his quest to live until 125. The fact is, there are scientists today who think we could live forever! Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award winner Johnathan Weiner, in his new book Long for This World: The Strange Science of Immortality
, takes us inside the science of aging and introduces us to the some of the leading minds in the field. Is the modern Fountain of Youth possible, can our deterioration be stopped and what would be the consequences of us all living beyond 100? Weiner tells us about the cutting edge research and the social and political consequences.My conversation with Jonathan Weiner:
Thursday, March 3, 2011
The Silicon Valley Startup
Some people try and predict the future, others simply invent it and still others make those inventions possible. If it’s true that it is entrepreneurs that drive the future, then there are no more important players then the men who coach, invest and are the allies of those entrepreneurs. One of the stars and pioneers of this field is William H. Draper III. For more than forty years he has been a linchpin of the Silicon Valley, where he has turned others entrepreneurial vision, into tomorrow's reality. In this new book The Startup Game: Inside the Partnership between Venture Capitalists and Entrepreneurs,
he takes an insightful look at how innovation, investment and individuals truly change the world.My conversation with William H. Draper III:
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