A Novel Idea

Mystery writer Kenneth Wishnia joins Suzanne Lang in conversation on his latest novel, The Fifth Servant, which is set in 1592 Prague, where a young Christian girl is found with her throat slashed in a Jewish shop on the eve of Passover. Ken is also the editor of the award winning anthology Jewish Noir and the author of a series of hard boiled thrillers that follow NYPD cop Filomena Buscarsela through the gritty crime scene of New York, including 23 Shades of Black, Soft Money, The Glass Factory, Red Glass, and Blood Lake.

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William Luvaas, NEA grant recipient who has been recognized for his short stories and novels alike, joins Suzanne Lang in conversation on his third novel Beneath the Coyote Hills. Luvaas is attracted to the outsider, and his observations on the effects of wealth and culture on the human condition are at the core of much of his work.

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New York Time’s bestselling author Meg Waite Clayton joins Suzanne M. Lang in conversation about The Race for Paris, Clayton’s compelling novel of women journalists on the front leading up to the liberation of Paris during World War II. The historical grit and realism of the war is the backdrop for an enduring love story.

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California forests and the rich natural history of Sonoma County are brought to light with Fred Euphrat, forester and author of Sonoma Mandala, a collection of essays originally broadcast on KRCB radio’s “Native Sonoma.”

Next, Donna Richardson Robbins, who has just published her father’s memoir Tractors, Trains, & Shipwrecks, Yesteryear recollections of Sonoma County, the handwritten anecdotes of Donald R Richardson joins host Suzanne Lang.

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A Novel Idea, with Suzanne M. Lang, takes a look at California’s borders: the immigrants traveling over our Southern border rolling in on bicycles, and the furry, four footed immigrants, tagged and collared, reclaiming their territory on our Northern Border.

Kimball Taylor is a journalist whose curiosity reveals a story that sometimes reads like a bizarre work of fiction. The Coyote’s Bicycle, The Untold Story of Seven Thousand Bicycles and the Rise of a Borderline Empire follows trails leading from San Diego, Tijuana, and across the country’s military complexes. Taylor unearths incredible stories of human migration across our Southern Border and the bicycles that travel even further.

Emma Bland Smith has created a beautiful picture book, Journey: Based on the True Story of OR7, the Most Famous Wolf in the West, that portrays the story of OR-7, who came to be known as Journey, the first gray wolf to return to California in nearly 100 years.

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This edition A Novel Idea with Suzanne Lang features two authors who go deep into our cultural histories and help us understand where we’ve come from and where we are through some darn good story telling.

Elaine Khosrova has written a book about Butter, and not just on how to make a good hollandaise sauce. Butter is one of our oldest foods and she describes for us the wonder to the palette of yak butter made in the old ways, along with the role butter has played spiritually, medicinally, and as an important food, for thousands of years.

Barabara Doud Wright, whose deep family history inspired An Awakening Heart a fictional retelling of the Moravian Brethren who settled this continent at a most formative time in our nation’s history, has just published An Irish Tale, inspired by her Irish roots on the other side of the family. It’s a lyrical imagining of the young life of St Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, and the Pagan woman who loved and healed him.

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This encore presentation features Rosemary Manchester in conversation with Jonah Raskin on his book James McGrath: The Life and Times of an Extraordinary American Teacher, Mentor, Cultural Ambassador, and Pedagogical Pilgrim: in a Class by Himself.

Manchester also talks with Alison Owings on her oral-history Indian Voices: Listening to Native Americans.

Plus, Barbara Quick reviews Italian author Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend.

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Elite North Koreans struggle to protect themselves and their families in the face of a paraonoid, tyrannical regime in award winning journalist, Paul H.B. Shin’s espionage thriller, Half Life. Suzanne M. Lang talks with Shin about the novel, set in 1997, during the period when famine was devastating North Korea and there were a series of high profile defections.

Suzanne talks with Wendy E. Simmons, whose travel memoir, My Holiday in North Korea: the Funniest/Worst Place on Earth chronicles her recent visit to this strange country: a trip that blew her mind in ways she did not anticipate.

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A Novel Idea with Suzanne M. Lang features Jessica Teich with her memoir The Future Tense of Joy. A Rhodes Scholar, Teich happens upon an obituary of a fellow Rhodes Scholar who took her own life by jumping out a hotel window, which leads Jessica on a transformative journey. Also featured is Cathy Wild, whose book Wild Ideas: Creativity from the Inside Out uses personal stories and analysis of her own life to identify difficult to articulate concepts of identity, suffering, gratitude, and health.

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15,000 nautical miles, six years, and a world of insight ….Heather Lyn Mann joins Suzanne Lang in conversation about Heather’s journey as expressed in her chronicle of her life’s journey sailing around the Atlantic, Ocean of Insight, a Sailor’s Voyage from Despair to Hope. The book is gripping, funny, and rewards with Heather’s reflection on being human on a suffering planet.

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