A Novel Idea

Prolific author and curious man, Jonah Raskin joins Suzanne M. Lang in conversation on his book A Terrible Beauty: the Wilderness of American Literature, which examines American literature through the lens of our contemporary environmental crisis. Suzanne also talks with with geologist Thomas E Cochrane, whose book Shaping the Sonoma-Mendocino Coast: Exploring the Coastal Geography of Northern California is a travel guide as much as a primer in plate tectonics. Something to consider when planning a roadtrip up the California coast.

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Encore presentation of a 2013 broadcast features Suzanne Lang in conversation with author and poet Gary Soto and Rosemary Manchester talking with Gerald Haslam on the publication of his work In Thought and Action: The Enigmatic Life of S. I. Hayakawa. These are two writers with deep roots in California’s Central Valley.

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A Novel Idea features two novelists, whose books couldn’t be more different. Both write about the challenges of difference, of motherhood, and of finding stability in a sometimes-hostile world.

Shanti Sekaran brings us Lucky Boy, the saga of two women, strangers and cultures apart, whose lives are connected through the life of an infant boy.

Shelby Londyn-Heath has written The Twilight Tsunami, a raw, funny, and hard-hitting account of the lives of people involved in the child welfare system.

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Neo-noir and crime fiction with Suzanne Lang in conversation with Daniel Pyne, screenwriter, show runner of Amazon’s hit drama Bosch, and author of Catalina Eddy, a Novel in Three Decades. Suzanne also talks with poet and playwright Stephen Mack Jones, who has published his first novel, a crime thriller set in Detroit, August Snow.

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Suzanne M. Lang talks with Thais Nye Derich about her path of self-examination and learning to discover that she, like many other women, was a victim of the medical establishment that denied her the human right of birthing her own child. Second Chance, A Mother’s Quest for a Natural Birth after Cesarean is not just a book about childbirth, but about control over our own lives and simply, about being human.

Also featured is a conversation with Cathy Langlois, director of the Spirit Horse Center in Northern California who has written Enlighten Up, Practical Wisdom & Spiritual Guidance for an Imperfect World.

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Historical fiction radiates into the present with two novels featured on A Novel Idea. Join Suzanne M. Lang in conversations with Susan Sherman on her novel about mystics and Marie Curie, If You Are There and David Boling, whose novel is The Lost History of Stars, set during brutal Boar Wars in South Africa and told through the experiences of a fourteen year-old girl.

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Top intellectual property and entertainment lawyer Peter Afrasiabi joins Suzanne Lang in conversation on his recent book Burning Bridges, America’s 20-year Crusade to Deport Labor Leader Harry Bridges. Bridges was an immigrant, a longshoreman, and a labor leader which was not a good combination in the 1930s. The imbalance of executive power in the federal government of that time resonates with our contemporary situation.

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J. Jaye Gold has been a hustler and gambler in his life, but sought a new way of being in his that lead him on a journey around the globe, and for the past 35 years has assisted others in their search for meaning. He joins Suzanne Lang in conversation on his latest book Justin Time, Autobiographical Stories of an American Spiritual Master. Sunday, Octoer 29th at 4 on KRCB’s A Novel Idea.

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On KRCB’s A Novel Idea, two authors at the top of their form —Joan Frank, with her novel All the News I Need, and Richard Alther and his book Roxie & Fred, join Suzanne Lang in conversation of art, craft, and character.

Joan Frank is acknowledged by many as a “writer’s writer” but more than that, she is a reader’s writer with keen observations, richly drawn characters, and unflinching honesty. Her latest book is All the News I Need.

Richard Alther is a painter and author whose novel Roxie & Fred delves into love over 50… Way over 50.

Both books explore the depths of love and loss, and the life available to us when we open up and let go of convention.

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Suzanne Lang talks with Gayle Forman, a literary star in the Young Adult genre, who has recently released a novel, as she says, starring adults and geared toward that audience. Leave Me is the story of a wife and mother who leaves home to find herself.

Also featured is Suzanne’s conversation with Silas Dent Zobal, author of the acclaimed novel The People of the Broken Neck, a story about family, about violence and post traumatic stress, and a reflection on the legacy of each person’s life.

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