Advertise on podcast: Booktalk with Diana Korte

Host Diana Korte speaks with  Historian Edmund Richardson, author of 3 books. His newest title, ALEXANDER: GOD, KING, MAN is about a boy from the hills of Macedon, a neighboring kingdom to Greece, who ruled most of the known world by his mid-twenties. For centuries, many have told his story, and yet Alexander himself has remained a mystery. But over the last few years, a series of remarkable discoveries has changed everything. Now, for the first time since antiquity, it is possible to tell a different story.

Ever wonder what’s the difference between normal forgetting and Alzheimer’s? Did you know there are tools to work with forgetfulness?  What if a dementia diagnosis could be an invitation to live as told in patient stories in this book? My guest today is Dr. Zaldy Tan, Director of the Memory and Healthy Aging Program at Cedar Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.   Author of two books, his newest title is “What to Remember When You Are Forgetting, How to Live and Thrive with Memory Loss, Alzheimer’s and Other Dementias.”   “The best advice I can give to anyone out there who's concerned about their memory is don't wait,” he writes. Now that we know that the greatest benefit for treatment is in the earliest stage of the disease, it becomes even more important to get an evaluation as soon as possible.

Host Diana Korte speaks with fiction writer Jim Shepard, author of 14 books. His newest title,  “The Queen of Bad Influences” is a collection of 12 short stories spanning six centuries and multiple catastrophes. We read the 1864 letters between Lucy in Boon, North Carolina and her great love, William, on his Civil War march in Tennessee.  What it was like from multiple points of view at the devastating Labor Day hurricane of 1935 in Florida and the book title story of two women as their devotion unfolds on the doomed Lusitania ocean liner that was torpedoed by a German U-boat in 1915.

Host Diana Korte speaks with England-based writer Lia Louis, author of 6 books. In her newest rom com, THE PHONE SWAP, an accidental phone swap finds a celebrity heartthrob falling in love with an ordinary girl. But falling in love in private is not as simple as falling in love in reality. Especially if the world is somehow still watching. As two very different worlds collide, is the chance for true love even possible? After all, you can’t escape reality forever. Right?

Host Diana Korte speaks with Mary D Williams’s, a gospel singer, historian, educator and co-author of “Mahalia Jackson, Moving On Up A Little Higher, The Story of a American Civil Rights Pioneer.”    If Americans today still recognize the name Mahalia Jackson, they might recall that she was perhaps the greatest gospel singer who ever lived.  But for many people, there's no awareness at all. Not even for an entertainer whose “Move On Up A Little Higher,” sold 8 million copies, headlined two Newport jazz festivals, and performed before four United States presidents. With a voice reminiscent of Mahalia Jackson, Williams sings her soulful songs of protest and promise several times during our conversation.

Host Diana Korte speaks with Alexander McCall Smith, the author of 120 books in 46 languages sold around the world. These include the “No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency” novels plus other series and stand-alone titles.  His 26th book in this series is “In the Time of Five Pumpkins” featuring Precious Ramotswe and her world of familiar characters.  In this newest installment Mma Ramotswe takes on a number of perplexing situations, and while she tries to maintain her usual impartiality, it’s difficult when one of the cases involves someone so close to her heart.  The author’s 27th book in this series (9/15/26) is “The Big Cats Dance Party.”

Host Diana Korte speaks with naval aviator Dan Pedersen, author of  “TOPGUN. An American Story,” who was the boss of the group that formed the elite Navy Fighter Weapons School. Also known as the TOPGUN program, it began in Miramar, California 57 years ago.  CLASSIC. I’m re-airing this 2019 conversation with Dan in 4th of July week because his advice at the end of it, in particular, is a good reminder of the wages of war.    In this fast-paced memoir Dan, who enlisted in the US Navy in 1953, accumulated 7,000 flight hours and 1,014 carrier landings while flying 39 types of aircraft. He looks back at his personal life as well as his Navy aviation career from Miramar and Area 51 to the decks of aircraft carriers in war and peace.   Pilots from this famous school flew aerial scenes, including those of the Grumman F-14 Tomcats, in the 1986 movie, TOPGUN.

Host Diana Korte speaks with writer Lisa See who has published 13 books. Her newest title, DAUGHTERS OF THE SUN AND MOON, is the story of three Chinese women immigrants. As the book begins, it’s 1870 when these Chinese women arrive in the small, dusty, and violent part of Los Angeles. Each woman has her own desires. Dove wants to love and be loved, Petal desires freedom, and Moon seeks justice. Together they face a larger society that wishes them not one ounce of good will. Anti-Chinese sentiment is strong in Los Angeles, and this eventually leads to the Night of Horrors during which all three women are challenged in ways they could not have imagined. Their unexpected friendship helps them survive and, despite the odds, thrive, in the turmoil of post-Civil War Los Angeles.

Host Diana Korte speaks with writer and Iraq War veteran Kevin Powers.  Author of 5 books, his first title, “The Yellow Birds,” is considered a landmark work of American fiction and was a finalist for the National Book Award. His newest title, CHILDREN OF THE WILD, is a love story of three people written against the background of rural Virginia, WW1 battle scenes and the 1918 pandemic. As the book begins, it's 1917 In Ewer’s Rock, Virginia. Roy Young is restless, eager to leave this isolated rural valley for university and return with the technical knowledge to modernize his family’s farm and bring them properly into the twentieth century. Samantha Hatton, the minister’s daughter and Roy’s best friend since childhood, knows that both Roy and the town expect them to marry. But Samantha, a daring and ambitious young woman, hungers for more. Above them on the mountain, tending to a lost herd of cattle, is silent Ennis Duke, the mysterious wild boy whose arrival in the valley will upend Ewer’s Rock’s understanding of itself and its place in the world.

Host Diana Korte speaks with Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jane Smiley, author of 34 books. Her newest title, “LIDIE. The Further Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton,” follows two young women fleeing a divided America in 1857.   When Lidie’s niece Annie becomes an actress at the local theater in Quincy IL, and is offered an opportunity to perform in England, she decides to run away. But travel is dangerous for a young, unmarried woman, so Lidie, armed with her pistol and her wit, goes with her.

Host Diana Korte speaks with historian and University of Georgia professor Daniel Rood, author of 2 books. His newest title is “IN THE SHADOW OF THE GREAT HOUSE. A History of the Plantation in America.”  In a narrative that sweeps across 400 years of American history, Rood reveals that the plantation did not die after the Civil War. It metastasized.   From the advent of sharecropping in the late 19th century to the rise of cotton in mid-20th century California to today’s chicken processing plants which sit on the same land once occupied by plantations and staffed largely by migrant workers, the plantation has cast a long shadow over American life.   Dan Rood specializes in the history of Atlantic slavery and its intersections with the histories of technology, agriculture, and capitalism.

Host Diana Korte speaks with science writer Helen Pearson, author of 2 books and editor for England’s prestigious Nature Journal. Her newest title is, “BEYOND BELIEF: How Evidence Shows What Really Works.”   In an age of alternative facts, today more people around the globe are using scientific evidence to figure out what works in health and medicine, government, business, as well as conservation, schools and parenting. This wasn’t always the case.  For many years, most medical advice was based on doctors’ opinions and conventional wisdom, not solid science. Pearson describes how evidence-based medicine swept the world in the 1990s and how the idea that evidence should guide decisions is quietly transforming a host of other fields as well.

Host Diana Korte speaks with historian Craig Fehrman whose newest title, THIS VAST ENTERPRISE, is a major revisionist history of the Lewis and Clark years-long expedition that began in 1804.   Commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson who fought bitter Congressional unrest to get the funding for it, this group of 45 or so traveled up the Missouri River from St. Louis to the Pacific Ocean in Oregon.  Each chapter moves to a different person’s point of view, showcasing the many characters beyond the two leaders who flesh out the story of this expedition.   Among the many research innovations the author brings to this book are lost documents, Native perspectives, and oral history passed down over centuries.

Host Diana Korte speaks with Marie Benedict, known for her suspenseful historical fiction, about her 10th book, DAUGHTER OF EGYPT, a story of two ambitious women who lived centuries apart.  In the 1920s, British archeologist Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon of Highclere Castle  (the real life Downton Abbey) made headlines around the world with the discovery of the treasure-filled tomb of the boy Pharaoh Tutankhamun—also known as King Tut.  But behind it all stood Lady Evelyn Herbert—daughter of Lord Carnarvon who made the momentous find possible.  Nearly 3,000 years earlier, another woman defied the expectations of her time: Hatshepsut, Egypt’s lost pharaoh. Trained by her father, her reign was bold and visionary but nearly erased from history.

Host Diana Korte speaks with Harry Reis whose newest title is "HOW TO FEEL LOVED. The Five Mindsets That Get You More of What Matters Most." We can be loved and still not feel loved. Many people believe that if they behave the right way, say the right things, or make themselves more lovable, they will feel more loved. Turns out it doesn’t work that way. In this exceptional book the authors, a relationship expert (Reis) and a happiness researcher (Lyubomirsky), present a hopeful science-backed shift in how to think about love. As they say, don’t change yourself—change the conversation.