All About Books
A weekly book review and discussion program hosted by Pat Leach. Updated on Thursdays.
Episodes
May 7, 2025 • 10 mins
From recalling names and faces to trauma and healing- memory plays an important role in nearly every aspect of life. Dr. Charan Ranganath is a leading memory research scientist and psychologist, his bestselling book “Why We Remember” is reviewed on this week’s
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April 30, 2025 • 17 mins
From pro wrestling and Pokémon to Insane Clown Posse and Jerry Springer, a new book looks at the low culture of the late ’90s revealing a continuing impact on current American culture and society. “1999: The Year Low Culture Conquered America and Kickstarted Our Bizarre Times”, hear an interview with the author, Nebraska journalist Ross Benes.
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April 23, 2025 • 14 mins
An interview with Dawn Logsdon, one of the film makers behind the new PBS documentary, “Free For All: The Public Library”. A films exploring how libraries are deeply woven into the fabric of American communities large and small.
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April 16, 2025 • 9 mins
There are only so many hours in a day, as the saying goes. That’s the focus of a new book that addresses fundamental questions about how we live. On this week’s “All About Books” a look at, “Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts” by Oliver Burkeman.
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April 9, 2025 • 7 mins
A Latina woman attending an ivy league college feels a connection to an artist who died under mysterious circumstances in New York years before. “Anita de Monte Laughs Last: a Novel” by Xochitl Gonzalez is a witty look at power, love and art. Hear a review on
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April 2, 2025 • 11 mins
Two pioneering tech companies and their CEOs are competing over the development of artificial intelligence: Sam Altman of OpenAI and Demis Hassabis of DeepMind. Lost in this race for control are the threats their creators are ignoring. That’s the story found in “Supremacy: AI, ChatGPT, and the Race that Will Change the World” by Parmy Olson.
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March 26, 2025 • 8 mins
A mother struggling with sobriety moves herself and young daughter to live with a reclusive mountain man of Alaska’s wilds. Author Eowyn Ivey’s new novel “Black Woods, Blue Sky” is about love, the lure of wild places and the dangers found there.
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March 19, 2025 • 6 mins
A presidential candidate is assassinated at San Francisco’s swanky Claremont Hotel in 1944. Homicide detective Al Sullivan was having a drink in the bar downstairs. This begins the historical thriller “The Golden Gate” by Amy Chua. Hear a review of this best-selling author’s debut novel.
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March 12, 2025 • 9 mins
Political columnist Max Boot took on the task of writing a monumental biography of conservative icon Ronald Regan. Combining interviews with the President’s aides, friends and family as well as newly available documents, this new biography details Regan’s life beyond just the political years. Hear a review of “Reagan: His Life and Legend” by Max Boot
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March 5, 2025 • 7 mins
On a harsh but beautiful island off the coast of Wales, a young woman looks after the home for her father and younger sister after their mother dies. In the novel “Whale Fall” by Elizabeth O’Connor, the dreams of venturing out into a bigger world come into conflict with community obligations.
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February 26, 2025 • 8 mins
At the start of WWII, the U.S. found itself in desperate need of an intelligence agency. To hire the experts needed,the government looked to academia for recruits. English professors, librarians, and historians were suddenly pulled into spy craft. This history is detailed in the new book “Book and Dagger” by Elyse Graham.
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February 19, 2025 • 7 mins
Set in a starkly beautiful North Dakota community, “The Mighty Red”, a novel by Louise Erdrich, reveals ordinary people who are complicated and contradictory as they struggle, dream, and love.
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February 12, 2025 • 17 mins
This week on All About Books” Pat Leach talks with author Kevin Shinn a former collegiate pastor, chef and restaurateur. His lifelong spiritual journey eventually led him to his typewriter where he worked out his latest book, “A Different Metaphor: Faith That Imagines The Impossible.”
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February 5, 2025 • 9 mins
It’s a day in the lives of a team of 6 international astronauts as they orbit the earth. There are mundane daily tasks, solitude, as well as profoundly moving vistas of the fragile earth below. “Orbital: a Novel” by Samantha Harvey, winner of the 2004 Booker Prize, is reviewed on this week's "All About Books."
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January 29, 2025 • 7 mins
Two women with opposite personalities share a house in the Dutch countryside during the summer of 1961. Suspicion between them becomes obsession in the novel “The Safe Keep” by Yael van der Wouden, a tale about the legacy of World War 2 and the darker corners of the past.
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January 22, 2025 • 8 mins
It’s 1921 in Panang Malaysia where the novel “The House of Doors” introduces real events and people, like the writer Somerset Maugham, along with fictional characters. The sunset of British Empire is the backdrop for this tale about the complicated nature of love and friendship.
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January 15, 2025 • 6 mins
“How to Read a Book: a Novel” by Monica Wood is an honest and hopeful story of struggling with guilt, second chances, and how books can change a life.
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January 8, 2025 • 13 mins
Most towns have a library of some sort, but did you know there’s a library at the South Pole? Some libraries are hidden in remote deserts, in phone booths and trees. “All About Books” host Pat Leach talked with author Diana Helmuth about her new book, “Hidden Libraries: The World’s Most Unusual Book Depositories”
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December 18, 2024 • 8 mins
Irish novelist Colm Toibin’s latest book is “Long Island” which continues the life story of Eilis Lacey, the complex and enigmatic heroine from his previous best-seller, “Brooklyn”
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December 11, 2024 • 8 mins
In her award-winning novel “The Wren, The Wren” author Anne Enright creates 3 generations of Irish women who contend with their inheritances- which includes charismatic, poetic men and sometimes ill treatment.
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