Monthly Archives: September 2008

Podcast

David Cay Johnston, FREE LUNCH

Francine Prose
Francine Prose
David Cay Johnston
David Cay Johnston

Francesca interviews reporter David Cay Johnston about his investigation into how government policy is rigged to enrich the super wealthy. And Francine Prose talks about GOLDENGROVE, her new coming-of-age novel. Continue reading

Podcast

T.J. English, HAVANA NOCTURNE and Marisa Silver, GOD OF WAR

[amazon-product align=”right”]0061712744[/amazon-product]

T J English
T J English

Francesca talks with journalist T. J. English about the Mafia’s Cuba experiment, the parallels between the Mob and legal capitalism, and the role Mob activities played in spurring the Cuban Revolution into being. His bestselling book is HAVANA NOCTURNE: How the Mob owned Cuba…and Then Lost It to the Revolution.

Marisa Silver
Marisa Silver

Also, Marisa Silver tells us about her haunting novel, THE GOD OF WAR. Set in the arid landscape by the Salton Sea of California, GOD OF WAR is a powerful coming-of-age novel about a boy who confronts the need to balance his responsibility to his family with his emerging sense of self.

[amazon-product align=”right”]1416563172[/amazon-product]“Marisa Silver’s The God of War is a novel of great metaphorical depth and beauty. It stays with you like a lesson well and truly learned.” — Richard Russo, author of Empire Falls

Read an excerpt from GOD OF WAR

Podcast

Toxic Legacies

[amazon-product align=”right”]1597260843[/amazon-product]Francesca talks with  journalist Nancy Nichols connects her wrenching personal story to the larger story of toxic pollution. Nichols grew up in Waukegan, on Lake Michigan. The lake has been massively contaminated by PCB and other toxic chemicals. She survived cancer but her sister did not. Her memoir is LAKE EFFECT: Two Sisters and a Town’s Toxic Legacy.

EPA Report downplaying Bisphenol A hazards

John Peterson Myers on Bisphenol A link to metabolic disorders in Environmental Health News