Click here to read the New Yorker article about Kevin Briggs.

Bob

The Surrendered, by Chang-rae Lee

The Privileges, by Jonathan Dee

The Unnamed, by Joshua Ferris

The Room and the Chair, by Lorriane Adams

The Genius in All of Us, by David Shenk

The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People who Read Them, by Elif Batuman

And here’s a link to purchase the latest collection of the original 1950’s essays, edited by Dan Gediman.

Edward R. Murrow’s This I Believe

Bob conducted this interview a month ago, and ever since I volunteered to produce it he’s been asking how I like Suzi’s music. Bob has become a big fan and once I finally started mixing the songs together with their conversation, I also began to appreciate her talent. The songs really are good. Her latest CD is actually a double album. The project and disc one are both called Best Regards. It contains six new songs. Disc two features two new songs and four older songs and is titled Less of the Same. Suzi Ragsdale is the daughter of music icon Ray Stevens, who is known for novelty songs like Ahab the Arab, The Streak and Guitarzan. He’s also the guy who put fiddles and a banjo on his arrangement of “Misty” and won a Grammy for it. A five-year-old Suzi got her start in professional music as part of the children’s chorus on her dad’s feel good song “Everything is Beautiful” and today he is her music publisher. Despite her early start in music and family connections, Suzi was actually a late bloomer and took the slow road to the front of the big stage, singing on demos and playing with and behind other artists first. Now she is emerging as a unique artist on stage and in the recording studio. She also spends a lot of time in the kitchen and in the yoga studio.

Sing for your Supper- Valentine’s Brunch from Suzi Ragsdale on Vimeo.

Find Suzi’s recipe for grilled pork tenderloin in this link.

And if you ever need to feed 70 people, try her recipe for Silver Moon Chili.

Suzi Ragsdale is also WAY into yoga, as evidenced by this picture. She says she’d like to arrange a tour of posh spas around the country combining a yoga class, homemade dinner and a musical performance. Sounds perfect for her.

HOUR ONE

The Pacific is a 10-part miniseries that portrays the real-life journeys of Marines fighting across the Pacific Theater during World War II.  Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg are the producers of the HBO program which is based on the book also titled The Pacific by historian Hugh Ambrose. He talks with Bob about the stories from his book, which is the official companion to the miniseries premiering this weekend on HBO.

In this week’s installment of our ongoing series This I Believe, Bob talks with curator Dan Gediman about the essay of Robert A. Heinlein.  He won four Hugo Awards during his 50-year career as a science fiction writer. Born and raised in Missouri, he graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1929 and did aeronautical engineering for the Navy during World War II. Heinlein’s books include Starship Troopers and Stranger in a Strange Land.

HOUR TWO

For the first time, the best essays of Pulitzer Prize winner David Maraniss have been collected into a single volume. Into the Story brings together essays about Bill Clinton’s childhood in Little Rock, Barack Obama’s rise through the dreams of his mother, Jesse Jackson’s relationship with Martin Luther King and many other stories by Maraniss about his journey through life, politics, sports and loss. 

Suzi Ragsdale has sung background vocals on more than 60 albums including Whisper My Name by Randy Travis, but recording her own music has been a slower process.  This year, the songwriter, vocalist and pianist has released a double album.  The project and the first CD is titled Best Regards, an eclectic set of Ragsdale’s most recent tunes. Disc two, Less of the Same, is a mix of songs written over the course of her career.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010: Meg Hutchinson is an award-winning songwriter who artfully documents the human condition.  Hutchinson released her debut CD Come Up Full in 2008 and now she has a new CD titled The Living Side.  Then, Salon.com book critic Laura Miller shares her recommendations for what’s new in the book world.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010: When companies want to understand global affairs, they hire someone like George Friedman. He runs Stratfor, a private intelligence company that provides intelligence and analysis.  Friedman is the author of The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century and he’ll discuss what a private intelligence firm does, who hires it and what it knows that the public doesn’t.

Thursday, March 18, 2010:  David Kessler is one of the most driven and successful doctors of his generation. He fearlessly took on the tobacco industry as head of the FDA, was dean of a premier medical school in California and has done path breaking research in pediatrics. There is one part of his life where he has always failed: his weight.  His new book The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite analyzes why more American every year are losing the battle to control their weight.  Then, the day before his senior year in college began, singer-songwriter Joe Pug packed up his belongings and headed for Chicago. Working as a carpenter by day, Pug’s friend snuck him into a studio to record his songs. That was the beginning of the 25-year-old’s music career which now includes two EPs and a new CD called “Messenger.”

Friday, March 19, 2010: David Broder of The Washington Post joins Bob to talk politics. Next, Tim Wendel wanted to know which baseball pitcher threw the hardest ever. Instead of a single answer, his new book High Heat, explains why we’ll likely never know. Wendell discovered that the fast ball is alchemy and no one body shape tells the full tale of the fastest hurlers. Then, in this week’s installment of our ongoing series This I Believe, Bob talks with curator Dan Gediman about the essay of Albert J. Nesbitt. He was president of the John J. Nesbitt Company, which manufactured heating and ventilating units. Among his many civic activities, Nesbitt served as the president of the Philadelphia YMCA and the Philadelphia Council of Churches.

The invasion of Iraq started on March 20, 2003 – that was seven years ago.  It’s astonishing that this film, Severe Clear, about that invasion, is still relevant. Plus, there is new and shocking footage. First Lieutenant Mike Scotti said he wanted to film the invasion on his personal mini-DV recorder to be able to show a different side of the war – the real side – not some fluffy PR piece.  There is no question during any point of the film of Scotti’s dedication to the U.S. Marine Corps.  That’s not to say that over time, even a patriot like First Lieutenant Scotti started to ask questions of his own about why the United States was in Iraq.

There are some graphic descriptions in the film (and the interview) – so be forewarned.  But, like Kristian Fraga (Severe Clear producer) says, that footage is included intentionally, to provide a full portrayal of what the Marines experienced. 

For information about the film, go to its web site, or look for it in your area.  Theatrical release dates are:

March 12th: New York and San Diego

March 19th: Beverly Hills, Leammle Music Hall

March 24th: Dallas

March 25th: Houston

April 1st: Salem, MA 

Politico’s White House correspondent Eamon Javers went deep into the world of corporate spies and found a hidden battlefield growing in size and importance for the rest of us.  In Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy Javers profiles Chinese spies stealing trade secrets from Western high tech firms, ex-KGB officers working in American law firms and CIA agents moonlighting for private companies while still on the federal payroll.

In this week’s installment of our ongoing series This I Believe, Bob talks with curator Dan Gediman about the essay of Robert B. Powers.  He entered police work after serving as a cavalryman in World War I. He was a deputy sheriff in New Mexico and Arizona, and was chief of police for Bakersfield, California. Powers co-authored “A Guide to Race Relations for Police Officers.”

HOUR TWO

Entertainment critic David Kipen talks with Bob about Sunday’s Academy Awards.

The Last Station tells the story of the final years of Russia’s greatest literary figure, Leo Tolstoy. Bob talks with director Michael Hoffman about the film and about stars Christopher Plummer and Helen Mirren. They’re both nominated for Academy Awards for their roles as Tolstoy and his long-suffering wife Sofya.

Here’s a link to purchase the latest collection of the original 1950’s essays, edited by Dan Gediman.

Edward R. Murrow’s This I Believe