Books du Jour, Ep #205, "Super Fortuna Believer"

Episode #205     “Super Fortuna Believer”

From time immemorial, mankind has feared the power of a boundless universe, sky falling, earth freezing, floods, and of course its wheel of fortune. But mankind’s main pursuit consists in making meaning, finding explanations and creating stories, which both sooth its fears and serve as moral compasses. 

Caleb Scharf, “The Copernicus Complex” asks the big questions: What is our significance in the vast, ever-expanding universe of which we occupy such a small part? What are the chances we will one day detect life elsewhere in the cosmos? According to Scharf, there is compelling evidence that the Copernican Principle—the idea that the Earth is an insignificant, unremarkable speck in a boundless sea—is in need of an update.

Barb Schmidt, “The Practice,” looks at how the mind has a way of interfering with personal happiness, often causing stress and doubt. Getting in touch with one’s inner source of peace and following its guidance over the mind often-unfounded concerns requires training and discipline. This guide is for people who are looking for confidence, less stress, and deeper meaning along life’s path.

Paul Strohm, “The Chaucer’s Tale” takes on the theme of rebirth. At the start of 1386, Chaucer was a middle-aged Londoner with a distasteful customs job and husband to a higher-ranking wife. By 1387, he was forced to leave London jobless, a widower, and without political allies. Strohm unravels how this calamitous year led to Chaucer’s rebirth as a literary celebrity.

Thank you to City Winery NY

Books du Jour, Ep #204, "Of Crime and Roots"

Episode #204    “Of Crime and Roots”

Only on LIFE 25 at 10:30 pm

 

Whether based on a real event or on the spur of the moment, crime stories never cease to fascinate audiences around the world. All of them boil down to a handful of simple premises: how is the criminal going to get caught? Who did it? And we, the readers, cruise through the pages to find out. The three books this week do not escape these cardinal rules.

Okey Ndibe, “Foreign Gods, Inc.” tells the story of Ike, a New York Nigerian cab driver who sets out to steal the statue of an ancient Wa deity from his home village to sell it to a New York art gallery. Ike’s plan is fueled by desperation. Despite a degree in economics from a major American college, Ike has a strong accent, which bars him from the corporate world.

Nina Darnton, “The Perfect Mother” explores the painful relationship between a beloved daughter who acts against her privileged upbringing and her devoted mother who experiences unimaginable fears. Inspired by the infamous Amanda Knox case, the novel examines the complex questions of how well do we know our children, and how far we would go to protect them.

Bradford Morrow, “The Forgers” starts with the death of a reclusive rare book collector, whose hands have been severed, then shifts to Meghan and her lover, who specializes in forging the handwriting of Sir Conan Doyle. But when they receive threatening handwritten letters penned by long dead authors, a gripping tale of love and an exploration of the tenuous nature of authenticity follow.

Thank you to City Winery NY

Books du Jour, Ep #203, "Mysterious Fluid Poetry"

Episode #203      “Mysterious Fluid Poetry”

Only on LIFE 25, NY at 10:30 pm

Ever since Adorno claimed that writing poetry after Auschwitz was impossible, poetry has persisted and flourished. The vitality of our three guests proves that writing more than ever is an integral part of life to share our experiences. Writing in different style and tone, their books convey the compelling energy of creativity and the much needed momentum for endless discoveries and growth.

Marc Levy, “Replay” takes place on July 9, 2012, when NYT investigative reporter Andrew Stillman while jogging alongside the Hudson collapses in a pool of blood. When he regains consciousness, it is May 7, two months earlier. Stillman has now 60 days to find out who wants him dead. If only the past mistake could be fixed to alter the present.

Paul Muldoon, “One Thousand Things Worth Knowing.” Smuggling diesel, a real trip to Havana, an Imaginary trip to the Chateau d’If, are just some topics of Paul Muldoon’s newest collection, which is exceptionally wide-ranging in its subject matter often within the same poem. If there is a theme to this collection, it is watchfulness.

Chris Pavone, “The Accident.” Following the sensation with the “Expat,” which was influenced by his experience in Luxembourg, Chris Pavone has penned “The Accident” a masterful thriller that has all the hallmarks of suspense and high-end elegance in an international story of a dangerous manuscript resurfacing and creating havoc in the lives of the characters coming into contact with it.

Thank you to City Winery NY

Books du Jour, ep #202, "Authoress, Writeress, Nothing Less."

Episode #202                        “Authoress, Writeress, Nothing Less”

  

Location sponsor: City Winery, New York

They call themselves actors when they really are actresses. Meet the new crop of authoresses: Amy Sohn, Stacey D’Erasmo, Alice Eve Cohen.

This week panel consists of women authors.  Whether we call them Authors or Authoresses, these writers (or shall we say writeresses?), have strong feminine voices, even more so while writing fiction.  Their characters may span a wide range of lives, from the evil-eyed memoir to the floundering of a movie star, but ultimately, they face tough choices, decide where the chase of a long coveted dream too long in coming is still worth it.

In Amy Sohn’s “The Actress” a young actress discovers that every marriage is a mystery and that sometimes the greatest performances do not take place on screen. Set in a tantalizing world of glamour and scandal, “The Actress” is a romantic, sophisticated page-turner about the price of ambition, the treachery of love, and the roles we all play.

Stacey D’Erasmo, “Wonderland,” drops us into the life of an indie rock star at the moment when she’s deciding whether to go all-in or give up on her dreams.

After taking a seven-year break, Anna gets a last chance to figure out whether the life she once had is one she still wants.

Alice Eve Cohen, “The Year My Mother Came Back.” Thirty years after her death, Alice’s mother appears to her and continues to do so during the hardest year Alice has had to face: the year her youngest daughter decides to track down her birth mother, and Alice herself gets a daunting diagnosis. A story of resilience, peace, and boundless love.

Books du Jour: Ep #201, "Of Dust, Data, and Words"

Episode #201                        “Of Dust, Data, and Words”

Welcome to a new season of BDJ. Today we talk about a dusty rock, data collection, and strange bohemians with Pamela Fiori, David Shafer, Justin Martin.

Host, Frederic Colier, introduces the first episode of the second season of Books Du Jour.  Whether deciphering an old parchment in some remote library or questioning the global culling of private data, authors always start with some treasure trove of information. Our first guests do not fall too far from the tree:

Pamela Fiori, “In the Spirit of Monte Carlo,” a colorful biography of Monaco, which depicts how a sun-baked desolate piece of rock clinging between France and Italy managed to become the must-place to live for the ultra riches.  Pamela’s story focuses on Monte Carlo, a district of Monaco.

David Shafer, “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.” In this darkly comic novel, three young adults grapple with the usual thirty-something problems: boredom, authenticity, and a cloaked and omnipotent online oligarchy, an international cabal of industrialists and media barons, on the verge of privatizing all information.

Justin Martin, “Rebel Souls, Walt Whitman and America’s First Bohemians” is

an extraordinary book about New York City’s Pfaff’s Saloon, a basement bar on Broadway, near Bleecker Street, where the young Whitman and his “circle of Bohemians,” such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Mark Twain, among others, were able to foster their talent as poets and writers.

Episode was shot at City Winery New York

Author du Jour: Jeremy Rifkin

Author du Jour: Jeremy Rifkin "The Zero Marginal Cost Society."

The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the eclipse of Capitalism are just some the engaging thoughts Jeremy Rifkin proposes in his latest book, The Zero Marginal Society." When something dies something else must sprout from the ashes and this is the point the book makes. With the slow demise of the capitalist era emerges the new economic system of the Internet of Thing, something transforming our lives radically.

From the Publisher: "Rifkin uncovers a paradox at the heart of capitalism that has propelled it to greatness but is now taking it to its death―the inherent entrepreneurial dynamism of competitive markets that drives productivity up and marginal costs down, enabling businesses to reduce the price of their goods and services in order to win over consumers and market share. (Marginal cost is the cost of producing additional units of a good or service, if fixed costs are not counted.) While economists have always welcomed a reduction in marginal cost, they never anticipated the possibility of a technological revolution that might bring marginal costs to near zero, making goods and services priceless, nearly free, and abundant, and no longer subject to market forces."