Joe Donahue

This week's Books Picks are from Jacqueline Kellachan of The Golden Notebook in Woodstock, NY.

List:

NW by Zadie Smith
A Wilderness of Error by Erol Morris
This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz
Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon
How Music Works by David Byrne

What do you make of the video that surfaced Monday showing Mitt Romney dismissing President Barack Obama’s supporters as people who take no responsibility for their livelihoods and who think they are entitled to government handouts?

We speak with former Minnesota Governor, Jesse Ventura, about party politics and his most recent book, DemoCRIPS and ReBLOODlicans: No More Gangs in Government.

National Book Award-winning author, Jonathan Kozol, has been working with children in inner-city schools for nearly fifty years and has been called “today’s most eloquent spokesman for America’s disenfranchised.”

His latest book is Fire in the Ashes: Twenty-Five Years Among the Poorest Children in America.

We speak with Robert Sullivan about his new book, My American Revolution.

WAMC’s folk music program, “The Hudson River Sampler,” has been hosted by Wanda Fischer on the WAMC airwaves since September 18, 1982 and is one of the longest, continuously-running radio programs in the Northeast, hitting the 30-year mark with an on-air celebration planned for Saturday, September 15 from 8-10 pm. We welcome Wanda to the show to talk about her show's big 3-0!

For over 3-decades, Doc Severinsen was the band leader for The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. The show ruled the night air for 30 years, until it came to an end in May 1992. Since then, Severinsen has been on the road, selling out tour dates and making great music.

The College of Saint Rose presents Doc Severinsen and the San Miguel 5 in concert tonight at 7:30 p.m. at the Massry Center for the Arts in Albany on the St. Rose campus.

We speak with Amanda Coplin about her debut novel, The Orchardist: A Novel. She will read from and sign the book at Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley, MA on Monday, September 17th. 

Other books tell us how to live the good life—Making Home is about improving life with the real people around us and the resources we already have. While encouraging us to be more resilient in the face of hard times, author Sharon Astyk also points out the beauty, grace, and elegance that result, because getting the most out of everything we use is a way of transforming our lives into something much more fulfilling.

On Feb. 17, 1970, physician Jeffrey MacDonald called the police to his Fort Bragg, N.C., home. He told the responding officers that he had been assaulted by a group of "hippie" intruders, who had also bludgeoned and stabbed his wife and two young daughters — ages 2 and 5 — to death. MacDonald suffered a concussion and collapsed lung but survived.