The Roundtable

Albany, NY – Scott Meyer, owner of the three Merritt Bookstores in Millbrook, Cold Spring, and Red Hook, shares some book picks.

www.merrittbooks.com

Albany, NY – The Mount, Edith Wharton's Estate and Gardens in Lenox, MA, has designed an innovative exhibit to highlight her novel, The Fruit of the Tree, and explore the contrasts between mill owners and mill workers. The exhibit is titled The Mills Come to the Mount, and Stephanie Copeland, President of The Mount, tells us all about it.

www.edithwharton.org

Albany, NY – Legendary producer Chuck Barris' latest project is the novel, The Big Question, about a game show where contestants vie for a hundred million dollars, and are executed on TV if they lose. Barris is taking the oppurtinity to explore the idea that maybe TV has gone too far.

The Big Question, by Chuck Barris.
Published by Simon and Schuster.

Albany, NY – Susan RoAne, author of several editions of How to Work a Room, has some tips for speaking to people who are less vertically gifted.

How to Work a Room: Your Essential Guide to Savvy Socializing, by Susan RoAne.
Published by Harper Collins.

Albany, NY – A religious pilgrimage won't be part of most American's summer vacation plans this year, but for essayist Richard Frisbie, it was an important part of his recent trip to Spain. He shares his journey "on the road" to Saint James.

Albany, NY – Tonight's edition of The Best of Our Knowledge will focus its entire show on autism. With the reported incidence of autism on the rise, Dr. Judith Grether, research scientist with the California Center for Autism, was asked if she feels this disease is growing to epidemic proportions.

Albany, NY – As much fun as it might be to be a cowboy, boxer, soldier, writer and President of the United States, it is hard to imagine having the energy to pursue all of those things at once. But that is exactly what President Theodore Roosevelt was able to do. Award winning Times Union Reporter Paul Grondhal has written a book about Roosevelt's life prior to being President of the United States called I Rose Like A Rocket.

I Rose Like A Rocket, by Paul Grondhal.
Published by Bison Books.

Albany, NY – Eric Daniel Metzgar and Nell Carden Gray's new documentary, The Chances of the World Changing, follows writer Richard Ogust as he tries to move his ever-growing endangered turtle collection from his Manhattan apartment to a tract of land in New Jersey.

www.pbs.org

Albany, NY – From Clint Eastwood's westerns to Batman, the mysterious yet helpful stranger is a powerful and recurring force in American culture. Novelist Lee Child has made a career of telling stories about this archetype, writing about former military policeman Jack Reacher, who wanders America solving mysteries and helping others.

Bad Luck and Trouble, by Lee Child.
Published by Dell.

Albany, NY – Consider the following: single women, lesbians, and gay men are the fastest growing groups of assisted reproductive technology patients. Women now give birth to babies that are in no way related to them. Half a million embryos are in storage in the US alone, and no one quite knows what to do with all of them. These are all issues discussed in journalist Liza Mundy's new book Everything Conceivable: How Assisted Reproduction is Changing Men, Women and the World.