Joe Donahue

Legendary actress Jacqueline Bisset and Oscar-winning filmmaker James Ivory headline the 4th annual Albany Film Festival. The all-day event, free and open to the public, will take place from 10:30 a.m. through 7 p.m. this Saturday, April 6, at the UAlbany Campus Center.Actors, authors, directors, producers, screenwriters, and movie critics come together with film fans for a full day of screenings and discussions capped by an awards ceremony. For a preview, we welcome Opalka Endowed Director of the NYSWI - Paul Grondahl.

In 2018, after nearly a decade’s hiatus, the state of Tennessee began executing death row inmates. Award-winning journalist Steven Hale was the leading reporter on these executions and in “Death Row Welcomes You,” Hale traces the lives of condemned prisoners and the people who come to visit them.

In "Somehow: Thoughts on Love," Anne Lamott explores the transformative power that love has in our lives: how it surprises us, forces us to confront uncomfortable truths, reminds us of our humanity, and guides us forward. We are, Lamott says, creatures of love. In her twentieth book Lamott draws from her own life and experience to delineate the intimate and elemental ways that love buttresses us in the face of despair as it galvanizes us to believe that tomorrow will be better than today.

It is opening day for the sport of baseball and baseball is the New York game. According to our guest, he says so because this is where the diamond was first laid out, where the bunt and the curveball were invented, and where the homerun was hit. It is where the game’s first stars were born. Kevin Baker the historian and novelist writes about this in his new book “The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of a New City.”

Keith O’Brien has written a new biography of a flawed legend—baseball’s tragic character—the man who could never return to the game he lived to play in his new book: “CHARLIE HUSTLE: The Rise and Fall of Pete Rose, and the Last Glory Days of Baseball.”

From the founders of the HGTV show and Instagram Cheap Old Houses comes a new book – a stunning collection of beautiful, affordable homes and inspiration for buying and restoring an historic house.In the world of Cheap Old Houses, Ethan and Elizabeth Finkelstein have scoured the country to find homes in desperate need of saving—including a $45,000 Victorian in Mississippi, a $25,000 mansion in Indiana, an $82,000 recreational camp in Maine, and more. Cheap Old Houses features the stories of how these homes were acquired and lovingly restored.With hundreds of beautiful photographs capturing these homes in all their glory, you’ll be inspired to find “the one”—a fixer upper to rescue that will rescue you right back."Cheap Old Houses: An Unconventional Guide to Loving and Restoring a Forgotten Home" is published by Clarkson Potter.

This week's Book Picks come from Susan Taylor of The Book House in Albany, New York and Market Block Books in Troy, New York.

Dean Cycon is an author, lawyer, human rights advocate, and social entrepreneur who has lived and worked in over sixty countries. A passionate explorer of culture and history, Dean authored: "Javatrekker: Dispatches from the World of Fair Trade Coffee" and will tell us about his latest, "Finding Home (Hungary, 1945.)"

Nils Bernstein is the food editor for Wine Enthusiast magazine and has written and developed recipes for such publications as Bon Appétit, Epicurious, GQ, New York Times, Cooking Light, and Men’s Journal. He traded an illustrious career in the music industry, running the publicity departments at independent record labels Sub Pop and Matador for a career in food, drink, and travel journalism. He is the co-author of "The Outdoor Kitchen" by Eric Werner and "Made in Mexico" by Danny Mena.In this CulinaryArts@SPAC interview, he spoke with us about his newest book "The Joy of Oysters."

Sloane Crosley's search for truth is frank, darkly funny, and gilded with resounding empathy. Upending the "grief memoir," "Grief Is for People" is a category-defying story of the struggle to hold on to the past without being consumed by it.