All About Books

What is a University Press? What do they do that’s different from other publishers? “Special guest Jane Ferreyra, the Director of the University of Nebraska Press, came by to help explain the role of the press and how it works at the University of Nebraska.

A young man is pulled away from a suicide attempt and ends up caring for an elderly woman succumbing to dementia. “The Emperor of Gladness” by Ocean Vuong is a novel about love, loneliness, and the bedrock of American life- a second chance.

For Halloween, "All About Books" reaches for a very scary book introduced by librarian Jennifer Jackson who has been a horror novel fan since she was 10. “Buffalo Hunter Hunter” by award-winning author Stephen Graham Jones.

He grew up in the second poorest county in the state, his alcoholic father had killed himself. As a college dropout, he was riding a garbage truck. In the book “Heartland” author Keith O’Brian describes just how close basketball legend Larry Bird came to slipping away in a forgotten town.

After a less than stellar undergraduate career, a young man takes an unspecified job with an elderly Italian noblewoman at her crumbling villa in the Tuscan hills. A breezy and witty novel, “Villa Coco” by Andrew Sean Greer.

At one time it was almost romanticized as an affliction of poets, today tuberculosis is seen as a disease of poverty. In his book “Everything is Tuberculosis” author John Green tells the scientific and social history of how the disease has shaped our world- and how our choices will shape the future.

Guinevere and her brother raised themselves in the woods behind their Vermont home. Their mother was busy writing a fantasy series which would later explode in popularity. “The Children: a Novel” by Melissa Albert explores having two childhoods- one known to the public, the other not known.

This week on All About Books, host Pat Leach interviews Christine Lesiak who was a long-time television producer at Nebraska Public Media. They’ll discuss the creation of her newly published novel “Let Me Go”, and the differences between telling stories for TV and writing books.

An awkward guest staying too long in your home seems an unlikely plot for a novel. But it’s best-selling author Hans Christian Anderson visiting Charles Dickens, his 9 children, and his estranged wife. Anderson barely speaks English. “Five Weeks in the Country” by Francine Prose.

Because early Americans thought the resources of this new country were infinite, birds were hunted for food and fashion to the point of extinction. “The Feather Wars” by James McCommons is the history of an unlikely group of individuals and organizations who came together to protect American bird life.