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NBN Podcast Episodes Hosted by G. P. Gottlieb
Historical Fiction
July 18, 2023
The Isolated Seance
Jeri Westerson
It’s 1895, and Tim Badger, who is quite familiar with the inside of a jail cell, and his intuitive friend Ben Watson, who is Black in a society that is weary of difference, are unlikely detectives. But Tim was once one of the Baker Street Irregular urchins who ran errands and spied for the great Sherlock Holmes, and the two young men are trying to be detectives.
June 13, 2023
LOOT
Tania James
Tania James' novel Loot (Knopf 2023) is about a young woodcarver who is ordered by Tipu Sultan, ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore in late 18th century India, to carve a large wooden tiger.
May 23, 2023
After the Barricades
Jessica Stilling
After her mother dies in a tragic accident, Anna cleans out her closet and finds a striking painting that she’d never seen before. She also finds a trove of letters from Stefan Terre, a name she’s never heard.
April 25, 2023
The Great Reclamation
Rachel Heng
In the 1940s, Singapore was controlled by the British occupied by the Japanese and comprised of rubber plantations and decrepit fishing villages. A timid little boy is the only one who can help his father, a fisherman, find a string of mysterious islands surrounded by teeming ocean life that will change the fortune of his family and neighbors.
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February 21, 2023
In the Fall They Leave: A Novel of the First World War
Joanna Higgins
Nineteen-year-old pianist Marie-Thérèse has dropped out of her prestigious conservatory in favor of becoming a nurse, much to her mother’s disappointment. As she begins her final year of study, Germany invades Belgium on its way to France. It’s 1914, and Marie-Thérèse’s world is upended by harsh rules and demands that students and staff spy on each other.
January 31, 2023
Song of the Storyteller
C.P. Lesley
Today I talked to C. P. Lesley about Song of the Storyteller (Five Directions Press, 2023).
January 24, 2023
The Kudzu Queen
Mimi Herman
Kudzu salesman James T. Cullowee arrives in Cooper County, North Carolina in the spring of 1941 to spread the gospel of kudzu. It can apparently feed cattle, improve soil, grow with no effort, be turned into jam, and cure headaches.
January 17, 2023
I Meant to Tell You
Fran Hawthorne
I Meant to Tell You, by Fran Hawthorne (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2022) opens during a conversation between Miranda Isaacs and her fiancé, Russ, who is going through an FBI security check as a prelude to getting his dream job in the U.S. Attorney’s office.
November 29, 2022
We are All Together
Richard Fulco
Stephen Cane is a guitarist – he’s already walked out on one band to join another one that subsequently falls apart. He gets himself to New York City to try to rejoin his first band, the one headed by his best friend and former bandmate, Dylan John. It’s 1967, drugs and girls are everywhere, Dylan is on the verge of becoming a rock n’ roll star, and Stephen makes some extremely poor choices.
November 15, 2022
The Lindbergh Nanny
Mariah Fredericks
Charles Lindbergh and his wife were out on the night of the kidnapping, but the nanny was home. After the baby disappeared from his bed, that nanny, Betty Gow, became a prime suspect, and her life was never the same. She was known thereafter as the Lindbergh Nanny.
March 26, 2019
The Lake on Fire
Rosellen Brown
The Lake on Fire is about whom to love, the struggle between rich and poor, and the choices we make about how to live in an unfair world. Although set in the 19th century, Rosellen Brown’s writing, as intriguing and luminous as Chicago’s “White City,” has something to say about our still unfair, turbulent times.
March 25, 2019
Song of the Siren
C.P. Lesley
Since being sold into slavery as a child and working her way up to becoming concubine and mistress for several different men, Lady Juliana's survival has depended on her allure. Then her place in the world is shattered by a debilitating illness and she is spurned by the entire Polish royal court.
October 11, 2019
The Flavia de Luce Mystery Series
Alan Bradley
This book introduced the intrepid 11-year-old protagonist, Flavia de Luce, who lives in an enormous manor house in England, with her widowed father and two sisters. It’s 1950, and England is still rebuilding itself after WWII.
September 6, 2019
Agnon Library of The Toby Press
S.Y. Agnon (Translated by Jeffrey Saks)
Shmuel Yosef Agnon (1888-1970) was born in Buczacz, Eastern Galicia (now part of Ukraine). Yiddish was the language of his home, and Hebrew the language of the Bible and the Talmud which he studied formally until the age of nine. Considered one of the greatest Hebrew writers, in 1966, Agnon was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
November 8, 2022
Under a Veiled Moon
Karen Odden
When the Princess Alice pleasure boat collides with a huge iron-hulled cargo ship on the Thames River, it’s split in half, and only 130 of the 650 passengers and crew members survive. It’s 1878, and clues point to sabotage by the Irish Republican Brotherhood, which has already used violence in hopes of restoring Home Rule.
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