Reader's Corner: Recent Episodes
Bob Kustra
Welcome to Reader's Corner, a weekly radio show hosted by Boise State University president emeritus Bob Kustra that features lively conversations with some of the nation's leading authors about issues and ideas that matter today.
Bob Kustra interviews Tod Lending, author of the novel, The Umbrella Maker’s Son. The book is a coming-of-age tale following a 17-year-old Polish Jew as he fights for his life and experiences his first love, set during WWII.
An interview with Craig Foster, author of Amphibious Soul. The book is a lyrical memoir drawing from the author’s decades of daily ocean dives, wisdom from Indigenous teachers, and cutting-edge science.
An interview with Sandra Matz, author of the new book, Mindmasters. The book is an exploration of how algorithms penetrate and influence the most intimate aspects of our psychology.
An interview with Nathan J. Robinson, co-author of the new book, The Myth of American Idealism. The book is an indictment of both American foreign policy and the political influence that supports it.
An interview with Timothy Snyder, author of the new book, On Freedom. The book is an exploration of the American ideal of freedom—what it is, how it’s been misunderstood, and why it may be our only chance for survival.
An interview with Sergey Radchenko, author of the new book, To Run the World. The book offers a detailed portrait of Russian leadership during the Cold War, helming a sprawling nation with irreconcilable ambitions as a self-proclaimed superpower and the leader of global revolution.
An interview with Illia Ponomarenko, author of the new book, I Will Show You How It Was. The book is powerful and personal chronicle of the war in Ukraine from the front lines.
An interview with Paul Hendrickson, author of the new book, Fighting the Night. The book is a moving story of his father’s wartime service as a night fighter pilot, and the prices he and his fellow soldiers paid for their selfless acts of service.
An interview with Nicholas Shakespeare, author of the new book, Ian Fleming: The Complete Man. The book offers an eye-opening portrait of the mysterious and fascinating man behind James Bond, and his enduring impact.
An interview with Illia Ponomarenko, author of the new book, I Will Show You How It Was. The book is powerful and personal chronicle of the war in Ukraine from the front lines.
An interview with Stephen F. Knott, author of Coming to Terms with John F. Kennedy. The book offers a broad view of the young President, and shows how politicians on both sides of the aisle distorted JFK's record for their own purposes.
An interview with Terry Hayes, acclaimed author of the new book, The Year of the Locust. A thriller set in the borderlands of the Middle East, the novel follows a CIA spy as his plans to extract a source are complicated by a powerful adversary.
An interview with Jonathan Taplin, author of The End of Reality. The book is a scathing critique of the worldview being sold by four American billionaires.
An interview with writer C.J. Box, joining us to talk about his new novel, Three-Inch Teeth. In the book, game warden Joe Pickett contends with a vicious grizzly bear and an ex-convict out for revenge.
An interview with John Vaillant, author of Fire Weather. The book offers a terrifying account of a colossal wildfire and an exploration of the rapidly changing relationship between fire and humankind.
An interview with Elena Conis, author of How to Sell a Poison. The book tells the tangled story of DDT, a corporate-backed poison that decimated wildlife and left behind toxic bodies.
An interview with Nathan Thrall, author of the new book, A Day in the Life of Abed Salama. The book tells the story of a deadly accident outside Jerusalem that unravels a tangle of lives, loves, and histories over the course of a single day.
An interview with Jonathan Karl, author of Tired of Winning. The book explores how Donald Trump remade the Republican Party in his own image, baggage and all.
An interview with Isaac Stone Fish, author of America Second. The book is an exposé of America’s political and business ties to China, often with profound and hidden costs to U.S. interests.with Isaac Stone Fish, author of America Second. The book is an exposé of America’s political and business ties to China, often with profound and hidden costs to U.S. interests.
An interview with Jamie Susskind, author of The Digital Republic. The book is a definitive guide to the great political question of our time: how can freedom and democracy survive in a world of powerful digital technologies?
An interview with Alma Katsu, author of the new thriller, Red London. The book is a race-against-the-clock story, told by a writer with 35 years of expertise in national security.
An interview with Edward Achorn, author of The Lincoln Miracle: Inside the Republican Convention That Changed History. In the book, Achorn offers a behind-the-scenes look at Abraham Lincoln’s history-changing nomination to lead the Republican Party in the 1860 presidential election.
An interview with Ilyon Woo, author of Master Slave Husband Wife. The book tells the remarkable true story of Ellen and William Craft, who escaped slavery with Ellen passing as a wealthy, disabled White man and William posing as “his” slave.
Imbolo Mbue's novel, How Beautiful We Were, follows a fearless young woman from a small African village as she starts a revolution against an American oil company.
An interview with Nguyen Phan Que Mai, author of the new novel, Dust Child. The book is a saga about two Vietnamese sisters and two American men, whose lives intersect in surprising ways, set during and after the war in Vietnam.
An interview with David Michaels, author of The Triumph of Doubt. In the book, Michaels details how corrupt science becomes public policy, through the aid of dark money, and where it's happening today.
An interview with Melissa Colasanti, author of the new novel, Call Me Elizabeth Lark. A psychological thriller, the book follows the mysterious reappearance of a woman’s daughter after 20 years.
An interview with Martha C. Nussbaum, author of Justice for Animals. The book offers a revolutionary new theory and call to action on animal rights, ethics, and law.
An interview with Susan Elia MacNeal, author of the novel, Mother Daughter Traitor Spy. The book is inspired by a real-life mother and daughter, who go undercover after stumbling upon a Nazi cell in Los Angeles during the early days of World War II.
An interview with Gilda R. Daniels, author of Uncounted: The Crisis of Voter Suppression in America. The book warns about a premeditated strategy of restrictive laws and deceptive practices that is eroding the very basis of American democracy.
An interview with Alex Bezzerides, author of Evolution Gone Wrong. The book is a fresh and funny examination of the curious ways human beings have beaten the odds as a species.
An interview with Walt Bogdanich, co-author of the new book, When McKinsey Comes to Town. The book offers a portrait of a company whose work has often made the world more unequal, more corrupt, and more dangerous.
An interview with Geoff Dembicki, author of The Petroleum Papers. The book provides a step-by-step account of how we reached this precipice of climate disaster, and the politicians and companies who helped get us here.
An interview with Seth David Radwell, author of American Schism. The book is an enlightened exploration of our history to unite a deeply-divided America.
Note: This is an encore edition of Reader's Corner. The episode originally aired in July 2021.In his book, Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy, Senate insider Adam Jentleson contends that far from reflecting the Framers’ vision, the Senate has been transformed over the decades by a tenacious minority of white conservatives.
Note: This is the second half of a two-part interview. An interview with Bradley Onishi, author of Preparing for War. The book is an engrossing account of the years-long campaign of White Christian nationalism that led to the insurrection of January 6.
Note: This is the first of a two-part interview. An interview with Bradley Onishi, author of Preparing for War. The book is an engrossing account of the years-long campaign of White Christian nationalism that led to the insurrection of January 6.
An interview with Shannon K. O’Neil, author of The Globalization Myth: Why Regions Matter. The book offers a case for why regionalization, not globalization, has been the biggest economic trend of the past forty years.
The World Turned Upside Down: America, China, and the Struggle for Global Leadership, by Clyde Prestowitz, identifies the challenges China’s growing power poses and how it must be confronted.
Bob Kustra interviews Abdulrazak Gurnah, Nobel Prize winner and author of the novel, Afterlives. The book is a multi-generational saga of displacement, love and loss, set against the brutal colonization of east Africa.
An interview with Connor Sullivan, author of the new novel, Sleeping Bear. In the book, a former Army veteran seeking solitude in the Alaskan wilderness finds herself a pawn in a deadly game with Russia.
An interview with Daniel Golden, author of The Ransomware Hunting Team. The book is a real-life technological thriller about a band of eccentric misfits taking on the biggest cybersecurity threats of our time.
Note: This is an encore edition of Reader's Corner. The show originally aired in June 2021. In Jack Devine's newest book, Spymaster’s Prism: The Fight Against Russian Aggression, the legendary CIA spymaster illustrates how Russia’s intelligence activities have continued uninterrupted throughout modern history.
An interview with Dipo Faloyin, debut author of Africa is Not a Country: Notes on a Bright Continent. In the book, Faloyin explores the youth-led cultural and political movements that are defining and reimagining Africa on their own terms.Program note: This is the second half of a two-part interview.
An interview with Dipo Faloyin, debut author of Africa is Not a Country: Notes on a Bright Continent. In the book, Faloyin explores the youth-led cultural and political movements that are defining and reimagining Africa on their own terms.
An interview with John Pomfret, author of From Warsaw With Love. The book tells the epic story of how Polish intelligence officers forged an alliance with the CIA in the twilight of the Cold War.
In his latest book, Proof of Life, Daniel Levin dives deep into a shadowy world where few have access—an underground industry of war where everything is for sale, including arms, drugs, and even people.
An interview with Gaia Vince, author of Nomad Century: How Climate Migration Will Reshape Our World. The book investigates a coming environmental migration, the seismic consequence of our climate crisis that will force us to change where, and how, we live.
An interview with Daniel Yergin, author of The New Map: Energy, Climate and the Clash of Nations. The book offers a fresh look at how energy revolutions, climate battles, and geopolitics are mapping our future.
An interview with Amelia Pang, author of Made in China: A Prisoner, an SOS Letter, and the Hidden Cost of America's Cheap Goods. The book explores ethical consumption and how a cheap price tag typically hides a higher human cost.
An interview with Ben Macintyre, author of the new book, Prisoners of the Castle: An Epic Story of Survival and Escape from Colditz, the Nazis’ Fortress Prison. In the book, Macintyre looks at one of history’s most notorious prisons, and the remarkable cast of POWs who tried relentlessly to escape their captors.
An interview with Nate Schweber, author of the new book, This America of Ours: Bernard & Avis DeVoto and the Forgotten Fight to Save the Wild. In the book, Schweber tells the story of the extraordinary couple who rescued national parks from McCarthyism, and inspired a future of conservation.
An interview with Chris Pavone, author of the thrilling novel, Two Nights in Lisbon. The book is story of a woman under pressure, and what she will resort to when everything is on the line.
An interview with Chris Pavone, author of the thrilling novel, Two Nights in Lisbon. The book is story of a woman under pressure, and what she will resort to when everything is on the line.
An interview with Toya Wolfe, debut author of the novel, Last Summer on State Street. The book is a striking coming-of-age debut about friendship, community, and resilience, set in the housing projects of Chicago.
An interview with Toya Wolfe, debut author of the novel, Last Summer on State Street. The book is a striking coming-of-age debut about friendship, community, and resilience, set in the housing projects of Chicago.
An interview with Mark Follman, author of Trigger Points: Inside the Mission to Stop Mass Shootings in America. The book casts new light on the behind-the-scenes work being done to predict and prevent mass shootings.
An interview with Mark Follman, author of Trigger Points: Inside the Mission to Stop Mass Shootings in America. The book casts new light on the behind-the-scenes work being done to predict and prevent mass shootings.
In her bestselling memoir, When Time Stopped: A Memoir of My Father’s War and What Remains, Ariana Neumann offers a moving story of personal discovery and a portrait of living, dying, and surviving in war-torn Berlin. (Program note: This is part one of a two-part interview.)
In her bestselling memoir, When Time Stopped: A Memoir of My Father’s War and What Remains, Ariana Neumann offers a moving story of personal discovery and a portrait of living, dying, and surviving in war-torn Berlin. (Program note: This is part one of a two-part interview.)
An interview with Edward H. Miller, author of A Conspiratorial Life: Robert Welch, the John Birch Society, and the Revolution of American Conservatism. In the book, Miller argues that Welch’s paranoid right-wing nativism, dismissed by thinkers like William F. Buckley, gradually moved from the fringe into mainstream conservatism.
An interview with Edward H. Miller, author of A Conspiratorial Life: Robert Welch, the John Birch Society, and the Revolution of American Conservatism. In the book, Miller argues that Welch’s paranoid right-wing nativism, dismissed by thinkers like William F. Buckley, gradually moved from the fringe into mainstream conservatism.
Note: This is an encore edition of Reader's Corner. The episode originally aired in April 2021.
Note: This is an encore edition of Reader's Corner. The episode originally aired in April 2021.
An interview with David Gelles, author of The Man Who Broke Capitalism: How Jack Welch Gutted the Heartland and Crushed the Soul of Corporate America―and How to Undo His Legacy. In the book, Gelles profiles the man who ushered in a new, cutthroat era of American capitalism that continues to this day
Note: This is an encore edition of Reader's Corner. The episode originally aired in March 2021.
An interview with Scott Weidensaul, author of A World on the Wing: The Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds. The book is exhilarating exploration of the science and wonder of global bird migration.
Note: This is an encore edition of Reader's Corner. The episode originally aired May 2021.Ty Seidule's book, Robert E Lee and Me: A Southerner’s Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause, offers a personal challenge to the myths and lies of the Confederate legacy, and explores why some of this country’s oldest wounds have never healed.
An interview with Tom Lin, author of the novel, The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu. A twist on the classic western, it’s a story of one man's quest for redemption in the face of a distinctly American brutality.
Note: This is an encore edition of Reader's Corner. The episode first aired in March 2021.
An interview with Gary Gerstle, author of The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era. The book illuminates how the ideology of neoliberalism became so infused in the daily life of an era.
An interview with Peter S. Goodman, author of Davos Man: How the Billionaires Devoured the World. The book is must read for anyone concerned about economic justice and the sanctity of representative government.
Note: This is an encore edition of Reader's Corner. This episode originally aired in February 2021.
An interview with Rob Percival, author of The Meat Paradox: Eating, Empathy, and the Future of Meat. The book offers a vital and nuanced investigation into the current debate around meat.
Note: This is an encore edition of Reader's Corner. The episode originally aired in February 2021.
An interview with Amy Gajda, author of Seek and Hide: The Tangled History of the Right to Privacy. The book is an important primer for today’s privacy wars - the surprising history of the right to privacy, and its battle against the public’s right to know.
An interview with Moisés Naím, author of The Revenge of Power: How Autocrats Are Reinventing Politics for the 21st Century. The book examines the future of freedom and how to contain and defeat the autocrats popping up around the world.
An interview with Dana Stevens, author of Camera Man: Buster Keaton, The Dawn of Cinema and the Invention of the Twentieth Century. In the book, Stevens places acclaimed filmmaker Buster Keaton’s unique creative genius in the context of his time.
Note: This is an encore edition of Reader's Corner. The episode originally aired in October 2020.
An interview with Elie Honig, author of Hatchet Man: How Bill Barr Broke the Prosecutor's Code and Corrupted the Justice Department. In the book, Honig makes the case that Barr trampled the two core virtues that have long defined the department and its mission: credibility and independence.
An interview with Brendan Slocumb, author of the novel, The Violin Conspiracy. Part literary thriller and part mystery, the book is a gripping coming-of-age story about the love of music and a young man’s resilience.
Note: This is an encore episode of Reader's Corner. The original episode first aired in January 2021.
An interview with Azeem Azhar, author of The Exponential Age: How Accelerating Technology is Transforming Business, Politics, and Society. The book explores the widening gap between rapidly-expanding technology and our ability to deal with its effects.
An interview with Charlotte McConaghy about her new novel, Once There Were Wolves. The book is about the looming threat of environmental collapse and the bold and flawed humans working to avert it.
Note: This is an encore edition of Reader's Corner. The episode originally aired in December 2020.
Note: This is part II of a two-part interview.An interview with Ryanne Pilgeram, author of Pushed Out: Contested Development and Rural Gentrification in the US West. In the book, a small town weighs the economic compromises of growth in the Rocky Mountain West.
Note: This is part I of a two-part interview.An interview with Ryanne Pilgeram, author of Pushed Out: Contested Development and Rural Gentrification in the US West. In the book, a small town weighs the economic compromises of growth in the Rocky Mountain West.
Note: This is an encore edition of Reader's Corner. The original aired in November 2020.
An interview with Morvan Lallouet, co-author of Navalny: Putin’s Nemesis, Russia’s Future? The book offers a close look at Alexei Navalny, from his pioneering anti-corruption investigations to his leadership of a political movement.
An interview with Kevin Roose, author of Futureproof: 9 Rules for Humans in the Age of Automation. The book shares the secrets of people and organizations that have survived technological change, and explains how we can protect our own futures.
Note: This is an encore edition of Reader's Corner. The episode originally aired in January 2021.
Note: This is an encore edition of Reader's Corner. The original episode aired in October 2020.
An interview with Naomi Hirahara, author of the new novel, Clark and Division. Part crime novel, part poignant historical fiction, the book was recently listed as a New York Times Best Mystery Novel of 2021.
An interview with Andrea Elliott, author of Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival, and Hope in an American City. A stunning debut, the book covers eight formative years in the life of an intelligent and imaginative young girl in a Brooklyn homeless shelter as she balances poverty, family, and opportunity.
Note: This is an encore edition of Reader's Corner. The episode originally aired in September 2020.
An interview with Peter Robison, author of Flying Blind: The 737 Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing. The book explores how an industry titan became consumed with the bottom line, leading to a tragedy that endangered countless lives. Note: This is the second of a two-part interview.
An interview with Peter Robison, author of Flying Blind: The 737 Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing. The book explores how an industry titan became consumed with the bottom line, leading to a tragedy that endangered countless lives.
Growing up on Chicago’s Westside in the 90’s, Arshay Cooper knows the harder side of life. Street corners full of gangs, hallways of his apartment complex haunted by drug addicts, his mother a recovering addict. Arshay spent his school days in the home-ec kitchen dreaming of becoming a chef. And then one day he notices a boat in the school lunchroom, and a poster that reads “Join the Crew Team.”
An interview with Daco Auffenorde, author of the thrilling novel, Cover Your Tracks. The book is a chilling story of love and hate, the devastating power of nature, and the will to survive.
Note: this is the second half of a two-part interview.An interview with Eyal Press, author of Dirty Work: Essential Jobs and the Hidden Toll of Inequality in America. The book offers a groundbreaking and urgent report from the front lines of "dirty work" – the work that society considers essential but morally compromised.
An interview with Eyal Press, author of Dirty Work: Essential Jobs and the Hidden Toll of Inequality in America. The book offers a groundbreaking and urgent report from the front lines of "dirty work" – the work that society considers essential but morally compromised.
Note: This is an encore edition of Reader's Corner. The original episode premiered in August 2020.
An interview with Eric Rauchway, author of Why the New Deal Matters. The book offers a look at how the New Deal fundamentally changed American life, and why it remains relevant today.
An interview with Steven Feldstein, author of The Rise of Digital Repression: How Technology is Reshaping Power, Politics, and Resistance. The book offers a compelling record of how anti-democratic leaders harness powerful technology to advance their political objectives.