Reader's Corner

We learn about an about an order of cloistered nuns who befriend a group of women on death row in a Texas prison from Lawrence Wright, the author of Redemption. Lawrence shares the details of one of the inmates, Melissa Lucio, whose appeal of her death penalty conviction is still awaiting a decision. We also learned more about the Sisters of Mary Morning Star and their spiritual alliance with the...

From the revered bestselling author, a compulsive, page-turning thriller inspired by her real life work exonerating innocents, a novel that asks how far we'll go in our pursuit of the truth--an emotionally rich, luminously written book about evil and people trying to do good in the world. Ruby Spencer is known as "the exonerator." Her job as an investigator is to free innocent men from death row,...

What is the relationship between the decline of democratic practices we took for granted over the years and the growth of Big Tech in what Mordecai Kurz calls the Second Gilded Age. That is what we will discuss this week on Readers Corner with some specific recommendations for how to help democracy and our market economy work in tandem for Americans.

The first full-scale biography of Robert Welch, who founded the John Birch Society and planted some of modern conservatism’s most insidious seeds.   Though you may not know his name, Robert Welch (1899-1985)—founder of the John Birch Society—is easily one of the most significant architects of our current political moment. In A Conspiratorial Life, the first full-scale biography of Welch, Edward H....

"Escape from Kabul: The Afghan Women Judges Who Fled the Taliban and Those They Left Behind" by Karen Bartlett

The Return of the Oystercatcher by Scott Weidensau explores the recovery efforts that are not only preventing declines in bird population, but helping birds to thrive.

New York Times reporter and "Corner Office" columnist David Gelles reveals legendary GE CEO Jack Welch to be the root of all that's wrong with capitalism today and offers advice on how we might right those wrongs. In 1981, Jack Welch took over General Electric and quickly rose to fame as the first celebrity CEO. He golfed with presidents, mingled with movie stars, and was idolized for growing GE i...

Our Dear Friends in Moscow follows a group of young Russians, part of an idealistic generation who came of age in Moscow at the end of the 20th century – the communist era had just imploded and an exciting and uncertain future lay ahead of them. Initially, the group enjoyed the freedoms of the new era, but the notion that Russia was destined to join the West, and Europe, in a new partnership began...

For nearly eight decades, North Korea has marched defiantly to its own beat, shaking off its Soviet and Chinese sponsors to emerge as the world’s most enigmatic nation—a nuclear-armed state ruled by a dictatorial dynasty. Underpinning the state is a personality cult more soaked in religiosity than those constructed by Stalin or Mao—one that traces its roots back to the Christian fervor of post–Civ...

Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom is a 2023 non-fiction book by Ilyon Woo that examines the history of the escape of Ellen and William Craft, two 19th-century American abolitionists, from slavery.

The diversity principle – the idea that people with different backgrounds, identities, and viewpoints produce better work – was a core tenet of the first modern research university and the inspiration for John Stuart Mill’s classic treatise, On Liberty. But as a war on diversity upends government, corporate, and education policies, the history of the idea of diversity has never been more important...

A priceless mask, a beautiful woman, a deadly secret, and a curse if it doesn’t fit Philip Chandler, a small-town Idaho newspaper reporter and owner of the Fremont Herald, thought he landed a front-page scoop interviewing reclusive gun collector Ernest Hardy. Days later, Hardy is brutally murdered, and Chandler is pulled into a dangerous hunt.

"Dust Child" by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai

"The Taiwan Tinderbox: The Island-Nation at the Center of the New Cold War" by J. Michael Cole

July 10, 2026 - Christine Kuehn

July 3, 2026 - David Michaels

An interview with Beth Macy, author of the new book, Paper Girl . The book examines the forces eroding America’s social fabric, through the lens of changes that rocked her own beloved small Ohio hometown.

An interview with Sasha Vasilyuk, author of the novel, Your Presence is Mandatory. Based on real events, the book follows a World War II veteran with a dangerous secret and his family, forced to confront the legacy of the man they thought they knew. 

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 Kevin Hazzard, author of No One’s Coming. The book is a real-life thriller about the most daring rescue in air-medical history. 

An interview with Tim Wu, author of the new book, The Age of Extraction. The book explores the rise of tech platforms and details the risks and rewards of working within such systems.

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 to go undercover after stumbling upon a Nazi cell in Los Angeles during the early days of World War II. Note: This is an encore edition of Reader’s Corner. The episode originally aired in May 2023.

An interview with John U. Bacon, author of The Gales of November . The book gives the authoritative account of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, a disaster shrouded in mystery for the last half-century. Note: This is the second of a two-part interview.  

An interview with John U. Bacon, author of The Gales of November. The book gives the authoritative account of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, a disaster shrouded in mystery for the last half-century. Note: This is the first of a two-part interview. 

An interview with Andrei Soldatov, co-author of the book, Our Dear Friends in Moscow. The book tells the story of how the hopes of a generation of optimistic Russians in the 1990’s was replaced by autocracy, fear, and betrayal.