Book Club with Michael Smerconish

Rooted in humorous stories distilled with bits of sagely honest advice, The Journey goes beyond the well-chronicled college admissions madness and cuts to the core of parental angst with concrete suggestions for preparing children for a competitive and rapidly changing world. Listen to Michael's conversation with college admissions strategist Greg Kaplan, author of "The Journey: How to Prepare Kid...

Is there "another 1968" full of protests coming our way this year, with Democrats convening in Chicago this summer to nominate their candidate for president? Michael talks to Historian James Traub, who recounts Hubert Humphrey’s role as a liberal hero of twentieth-century America in "True Believer: Hubert Humphrey's Quest for a More Just America." Original air date 6 May 2024. The book was publish...

This is a special conversation we like to call a "Reverse Book Club." It is political commentator Mike Barnicle interviewing Michael about his own book, "Talk: A Novel" in front of a studio audience. The book is The Primary Colors of 2014- an explosive novel exposing the inner workings of conservative talk radio and campaign politics. Original air date 8 May 2014. The book was published on 6 May 2...

Michael Hayden is a retired United States Air Force four-star general and former Director of the National Security Agency, Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. He joins the podcast to discuss his book: "The Assault on Intelligence: American National Security in an Age of Lies." Original air date 16 May 2018. The book was published 01...

For generations, we have focused on the individual drivers of success: passion, hard work, talent, and luck. But today, success is increasingly dependent on how we interact with others. It turns out that at work, most people operate as either takers, matchers, or givers. Whereas takers strive to get as much as possible from others and matchers aim to trade evenly, givers are the rare breed of peop...

A must-have guide to optimizing your life for wealth and success. Today's workers have more opportunities and mobility than any generation before. They also face unprecedented challenges, including inflation, labor and housing shortages, and climate volatility. Even the notion of retirement is undergoing a profound rethink, as our life spans extend and our relationship with work evolves. In this e...

A hilarious, fascinating, and revealing view of the national pastime from the 1930's to the present, "Pouring Six Beers at a Time: And Other Stories from a Lifetime in Baseball" offers a treasure trove of stories by a man once dubbed the P. T. Barnum of Major League Baseball, Philadelphia Phillies Chairman emeritus Bill Giles. Michael spoke to him when he was chair of the club in 2007. Original ai...

There is a troubling trend happening in teenage sex. Michael talks to Indiana University Professor Dr. Debby Herbenick, Ph. D, co-author of "Yes, Your Kid: What Parents Need to Know About Today's Teens and Sex." Original air date 22 April 2024. The book was published on 14 November 2023. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and...

For those starting out in their careers—and those who wish to advance more quickly—this is a delightfully fussy guide to the hidden rules of the road in the workplace and in life. As bestselling author and social historian Charles Murray explains, at senior levels of an organization there are curmudgeons everywhere, judging your every move. Yet it is their good opinion you need to win if you hope...

What's the recipe for happiness? If you listen to liberal elites or red pill influencers, you'd say it's making money, living for yourself, and staying single without kids—and you'd be wrong. Nothing predicts happiness better than a good marriage. University of Virginia Professor Brad Wilcox joins Michael with his new book "Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, an...

This is a special extended edition of Book Club. In 2008, Michael had the opportunity to speak with Wall Street Journal reporter Jeffrey Zaslow, co-author of "The Last Lecture" which he wrote with Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch. It focuses on a final lecture that many college professors give, except for Pausch, it was very real - he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. He passed away i...

Michael talks to "Huffington Post" co-founder Arianna Huffington about her book "Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder." The best-selling author makes an impassioned and compelling case for the need to redefine what it means to be successful in today's world. Original air date 7 April 2014. The book was published on 25 March 2014. Host...

An original and engaging account of the Obama years from a group of leading political historians: Barack Obama's election as the first African American president seemed to usher in a new era, and he took office in 2009 with great expectations. But by his second term, Republicans controlled Congress, and, after the 2016 presidential election, Obama's legacy and the health of the Democratic Party it...

Former Philadelphia Daily News columnist and National Book Award Winner Pete Dexter ("Paris Trout") speaks with Michael about his book "Paper Trails: True Stories of Confusion, Mindless Violence, and Forbidden Desires, a Surprising Number of Which Are Not About Marriage." Original air date February 2007. The book was published on 7 February 2007. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https...

The most controversial essays from the bestselling author once called the most dangerous man in America—collected for the first time. The nation’s most-cited legal scholar who for decades has been at the forefront of applied behavioral economics, and the bestselling author of Nudge and Simpler, Cass Sunstein is one of the world’s most innovative thinkers in the academy and the world of practical p...

Looking back at Jennifer Weiner who joined Michael to discuss her book "In Her Shoes." The book tells the story of two women with nothing in common but a childhood tragedy, shared DNA, and the same size feet. The two are about to learn that their family is more different than they ever imagined, and that they're more alike than they'd ever believe. Original air date 2002. The book was published Se...

After more than a decade of stability or improvement, the mental health of adolescents plunged in the early 2010s. Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide rose sharply, more than doubling on many measures. Why? Phone-based childhoods. Michael talks to social psychologist and bestselling author Jonathan Haidt, on his book "The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is...

Michael had the opportunity to speak with Former Vice President Al Gore on his WPHT radio program in 2006. The interview did not quite go as planned - he reminisces in this episode, on the book "Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It." Original air date 2006, The book was published in 2006. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm...

So much has happened in the world surrounding FOX News, Donald Trump, and Roger Ailes since the paperback version of this book by Gabriel Sherman came out in early 2017, including Ailes passing away just a few months later in May 2017. Listen to Michael's and Sherman's conversation about "The Loudest Voice in the Room: How the Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News--and Divided a Country....

Nathan Raab, America’s preeminent rare documents dealer, describes his years as the Sherlock Holmes of historical artifacts—questing after precious finds and determining their authenticity—and he shows us what the past can tell us about the present, in "The Hunt for History: On the Trail of the World's Lost Treasures―from the Letters of Lincoln, Churchill, and Einstein to the Secret Recordings Onb...

The widening gulf between rural and urban America is becoming the most serious political divide of our day. Support for Democrats, up and down the ballot, has plummeted throughout the countryside, and the entire governing system is threatened by one-party dominance. Is the country splintering between two very different Americas―one rural, one urban? Michael talks to Colby College Professors Nichol...

From the acclaimed authors of the runaway New York Times bestseller "2034" comes another explosive work of speculative fiction set twenty years further in the future, at a moment when a radical leap forward in artificial intelligence combines with America’s violent partisan divide to create an existential threat to the country, and the world. Retired US Navy Admiral James Stavridis, a long-time fr...

From the moment she first appeared as a young princess, Queen Elizabeth II fascinated the world. And, the late Queen had a special relationship with the United States. Times of London U.S. Editor David Charter joins Michael with his new book, "Royal Audience: 70 Years, 13 Presidents--One Queen's Special Relationship with America." Original air date 11 March 2024. The book was published on 5 March...

"Warnings: Finding Cassandras to Stop Catastrophes" is the story of the future of national security, threatening technologies, the U.S. economy, and possibly the fate of civilization. In Greek mythology Cassandra foresaw calamities, but was cursed by the gods to be ignored. Modern-day Cassandras clearly predicted the disasters of Katrina, Fukushima, the Great Recession, the rise of ISIS, the sprea...

“How can the NCAA blithely wreck careers without regard to due process or common fairness? How can it act so ruthlessly to enforce rules that are so petty? Why won’t anybody stand up to these outrageous violations of American values and American justice?” In 2012, Joe Nocera asked those questions, and then in 2016, wrote this book, "Indentured: The Inside Story of the Rebellion Against the NCAA."...