Can't Make This Up

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Today I speak with Patti McCracken about her new book Femina: A New History of the Middle Ages, Through the Women Written Out of It

(Also available as an ⁠audiobook⁠ narrated by the author)

A groundbreaking reappraisal of medieval femininity, revealing why women have been written out of history and why it matters
The Middle Ages are seen as a bloodthirsty time of Vikings, saints and kings; a patriarchal society that oppressed and excluded women. But when we dig a little deeper into the truth, we can see that the “Dark” Ages were anything but.

Oxford and BBC historian Janina Ramirez has uncovered countless influential women’s names struck out of historical records, with the word FEMINA annotated beside them. As gatekeepers of the past ordered books to be burned, artworks to be destroyed, and new versions of myths, legends and historical documents to be produced, our view of history has been manipulated.

Only now, through a careful examination of the artifacts, writings and possessions they left behind, are the influential and multifaceted lives of women emerging. Femina goes beyond the official records to uncover the true impact of women, such as:

• Jadwiga, the only female king in Europe
• Margery Kempe, who exploited her image and story to ensure her notoriety
• Loftus Princess, whose existence gives us clues about the beginnings of Christianity in England

In Femina, Ramirez invites us to see the medieval world with fresh eyes and discover why these remarkable women were removed from our collective memories. If you would like to help Can't Make This Up (and get early access and bonus episodes), consider becoming a supporter of the podcast on ⁠Patreon⁠!

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Today I speak with Brianna Labuskes about her new book The Librarian of Burned Books.

(Also available as an ⁠audiobook⁠ narrated by Caroline Hewitt, Eleanor Caudill & Karissa Vacker)

Berlin 1933. Following the success of her debut novel, American writer Althea James receives an invitation from Joseph Goebbels himself to participate in a culture exchange program in Germany. For a girl from a small town in Maine, 1933 Berlin seems to be sparklingly cosmopolitan, blossoming in the midst of a great change with the charismatic new chancellor at the helm. Then Althea meets a beautiful woman who promises to show her the real Berlin, and soon she's drawn into a group of resisters who make her question everything she knows about her hosts--and herself.

Paris 1936. She may have escaped Berlin for Paris, but Hannah Brecht discovers the City of Light is no refuge from the anti-Semitism and Nazi sympathizers she thought she left behind. Heartbroken and tormented by the role she played in the betrayal that destroyed her family, Hannah throws herself into her work at the German Library of Burned Books. Through the quiet power of books, she believes she can help counter the tide of fascism she sees rising across Europe and atone for her mistakes. But when a dear friend decides actions will speak louder than words, Hannah must decide what stories she is willing to live--or die--for.

New York 1944. Since her husband Edward was killed fighting the Nazis, Vivian Childs has been waging her own war: preventing a powerful senator's attempts to censor the Armed Service Editions, portable paperbacks that are shipped by the millions to soldiers overseas. Viv knows just how much they mean to the men through the letters she receives--including the last one she got from Edward. She also knows the only way to win this battle is to counter the senator's propaganda with a story of her own--at the heart of which lies the reclusive and mysterious woman tending the American Library of Nazi-Banned Books in Brooklyn.

As Viv unknowingly brings her censorship fight crashing into the secrets of the recent past, the fates of these three women will converge, changing all of them forever.

Inspired by the true story of the Council of Books in Wartime--the WWII organization founded by booksellers, publishers, librarians, and authors to use books as "weapons in the war of ideas"--The Librarian of Burned Books is an unforgettable historical novel, a haunting love story, and a testament to the beauty, power, and goodness of the written word.

If you would like to help Can't Make This Up (and get early access and bonus episodes), consider becoming a supporter of the podcast on ⁠Patreon⁠!

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Today I speak with Patti McCracken about her new book The Angel Makers: Arsenic, A Midwife, and Modern History's Most Astonishing Murder Ring

(Also available as an audiobook narrated by Gabra Zackman)

The Angel Makers is a true-crime story like no other—a 1920s midwife who may have been the century’s most prolific killer leading a murder ring of women responsible for the deaths of at least 160 men.

The horror occurred in a rustic farming enclave in modern-day Hungary. To look at the unlikely lineup of murderesses—village wives, mothers, and daughters—was to come to the shocking realization that this could have happened anywhere, and to anyone. At the center of it all was a sharp-minded village midwife, a “smiling Buddha” known as Auntie Suzy, who distilled arsenic from flypaper and distributed it to the women of Nagyrév. “Why are you bothering with him?” Auntie Suzy would ask, as she produced an arsenic-filled vial from her apron pocket. In the beginning, a great many used the deadly solution to finally be free of cruel and abusive spouses.

But as the number of dead bodies grew without consequence, the killers grew bolder. With each vial of poison emptied, a new reason surfaced to drain yet another. Some women disposed of sickly relatives. Some used arsenic as “inheritance powder” to secure land and houses. For more than fifteen years, the unlikely murderers aided death unfettered and tended to it as if it were simply another chore—spooning doses of arsenic into soup and wine, stirring it into coffee and brandy. By the time their crimes were discovered, hundreds were feared dead.

Anonymous notes brought the crimes to light in 1929. As a skillful prosecutor hungry for justice ran the investigation, newsmen from around the world—including the New York Times—poured in to cover the dramatic events as they unfolded.

The Angel Makers captures in expertly researched detail the entirety of this harrowing story, from the early murders to the final hanging—the story of one of the most sensational and astonishing murder rings in all of modern history.

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Today I speak with Buddy Levy about his new book Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk

(Also available as an audiobook narrated by Will Damron)

In the summer of 1913, the wooden-hulled brigantine Karluk departed Canada for the Arctic Ocean. At the helm was Captain Bob Bartlett, considered the world’s greatest living ice navigator. The expedition’s visionary leader was a flamboyant impresario named Vilhjalmur Stefansson hungry for fame.

Just six weeks after the Karluk departed, giant ice floes closed in around her. As the ship became icebound, Stefansson disembarked with five companions and struck out on what he claimed was a 10-day caribou hunting trip. Most on board would never see him again.

Twenty-two men and an Inuit woman with two small daughters now stood on a mile-square ice floe, their ship and their original leader gone. Under Bartlett’s leadership they built make-shift shelters, surviving the freezing darkness of Polar night. Captain Bartlett now made a difficult and courageous decision. He would take one of the young Inuit hunters and attempt a 1000-mile journey to save the shipwrecked survivors. It was their only hope.

Set against the backdrop of the Titanic disaster and World War I, filled with heroism, tragedy, and scientific discovery, Buddy Levy's Empire of Ice and Stone tells the story of two men and two distinctively different brands of leadership: one selfless, one self-serving, and how they would forever be bound by one of the most audacious and disastrous expeditions in polar history, considered the last great voyage of The Heroic Age of Discovery.

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Today I speak with Alexander Rose about his new book, The Lion and the Fox: Two Rival Spies and the Plot to Build a Confederate Navy. 

(Also available as an audiobook narrated by Mark Bramhall) 

In 1861, soon after the outbreak of the Civil War, two secret agents—one a Confederate, the other his Union rival—were dispatched to neutral Britain, each entrusted with a vital mission. The South’s James Bulloch, charming and devious, was to acquire a cutting-edge clandestine fleet intended to break President Lincoln’s blockade of Confederate ports, sink Northern merchant vessels, and drown the U.S. Navy’s mightiest ships at sea. The profits from gunrunning and smuggling cotton—Dixie’s notorious “white gold”—would finance the scheme. 

Opposing him was Thomas Dudley, a resolute Quaker lawyer and abolitionist. He was determined to stop Bulloch by any means necessary in a spy-versus-spy game of move and countermove, gambit and sacrifice, intrigue and betrayal. If Dudley failed, Britain would ally with the South and imperil a Northern victory. 

The battleground was the Dickensian port of Liverpool, whose dockyards built more ships each year than the rest of the world combined, whose warehouses stored more cotton than anywhere else on earth, and whose merchant princes, said one observer, were “addicted to Southern proclivities, foreign slave trade, and domestic bribery.” 

From master of historical espionage Alexander Rose, The Lion and the Fox is the astonishing, untold tale of two implacable foes and their twilight struggle for the highest stakes. 

Check out Alex's website: www.alexrose.com and his Substack Spionage. 

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Today I speak with Dr. Colleen Darnell about her new book with her husband, Dr. John Darnell, Egypt's Golden Couple: When Akhenaten and Nefertiti were Gods on Earth.

(Also available as an audiobook narrated by Roshelle Simpson)

Akhenaten has been the subject of radically different, even contradictory, biographies. The king has achieved fame as the world's first individual and the first monotheist, but others have seen him as an incestuous tyrant who nearly ruined the kingdom he ruled. The gold funerary mask of his son Tutankhamun and the painted bust of his wife Nefertiti are the most recognizable artifacts from all of ancient Egypt. But who are Akhenaten and Nefertiti? And what can we actually say about rulers who lived more than three thousand years ago?

November 2022 marks the centennial of the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun and although "King Tut" is a household name, his nine-year rule pales in comparison to the revolutionary reign of his parents. Akhenaten and Nefertiti became gods on earth by transforming Egyptian solar worship, innovating in art and urban design, and merging religion and politics in ways never attempted before.

Combining fascinating scholarship, detective suspense, and adventurous thrills, Egypt's Golden Couple is a journey through excavations, museums, hieroglyphic texts, and stunning artifacts. From clue to clue, renowned Egyptologists John and Colleen Darnell reconstruct an otherwise untold story of the magnificent reign of Akhenaten and Nefertiti.

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Today I speak with Steve Kemper about his new book Our Man in Tokyo: An American Ambassador and the Countdown to Pearl Harbor. 

(Also available as an audiobook narrated by Dan Woren)

In 1932, Japan was in crisis. Naval officers had assassinated the prime minister and conspiracies flourished. The military had a stranglehold on the government. War with Russia loomed, and propaganda campaigns swept the country, urging schoolchildren to give money to procure planes and tanks.

Into this maelstrom stepped Joseph C. Grew, America’s most experienced and talented diplomat. When Grew was appointed ambassador to Japan, not only was the country in turmoil, its relationship with America was rapidly deteriorating. For the next decade, Grew attempted to warn American leaders about the risks of Japan’s raging nationalism and rising militarism, while also trying to stabilize Tokyo’s increasingly erratic and volatile foreign policy. From domestic terrorism by Japanese extremists to the global rise of Hitler and the fateful attack on Pearl Harbor, the events that unfolded during Grew’s tenure proved to be pivotal for Japan, and for the world. His dispatches from the darkening heart of the Japanese empire would prove prescient—for his time, and for our own.

Drawing on Grew’s diary of his time in Tokyo as well as U.S. embassy correspondence, diplomatic dispatches, and firsthand Japanese accounts, Our Man in Tokyo brings to life a man who risked everything to avert another world war, the country where he staked it all—and the abyss that swallowed it.

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Today I speak with journalist Greg Melville about his new book Over My Dead Body: Unearthing the Hidden History of America's Cemeteries.

(Also available as an audiobook narrated by Will Tulin)

A lively tour through the history of US cemeteries that explores how, where, and why we bury our dead

The summer before his senior year in college, Greg Melville worked at the cemetery in his hometown, and thanks to hour upon hour of pushing a mower over the grassy acres, he came to realize what a rich story the place told of his town and its history. Thus was born Melville’s lifelong curiosity with how, where, and why we bury and commemorate our dead.

Melville’s Over My Dead Body is a lively (pun intended) and wide-ranging history of cemeteries, places that have mirrored the passing eras in history but have also shaped it. Cemeteries have given birth to landscape architecture and famous parks, as well as influenced architectural styles. They’ve inspired and motivated some of our greatest poets and authors—Emerson, Whitman, Dickinson. They’ve been used as political tools to shift the country’s discourse and as important symbols of the United States' ambition and reach.

But they are changing and fading. Embalming and burial is incredibly toxic, and while cremations have just recently surpassed burials in popularity, they’re not great for the environment either. Over My Dead Body explores everything—history, sustainability, land use, and more—and what it really means to memorialize.

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Today I speak with historian and former CIA officer Nicholas Reynolds about his recent book Need to Know: World War II and the Rise of American Intelligence.

(Also available as an audiobook narrated by Fred Sanders)

The entire vast, modern American intelligence system—the amalgam of three-letter spy services of many stripes—can be traced back to the dire straits the world faced at the dawn of World War II. Prior to 1940, the United States had no organization to recruit spies and steal secrets or launch covert campaigns against enemies overseas and just a few codebreakers, isolated in windowless vaults. It was only through Winston Churchill’s determination to mobilize the US in the fight against Hitler that the first American spy service was born, built from scratch against the background of the Second World War.

In Need to Know, Nicholas Reynolds explores the birth, infancy, and adolescence of modern American intelligence. In this first-ever look across the entirety of the war effort, Reynolds combines little-known history and gripping spy stories to analyze the origins of American codebreakers and spies as well as their contributions to Allied victory, revealing how they laid the foundation for the Cold War—and beyond.

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Today I speak with novelist Kim Taylor Blakemore about her recent book The Deception.

A sleight of hand. A trick up the sleeve. A call for the dead. It’s all part of the game in this twisty tale by the bestselling author of After Alice Fell.

New Hampshire, 1877. Maud Price was once a celebrated child medium, a true believer in lifting the veil between the living and the dead. Now penniless, her guiding spirits gone, the so-called “Maid of Light” is desperate to regain her reputation—but doing so means putting her faith in deceiving others.

Clementine Watkins, known in spiritualist circles for her bag of tricks and utmost discretion, creates the sort of theatrics that can fill Maud’s parlor again, and with each misdirection, Maud’s fame is restored. But her guilt is a heavy burden. And the ruse has become a risk. Others are plotting to expose the fraud, and Clem can’t allow anyone—even Maud—to jeopardize the fortune the hoax has made her.

When the deception hints at a possible murder, Maud realizes how dangerous a game she’s playing. But to return to the light from which she’s strayed, she must first survive the darkness created by Clem’s smoke and mirrors.

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Today I speak with investigative journalist Katherine Stewart about her recent book The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism.

For too long the Religious Right has masqueraded as a social movement preoccupied with a number of cultural issues, such as abortion and same-sex marriage. In her deeply reported investigation, Katherine Stewart reveals a disturbing truth: this is a political movement that seeks to gain power and to impose its vision on all of society. America’s religious nationalists aren’t just fighting a culture war, they are waging a political war on the norms and institutions of American democracy.

Stewart pulls back the curtain on the inner workings and leading personalities of a movement that has turned religion into a tool for domination. She exposes a dense network of think tanks, advocacy groups, and pastoral organizations embedded in a rapidly expanding community of international alliances and united not by any central command but by a shared, anti-democratic vision and a common will to power. She follows the money that fuels this movement, tracing much of it to a cadre of super-wealthy, ultraconservative donors and family foundations. She shows that today’s Christian nationalism is the fruit of a longstanding antidemocratic, reactionary strain of American thought that draws on some of the most troubling episodes in America’s past. It forms common cause with a globe-spanning movement that seeks to destroy liberal democracy and replace it with nationalist, theocratic and autocratic forms of government around the world, such as the "Seven Mountains Mandate" or Dominionism. Religious nationalism is far more organized and better funded than most people realize. It seeks to control all aspects of government and society. Its successes have been stunning, and its influence now extends to every aspect of American life, from the White House to state capitols, from our schools to our hospitals.
The Power Worshippers is a brilliantly reported book of warning and a wake-up call. Stewart’s probing examination demands that Christian nationalism be taken seriously as a significant threat to the American republic and our democratic freedoms.

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Today I speak with historian of the American West Mark Lee Gardner about his recent book The Earth is All That Lasts: Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, and the Last Stand of the Great Sioux Nation.

Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull: Their names are iconic, their significance in American history undeniable. Together, these two Lakota chiefs, one a fabled warrior and the other a revered holy man, crushed George Armstrong Custer’s vaunted Seventh Cavalry. Yet their legendary victory at the Little Big Horn has overshadowed the rest of their rich and complex lives. Now, based on years of research and drawing on a wealth of previously ignored primary sources, award-winning author Mark Lee Gardner delivers the definitive chronicle, thrillingly told, of these extraordinary Indigenous leaders.

Both Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull were born and grew to manhood on the High Plains of the American West, in an era when vast herds of buffalo covered the earth, and when their nomadic people could move freely, following the buffalo and lording their fighting prowess over rival Indian nations. But as idyllic as this life seemed to be, neither man had known a time without whites. Fur traders and government explorers were the first to penetrate Sioux lands, but they were soon followed by a flood of white intruders: Oregon-California Trail travelers, gold seekers, railroad men, settlers, town builders—and Bluecoats. The buffalo population plummeted, disease spread by the white man decimated villages, and conflicts with the interlopers increased.

On June 25, 1876, in the valley of the Little Big Horn, Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, and the warriors who were inspired to follow them, fought the last stand of the Sioux, a fierce and proud nation that had ruled the Great Plains for decades. It was their greatest victory, but it was also the beginning of the end for their treasured and sacred way of life. And in the years to come, both Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, defiant to the end, would meet violent—and eerily similar—fates.

An essential new addition to the canon of Indigenous American history and literature of the West, The Earth Is All That Lasts is a grand saga, both triumphant and tragic, of two fascinating and heroic leaders struggling to maintain the freedom of their people against impossible odds.

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Today I speak with Arthurian scholar John Matthews about his recent book The Great Book of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table. 

The world’s leading Arthurian authority reimagines one of the most beloved and influential legends—the story of King Arthur and his Knights—for a new century in this gorgeous keepsake edition, illustrated with luminous full-color paintings and drawings by internationally acclaimed Tolkien artist John Howe.

The stories of King Arthur and Merlin, Lancelot and Guinevere, Galahad, Gawain, Tristan and the rest of the Knights of the Roundtable, and the search for the Holy Grail have been beloved for centuries and are the inspiration of many modern fantasy novels, films, and shows. These legends began when an obscure Celtic hero named Arthur stepped on to the stage of history sometime in the sixth century, generating a host of oral tales that would be inscribed some 900 years later by Thomas Malory in his classic Morte D’Arthur (The Death of Arthur).

The Great Book of King Arthur brings these legends into the modern age, using accessible prose for contemporary readers for the first time. In addition to the stories in Morte D’Arthur, John Matthews includes many tales of Arthur and his knights either unknown to Malory or written in other languages, such as the story of Avenable, the girl brought up as a boy who becomes a famous knight; Morien, whose adventures are as fantastic and exciting as any found in Malory’s work; and a retelling of the life of Round Table favorite Gawain, from his strange birth to his upbringing among the poor to his ascension to the highest position—Emperor of Rome.

In addition, there are some of the earliest tales of Arthur, deriving from the tradition of Celtic storytelling. The epic hero is represented in such powerful stories as “The Adventures of Eagle-boy” and “The Coming of Merlin,” which is based on the early medieval text Vita Merlini and tells a completely new version of the great enchanter’s story.

The Great Book of King Arthur includes 15 full-color paintings and 25 pencil drawings.

This week's episode is sponsored by historical fiction author Octavia Randolph, author of The Circle of Ceridwen Saga. Visit www.octavia.net to download Book One of the Saga for free!

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Today I speak with David Hendy about his recent book The BBC: A Century on Air.

"The first in-depth history of the iconic radio and TV network that has shaped our past and present.

Doctor Who; tennis from Wimbledon; the Beatles and the Stones; the coronation of Queen Elizabeth and the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales: for one hundred years, the British Broadcasting Corporation has been the preeminent broadcaster in the UK and around the world, a constant source of information, comfort, and entertainment through both war and peace, feast and famine.

The BBC has broadcast to over two hundred countries and in more than forty languages. Its history is a broad cultural panorama of the twentieth century itself, often, although not always, delivered in a mellifluous Oxford accent. With special access to the BBC’s archives, historian David Hendy presents a dazzling portrait of a unique institution whose cultural influence is greater than any other media organization. 

Mixing politics, espionage, the arts, social change, and everyday life, The BBC is a vivid social history of the organization that has provided both background commentary and screen-grabbing headlines—woven so deeply into the culture and politics of the past century that almost none of us has been left untouched by it."

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Today I speak with Eric Jay Dolin about his recent book Rebels at Sea: Privateering in the American Revolution.

**If you would like to listen to Eric's previous appearances on Can't Make This Up, listen to Black Flags, Blue Waters and A Furious Sky.

"The heroic story of the founding of the U.S. Navy during the Revolution has been told many times, yet largely missing from maritime histories of America’s first war is the ragtag fleet of private vessels that truly revealed the new nation’s character―above all, its ambition and entrepreneurial ethos.

In Rebels at Sea, best-selling historian Eric Jay Dolin corrects that significant omission, and contends that privateers, as they were called, were in fact critical to the American victory. Privateers were privately owned vessels, mostly refitted merchant ships, that were granted permission by the new government to seize British merchantmen and men of war. As Dolin stirringly demonstrates, at a time when the young Continental Navy numbered no more than about sixty vessels all told, privateers rushed to fill the gaps. Nearly 2,000 set sail over the course of the war, with tens of thousands of Americans serving on them and capturing some 1,800 British ships. Privateers came in all shapes and sizes, from twenty-five foot long whaleboats to full-rigged ships more than 100 feet long. Bristling with cannons, swivel guns, muskets, and pikes, they tormented their foes on the broad Atlantic and in bays and harbors on both sides of the ocean.

The men who owned the ships, as well as their captains and crew, would divide the profits of a successful cruise―and suffer all the more if their ship was captured or sunk, with privateersmen facing hellish conditions on British prison hulks, where they were treated not as enemy combatants but as pirates. Some Americans viewed them similarly, as cynical opportunists whose only aim was loot. Yet Dolin shows that privateersmen were as patriotic as their fellow Americans, and moreover that they greatly contributed to the war’s success: diverting critical British resources to protecting their shipping, playing a key role in bringing France into the war on the side of the United States, providing much-needed supplies at home, and bolstering the new nation’s confidence that it might actually defeat the most powerful military force in the world.

Creating an entirely new pantheon of Revolutionary heroes, Dolin reclaims such forgotten privateersmen as Captain Jonathan Haraden and Offin Boardman, putting their exploits, and sacrifices, at the very center of the conflict. Abounding in tales of daring maneuvers and deadly encounters, Rebels at Sea presents this nation’s first war as we have rarely seen it before."

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Today I speak with Dean Jobb about his recent book The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream: The Hunt for a Victorian Era Serial Killer.

**If you would like to listen to Dean's previous appearances on Can't Make This Up, listen to Empire of Deception and Daring, Devious & Deadly.

"When a doctor does go wrong he is the first of criminals,” Sherlock Holmes observed during one of his most baffling investigations. “He has nerve and he has knowledge.” In the span of fifteen years, Dr. Thomas Neill Cream murdered as many as ten people in the United States, Britain, and Canada, a death toll with almost no precedent. Poison was his weapon of choice. Largely forgotten today, this villain was as brazen as the notorious Jack the Ripper.

Structured around the doctor’s London murder trial in 1892, when he was finally brought to justice, The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream exposes the blind trust given to medical practitioners, as well as the flawed detection methods, bungled investigations, corrupt officials, and stifling morality of Victorian society that allowed Dr. Cream to prey on vulnerable and desperate women, many of whom had turned to him for medical help.

Dean Jobb transports readers to the late nineteenth century as Scotland Yard traces Dr. Cream’s life through Canada and Chicago and finally to London, where new investigative tools called forensics were just coming into use, even as most police departments still scoffed at using science to solve crimes. But then, most investigators could hardly imagine that serial killers existed—the term was unknown. As the Chicago Tribune wrote, Dr. Cream’s crimes marked the emergence of a new breed of killer: one who operated without motive or remorse, who “murdered simply for the sake of murder.” For fans of Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City, all things Sherlock Holmes, or the podcast My Favorite Murder, The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream is an unforgettable true crime story from a master of the genre"

Dean Jobb is an author, journalist, and member of the faculty of the MFA in Creative Nonfiction program at the University of King’s College in Halifax. His latest book, The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream (Algonquin Books and HarperCollins Canada) won the inaugural CrimeCon Clue Award for True Crime Book of the Year and was longlisted for the American Library Association’s Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. Empire of Deception, his previous book, the true story of a 1920s Chicago swindler, won the Crime Writers of Canada nonfiction award and was a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize, Canada’s top award for nonfiction. He writes a monthly column on true crime for Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and reviews books for The Irish Times and other publications.

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Today I speak with Sarah Scoles about her new book They Are Already Here: UFO Culture and Why We See Saucers. 

"An anthropological look at the UFO community, told through first-person experiences with researchers in their element as they pursue what they see as a solvable mystery—both terrestrial and cosmic. 

More than half a century since Roswell, UFOs have been making headlines once again. On December 17, 2017, the New York Times ran a front-page story about an approximately five-year Pentagon program called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. The article hinted, and its sources clearly said in subsequent television interviews, that some of the ships in question couldn’t be linked to any country. The implication, of course, was that they might be linked to other solar systems. 

The UFO community—those who had been thinking about, seeing, and analyzing supposed flying saucers (or triangles or chevrons) for years—was surprisingly skeptical of the revelation. Their incredulity and doubt rippled across the internet. Many of the people most invested in UFO reality weren’t really buying it. And as Scoles did her own digging, she ventured to dark, conspiracy-filled corners of the internet, to a former paranormal research center in Utah, and to the hallways of the Pentagon. 

In They Are Already Here we meet the bigwigs, the scrappy upstarts, the field investigators, the rational people, and the unhinged kooks of this sprawling community. How do they interact with each other? How do they interact with “anomalous phenomena”? And how do they (as any group must) reflect the politics and culture of the larger world around them? 

We will travel along the Extraterrestrial Highway (next to Area 51) and visit the UFO Watchtower, where seeking lights in the sky is more of a spiritual quest than a “gotcha” one. We meet someone who, for a while, believes they may have communicated with aliens. Where do these alleged encounters stem from? What are the emotional effects on the experiencers? Funny and colorful, and told in a way that doesn’t require one to believe, Scoles brings humanity to an often derided and misunderstood community. After all, the truth is out there . . ." 

Sarah Scoles is a science writer whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, Slate, Smithsonian, the Washington Post, Scientific American, Popular Science, Discover, New Scientist, Aeon, and Wired. A former editor at Astronomy magazine, Scoles worked at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, the location of the first-ever SETI project. She lives in Denver, Colorado. 

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Today I speak with Michael Fabey about his new book Heavy Metal: The Hard Days and Nights of the Shipyard Workers Who Build America's Supercarriers.

"An extraordinary story of American can-do, an inside look at the building of the most dangerous aircraft carrier in the world, the John F. Kennedy.

Tip the Empire State Building onto its side and you’ll have a sense of the length of the United States Navy’s newest aircraft carrier, the most powerful in the world: the USS John F. Kennedy. Weighing 100,000 tons, Kennedy features the most futuristic technology ever put to sea, making it the most agile and lethal global weapon of war.

Only one place possesses the brawn, brains and brass to transform naval warfare with such a creation – the Newport News Shipbuilding yard in Virginia and its 30,000 employees and shipyard workers. This is their story, the riggers, fitters, welders, electricians, machinists and other steelworkers who built the next-generation aircraft carrier.

Heavy Metal puts us on the waterfront and into the lives of these men and women as they battle layoffs, the elements, impossible deadlines, extraordinary pressure, workplace dangers and a pandemic to complete a ship that will be essential to protect America’s way of life.

The city of Newport News owes its very existence to the company that bears its name. The shipyard dominates the town—physically, politically, financially, socially, and culturally. Thanks to the yard, the city grew from a backwater to be the home of the premier naval contractor in the United States.

Heavy Metal captures an indelible moment in the history of a shipyard, a city, and a country."

Michael Fabey has reported on military and naval affairs for most of his career. In his work for National Geographic Traveler, the Economist Group, Defense News, Aviation Week, and Janes, he has collected more than two dozen reporting awards, including the prestigious Timothy White Award. Few journalists have had as much firsthand experience of America’s naval ships and aircraft and the officers who command them. He is the author of Crashback: The Power Clash Between the US and China in the Pacific. A Philadelphia native, he currently resides in Spotsylvania, Virginia.

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Today I speak with Lucy Ward about her new book The Empress and the English Doctor: How Catherine the Great Defied a Deadly Virus.

"A killer virus…an all-powerful Empress…an encounter cloaked in secrecy…the astonishing true story.

Within living memory, smallpox was a dreaded disease. Over human history it has killed untold millions. Back in the eighteenth century, as epidemics swept Europe, the first rumours emerged of an effective treatment: a mysterious method called inoculation.

But a key problem remained: convincing people to accept the preventative remedy, the forerunner of vaccination. Arguments raged over risks and benefits, and public resistance ran high. As smallpox ravaged her empire and threatened her court, Catherine the Great took the momentous decision to summon the Quaker physician Thomas Dimsdale to St Petersburg to carry out a secret mission that would transform both their lives. Lucy Ward expertly unveils the extraordinary story of Enlightenment ideals, female leadership and the fight to promote science over superstition."

Lucy Ward is a writer and former journalist for the Guardian and Independent. As a Westminster Lobby correspondent, she campaigned for greater women’s representation. From 2010–12, she lived with her family in Moscow, renewing her interest in Russian history. After growing up in Manchester, she studied Early and Middle English at Balliol College, Oxford. She now lives in Essex.

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Today I speak with Paul Craddock about his new book Spare Parts: The Story of Medicine Through the History of Transplant Surgery.

"Paul Craddock's Spare Parts offers an original look at the history of medicine itself through the rich, compelling, and delightfully macabre story of transplant surgery from ancient times to the present day.

How did an architect help pioneer blood transfusion in the 1660's?
Why did eighteenth-century dentists buy the live teeth of poor children?
And what role did a sausage skin and an enamel bath play in making kidney transplants a reality?

We think of transplant surgery as one of the medical wonders of the modern world. But transplant surgery is as ancient as the pyramids, with a history more surprising than we might expect. Paul Craddock takes us on a journey - from sixteenth-century skin grafting to contemporary stem cell transplants - uncovering stories of operations performed by unexpected people in unexpected places. Bringing together philosophy, science and cultural history, Spare Parts explores how transplant surgery constantly tested the boundaries between human, animal, and machine, and continues to do so today.

Witty, entertaining, and illuminating, Spare Parts shows us that the history - and future - of transplant surgery is tied up with questions about not only who we are, but also what we are, and what we might become."

Paul Craddock is Honorary Senior Research Associate in the Division of Surgery and Interventional Sciences at UCL Medical School in London. His PhD explored how transplants have for centuries invited reflection on human identity, a subject on which he has also lectured internationally. Spare Parts is his first book. Visit his website at https://paulcraddock.com/ 

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Today I speak with bestselling author Boyd Morrison and medieval historian Beth Morrison, PhD., about their new historical fiction novel The Lawless Land. 

"Live by the sword. Die for the truth. England, 1351. The Pestilence has ravaged the land. Villages lie abandoned but for crows and corpses. Highways are patrolled by marauders and murderers. In these dark and dangerous times, the wise keep to themselves. But Gerard Fox cannot afford to be wise. The young knight has been robbed of his ancestral home, his family name tarnished. To regain his lands and reputation, he sets forth to petition the one man who can restore them. Fate places Fox on the wrong road at the wrong time as he hurtles towards a chance encounter. It will entangle him with an enigmatic woman, a relic of incalculable value, and a dark family secret. It will lead him far from home and set him on a collision course with one of the most ambitious and dangerous men in Europe – a man on the cusp of seizing Christendom's highest office. And now, Fox is the only one standing in his way..." 

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Today I speak with James Carl Nelson about his book, The York Patrol: The Real Story of Alvin York and the Unsung Heroes Who Made Him World War I's Most Famous Soldier.

"October 8, 1918 was a banner day for heroes of the American Expeditionary Force. Thirteen men performed heroic deeds that would earn them Medals of Honor. Of this group, one man emerged as the single greatest American hero of the Great War: Alvin Cullum York. A poor young farmer from Tennessee, Sergeant York was said to have single-handedly killed two dozen Germans and captured another 132 of the enemy plus thirty-five machine guns before noon on that fateful Day of Valor.

York would become an American legend, celebrated in magazines, books, and a blockbuster biopic starring Gary Cooper. The film, Sergeant York, told of a hell-raiser from backwoods Tennessee who had a come-to-Jesus moment, then wrestled with his newfound Christian convictions to become one of the greatest heroes the U.S. Army had ever known. It was a great story—but not the whole story.

In this absorbing history, James Carl Nelson unspools, for the first time, the complete story of Alvin York and the events that occurred in the Argonne Forest on that day. Nelson gives voice, in particular, to the sixteen “others” who fought beside York. Hailing from big cities and small towns across the U.S. as well as several foreign countries, these soldiers included a patrician Connecticut farmer whose lineage could be traced back to the American Revolution, a poor runaway from Massachusetts who joined the Army under a false name, and a Polish immigrant who enlisted in hopes of expediting his citizenship. The York Patrol shines a long overdue spotlight on these men and York, and pays homage to their bravery and sacrifice."

Check out James Carl Nelson's first appearance on CMTU in June 2019 where we discussed his book The Polar Bear Expedition!

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"The Transcendentalists and Their World offers a fresh view of the thinkers whose outsize impact on philosophy and literature would spread from tiny Concord to all corners of the earth. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the Alcotts called this New England town home, and Thoreau drew on its life extensively in his classic Walden. But Concord from the 1820s through the 1840s was no pastoral place fit for poets and philosophers. The Transcendentalists and their neighbors lived through a transformative epoch of American life. A place of two thousand–plus souls in the antebellum era, Concord was a community in ferment, whose small, ordered society founded by Puritans and defended by Minutemen was dramatically unsettled through the expansive forces of capitalism and democracy and tightly integrated into the wider world. These changes challenged a world of inherited institutions and involuntary associations with a new premium on autonomy and choice. They exposed people to cosmopolitan currents of thought and endowed them with unparalleled opportunities. They fostered uncertainties, raised new hopes, stirred dreams of perfection, and created an audience for new ideas of individual freedom and democratic equality deeply resonant today. The Transcendentalists and Their World is both an intimate journey into the life of a community and a searching cultural study of major American writers as they plumbed the depths of the universe for spiritual truths and surveyed the rapidly changing contours of their own neighborhoods. It shows us familiar figures in American literature alongside their neighbors at every level of the social order, and it reveals how this common life in Concord entered powerfully into their works. No American community of the nineteenth century has been recovered so richly and with so acute an awareness of its place in the larger American story.

Robert A. Gross is the James L. and Shirley A. Draper Professor of Early American History Emeritus at the University of Connecticut. He is the author of The Minutemen and Their World (1976), which won the Bancroft Prize, and of Books and Libraries in Thoreau’s Concord (1988); with Mary Kelley, he is the coeditor of An Extensive Republic: Print, Culture, and Society in the New Nation, 1790–1840 (2010). A former assistant editor of Newsweek, he has written for such periodicals as Esquire, Harper’s Magazine, The Boston Globe, and The New York Times, and his essays have appeared in The American Scholar, The New England Quarterly, Raritan, and The Yale Review. His most recent book is The Transcendentalists and Their World (2021)."

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Today I speak with Rosemary J. Brown about her new book Following Nellie Bly: Her Record-Breaking Race Around the World.

"Intrepid journalist Nellie Bly raced through a ‘man’s world’ — alone and literally with just the clothes on her back — to beat the fictional record set by Jules Verne’s Phileas Fogg in Around the World in 80 Days. She won the race on 25 January 1890, covering 21,740 miles by ocean liner and train in 72 days, and became a global celebrity. Although best known for her record-breaking journey, even more importantly Nellie Bly pioneered investigative journalism and paved the way for women in the newsroom. Her undercover reporting, advocacy for women's rights, crusades for vulnerable children, campaigns against oppression and steadfast conviction that 'nothing is impossible' makes the world that she circled a better place.

Adventurer, journalist and author, Rosemary J Brown, set off 125 years later to retrace Nellie Bly’s footsteps in an expedition registered with the Royal Geographical Society. Through her recreation of that epic global journey, she brings to life Nellie Bly’s remarkable achievements and shines a light on one of the world's greatest female adventurers and a forgotten heroine of history."

Rosemary J Brown is a journalist for newspapers and magazines in the UK, USA and France. An avid traveller, she is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a Churchill Fellow. In her quest to put female adventurers 'back on the map' she speaks at the Globetrotters Club, Women of the World festivals and schools, and helped to organise The Heritage of Women in Exploration conference at the Royal Geographical Society.

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Today, I speak with Laurence Bergreen about his book In Search of a Kingdom: Francis Drake, Elizabeth I, and the Perilous Birth of the British Empire.

"Before he was secretly dispatched by Queen Elizabeth to circumnavigate the globe, or was called upon to save England from the Spanish Armada, Francis Drake was perhaps the most wanted—and successful—pirate ever to sail. Nicknamed “El Draque” by the Spaniards who placed a bounty on his head, the notorious red-haired, hot-tempered Drake pillaged galleons laden with New World gold and silver, stealing a vast fortune for his queen—and himself. For Elizabeth, Drake made the impossible real, serving as a crucial and brilliantly adaptable instrument of her ambitions to transform England from a third-rate island kingdom into a global imperial power.

In 1580, sailing on Elizabeth’s covert orders, Drake became the first captain to circumnavigate the earth successfully. (Ferdinand Magellan had died in his attempt.) Part exploring expedition, part raiding mission, Drake’s audacious around-the-world journey in the Golden Hind reached Patagonia, the Pacific Coast of present-day California and Oregon, the Spice Islands, Java, and Africa. Almost a decade later, Elizabeth called upon Drake again. As the devil-may-care vice admiral of the English fleet, Drake dramatically defeated the once-invincible Spanish Armada, spurring the British Empire’s ascent and permanently wounding its greatest rival. 

The relationship between Drake and Elizabeth is the missing link in our understanding of the rise of the British Empire, and its importance has not been fully described or appreciated. Framed around Drake’s key voyages as a window into this crucial moment in British history, In Search of a Kingdom is a rousing adventure narrative entwining epic historical themes with intimate passions."

Laurence Bergreen is the bestselling author of Over the Edge of the World: Magellan’s Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe. His other books include Columbus: The Four Voyages, 1492–1504; Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu; and Voyage to Mars: NASA’s Search for Life Beyond Earth. A graduate of Harvard, Bergreen lives in Manhattan. 

For more information about Laurence, visit www.laurencebergreen.com

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My guest today is Julia Cooke who joins me to discuss her new book Come Fly the World: The Jet-Age Story of the Women of Pan-Am.

"Required to have a college education, speak two languages, and possess the political savvy of a Foreign Service officer, a jet-age stewardess serving on iconic Pan Am between 1966 and 1975 also had to be between 5′3" and 5′9", between 105 and 140 pounds, and under 26 years of age at the time of hire. Cooke’s intimate storytelling weaves together the real-life stories of a memorable cast of characters, from small-town girl Lynne Totten, a science major who decided life in a lab was not for her, to Hazel Bowie, one of the relatively few Black stewardesses of the era, as they embraced the liberation of their new jet-set life. Cooke brings to light the story of Pan Am stewardesses’ role in the Vietnam War, as the airline added runs from Saigon to Hong Kong for planeloads of weary young soldiers straight from the battlefields, who were off for five days of R&R, and then flown back to war. Finally, with Operation Babylift—the dramatic evacuation of 2,000 children during the fall of Saigon—the book’s special cast of stewardesses unites to play an extraordinary role on the world stage."

Julia Cooke's essays have been published in A Public Space, Salon, The Threepenny Review, Smithsonian, Tin House, and Virginia Quarterly Review, where she is a contributing editor. She holds an undergraduate degree from Georgetown University and an MFA from Columbia University. Come Fly the World is her second book.

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Today, I speak with Michael Gerhardt about his book Lincoln's Mentors.

In national polling among presidential historians (as well as among the general public), Abraham Lincoln consistently ranks in the top two greatest presidents in American history. As his leadership preserved the Union during its most pressing hour, this praise is well deserved. But how did Lincoln become such a good leader? Was he simply born that way or was it something he learned?

My guest today is Michael Gerhardt is the Samuel Ashe Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law. One of the nation's most respected authorities on the Constitution, Michael has been called upon to testify before both chambers of Congress to offer his expertise on constitutional issues, including the impeachment proceedings for Presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, as well as during the nomination hearings for several Supreme Court Justices. He is the author of the brand new book "Lincoln's Mentors: The Education of a Leader" in which he argues that it was Lincoln's dispassionate ability to learn from other people in his life that built him into the great president history remembers today. In this episode, Michael and I walk through five prominent figures from Abraham Lincoln's life, ranging from political figures to personal friends, whom Lincoln seemed to learn a great deal from and allowed to influence his leadership style.

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You have likely heard the story before: "Mrs. O'Leary's cow knocked over a lantern and started the Great Chicago Fire." While the Great Fire was a real disaster that occurred in October, 1871, we remember it much like a quaint American folk tale. To add a little clarity to this famous event, I am joined by Carl Smith, Emeritus Professor of History, English, and American Studies at Northwestern University, to talk about his recent book, "Chicago's Great Fire: The Destruction and Resurrection of an Iconic American City." During our time together, Carl and I discuss what made Chicago one of America's largest cities in the 19th century, the status of fire safety in urban areas at the time, the tragic events that unfolded over a three day period in 1871, and how Chicago's resolve led to the city being resurrected.

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Today I speak with A'Lelia Bundles about her book On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam CJ Walker

In 1867, Sarah Breedlove was the first in her family to be born into freedom after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation had abolished slavery four years earlier. It is doubtful that any of her family could have guessed the remarkable course her life would take. Sarah came of age working as a domestic servant and a washerwoman. But she had far grander dreams and was determined her young daughter would receive a formal education. So she became an entrepreneur and developed her own haircare product. Ultimately, she became Madam C.J. Walker, owner of a successful company that employed thousands of women, a philanthropist, a social activist, and the first woman to become a millionaire.   

Today, I am joined by Madam C.J. Walker's biographer and great-great-granddaughter, A'Lelia Bundles to discuss her book, "On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker." Before becoming a historian, A'Lelia had a 30-year career in journalism as an Emmy Award-winning producer for ABC News and NBC News. "On her Own Ground" has received numerous awards since its publication in 2001 and was adapted into the 4-part fictionalized miniseries by Netflix in 2020 titled "Self-Made" starring Octavia Spencer. Today, A'Lelia and I discuss what made her great-great-grandmother such a successful businesswoman, how she engaged with her contemporaries in the emerging civil rights movement like Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, and Ida B. Wells, and how her legacy is remembered today.

For more information about A'Lelia Bundles' research visit: www.aleliabundles.com and www.madamcjwalker.com

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One legendary town that has become synonymous with the Old West is Tombstone. My guest today is bestselling author Tom Clavin who joins me talk about his book "Tombstone: The Earp Brothers, Doc Holliday, and the Vendetta Ride from Hell." Today Tom and I unpack the story of a frontier boomtown that is so much more than its famous shootout at the O.K. Corral. We discuss the first settlement of Arizona Territory, the lives of the Earp Brothers and Doc Holliday, what frontier law looked like, and how Tombstone was caught up in the transition from the chaotic Old West to the more orderly New West.

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My guest today has immersed himself in the intellectual world of the late 18th century in order to think long and hard about these questions. Thomas E. Ricks was a journalist for twenty years during which time his reporting won two Pulitzer Prizes. Tom joins me to discuss his new, timely book, "First Principles: What America's Founders Learned from the Greeks and Roman and How That Shaped Our Country." Tom and I discuss how George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison were well versed in the political and philosophical ideas of the Ancient Greece and Rome and built those concepts into the framework of the American government.  

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Have you ever thought about where your electricity came from? Sure, it comes from the "grid," but where did the grid come from? Today, my guest and I discuss how the nation became electrified. John Riggs studied history at Swarthmore College before beginning a 30 year career working on energy policy in Washington, D.C. His brand new book "High Tension: FDR's Battle to Power America" is an engrossing tale about how President Franklin D. Roosevelt made it his mission to reform an electrical system that benefited less than half the country and was dominated by a few incredibly powerful monopolies. John and I discuss the first wave of electrification in the late 19th century, FDR's efforts to pass legislation to regulate power holding companies, and the Roosevelt administration's New Deal electricity programs like the Tennessee Valley Authority and Rural Electrification Administration. 

For more information on John's research, visit his website - www.hightensionfdrbook.com

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In this episode, I am joined by a returning friend of the podcast, Dean Jobb. Dean is a professor of journalism and a member of the faculty of the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction Program at the University of King's College in Halifax. He has an enduring interest in true crime and has written several books on the subject. Dean joins me again to discuss his latest book, "Daring, Devious & Deadly: True Tales of Crime and Justice from Nova Scotia's Past," which is a collection of 15 remarkable true crime stories.

Want to listen to Dean Jobb's first appearance on the podcast? Check out "Empire of Deception with Dean Jobb" from February 2019.

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Chick, now a 79 year-old veteran, joins me to discuss his new book "The Greatest Beer Run Ever: A Memoir of Friendship, Loyalty, and War" about his epic journey through war torn Vietnam to track down the guys from his neighborhood and hand them a beer. Not only was Chick's mission nearly an impossible one from the outset, getting out of the country as the Vietcong launched the infamous Tet Offense would prove to be even harder. This is history you really can't make up! 

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These are all questions my guest today has given considerable thought to. Craig Wright is Professor Emeritus of Music at Yale University, and during his professorship he developed a course called Exploring the Nature of Genius that has become quite popular among Yale's undergraduates. He has distilled his research for that course into his new book, "The Hidden Habits of Genius: Beyond Talent, IQ, and Grit - Unlocking the Secrets of Greatness." In this episode, Craig and I discuss exactly what a genius even is, explore some common misconceptions of genius, and talk about some notable geniuses throughout history.  

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Today, I am joined by historian Eric Jay Dolin to discuss the history behind hurricanes and our ever-changing efforts to understand them. Eric is the bestselling author of numerous books and a returning guest on the podcast, and in this episode he is going to talk to us about his newest book "A Furious Sky: The Five-Hundred Year History of America's Hurricanes." He and I will discuss some of the earliest encounters with hurricanes in the New World, the early scientists who studied them, and some of the most notable hurricanes to strike the United States.

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Today, I am joined by bestselling authors Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge to talk about their new book, Hunting Whitey: The Inside Story of the Capture and Killing of America's Most Wanted Crime Boss. Casey and Dave both have backgrounds in journalism and have developed a dynamic partnership writing about topics related to the Boston area. In today's true crime episode, the three of us discuss Whitey Bulger's criminal career, his 16 years spent as a fugitive, and the breaks in the case that ultimately led to Bulger's arrest in 2011.

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Today on Alternate Histories, I am joined by Elise Hooper. "A New Englander by birth (and at heart), Elise lives with her husband and two young daughters in Seattle, where she teaches history and literature. The Other Alcott was her first novel." Elise and I discuss her new novel, Fast Girls. 

"In the 1928 Olympics, Chicago’s Betty Robinson competes as a member of the first-ever women’s delegation in track and field. Destined for further glory, she returns home feted as America’s Golden Girl until a nearly-fatal airplane crash threatens to end everything.

Outside of Boston, Louise Stokes, one of the few black girls in her town, sees competing as an opportunity to overcome the limitations placed on her. Eager to prove that she has what it takes to be a champion, she risks everything to join the Olympic team.

From Missouri, Helen Stephens, awkward, tomboyish, and poor, is considered an outcast by her schoolmates, but she dreams of escaping the hardships of her farm life through athletic success. Her aspirations appear impossible until a chance encounter changes her life.

These three athletes will join with others to defy society’s expectations of what women can achieve. As tensions bring the United States and Europe closer and closer to the brink of war, Betty, Louise, and Helen must fight for the chance to compete as the fastest women in the world amidst the pomp and pageantry of the Nazi-sponsored 1936 Olympics in Berlin." 

Learn more about Elise Hooper and her work at https://www.elisehooper.com

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My guest today is Kate Moore. Kate is a book editor, actress, theater director, and bestselling author. She joins me on the podcast today from her home in the U.K. to discuss her book, Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women. In Radium Girls, Kate dives into America's early fascination with radium and profiles the tragic lives of several 1920s women whose job painting with luminescent radium paint led to horrific medical problems and an uphill legal battle to seek justice from the factories that knowingly exposed them to hazardous materials.

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Today on Alternate Histories, I am joined by UK writer and novelist Annabel Abbs. "Annabel has a degree in English Literature from the University of East Anglia and a Masters in Marketing from the University of Kingston After fifteen years running a consultancy, she took a career break to bring up her four children, before returning to her first love, literature. Her debut novel, The Joyce Girl, won the 2015 Impress Prize for New Writing and the 2015 Spotlight First Novel Award, and was longlisted for the 2015 Caledonia Novel Award and the 2015 Bath Novel Award." She joins my from her home in London via Zoom to discuss The Joyce Girl: A Novel of Jazz Age Paris. 

"The review in the Paris Times in November 1928 is rapturous in its praise of Lucia Joyce’s skill and artistry as a dancer. The family has made their home in Paris—where the latest ideas in art, music, and literature converge. Acolytes regularly visit the Joyce apartment to pay homage to Ireland’s exiled literary genius. Among them is a tall, thin young man named Samuel Beckett—a fellow Irish expat who idolizes Joyce and with whom Lucia becomes romantically involved. 

Lucia is both gifted and motivated, training tirelessly with some of the finest teachers in the world. Though her father delights in his daughter’s talent, she clashes with her mother, Nora. And as her relationship with Beckett sours, Lucia’s dreams unravel, as does her hope of a life beyond her father’s shadow. 

With Lucia’s behavior growing increasingly erratic, James Joyce sends her to pioneering psychoanalyst Carl Jung. Here, at last, she will tell her own story—a fascinating, heartbreaking account of thwarted ambition, passionate creativity, and the power of love to both inspire and destroy. 

The Joyce Girl creates a compelling and moving account of the real-life Joyce Girl, of unrealized dreams and rejection, and of the destructive love of a father."

Learn more about Annabel Abbs at www.annabelabbs.com 

This podcast is part of Straight Up Strange Productions. Check out www.straightupstrange.com for more shows like this one.

Studying the stars for alien life has a long and interesting history, most notably with the founding of SETI (The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) nearly sixty years ago. My guest today is Keith Cooper, author of The Contact Paradox: Challenging Our Assumptions in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, who joins me to discuss the history surrounding academic efforts of "seeking out new life and new civilizations." Keith has a background in astronomy and astrophysics and has served as the Editor of Astronomy Now since 2006. His articles on cosmology, planetary science, astrobiology, and related disciplines have appeared in Sky & Telescope, Physics World, and the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society. In our conversation, Keith and I discuss early searches for ET intelligence and the origins of the SETI program, what SETI has done to listen for signals from other worlds, and the controversy surrounding the idea of whether or not we should respond if we do indeed intercept an alien signal. Keith and I then dive into our own evolutionary history to speculate on how life might have evolved elsewhere, and we explore examples from Earth's history of first contact between cultures to see what lessons we might be able to apply to first contact with an extraterrestrial civilization. 

Check out the massive selection of sci-fi comics, books, toys, and games available at Things from Another World!

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The Creature from the Black Lagoon was always my favorite classic monster movie growing up. The "creature" is certainly one of the most original and iconic monsters to ever grace the silver screen. But did you know that it was designed by a woman? Millicent Patrick was a makeup artist, animator, special effect designer, and an actress, but unfortunately her contributions to the horror film genre have largely been forgotten. My guest today is Mallory O'Meara and she has written the first biography of Millicent's life and career in Hollywood, The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Millicent Patrick. Mallory is an award-winning author, co-host of the literary podcast Reading Glasses, and she works in the horror movie industry as a screenwriter and producer. Today, Mallory and I discuss Millicent's unique childhood, how she entered Hollywood, and how the film industry failed to recognize her achievements.   

If you've never experienced this classic film or want to revisit it, you can rent or buy The Creature from the Black Lagoon from Amazon Prime Video.

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As the world grapples with the coronavirus pandemic, the topic of infectious diseases has taken centerstage in our public consciousness. While COVID-19 may be viral in nature, many of the most dangerous diseases are caused by bacteria. Medicine has traditionally treated these infections with antibiotics, but increasingly our antibiotics are becoming less and less effective. My guest today is Dr. Muhammad H. Zaman who joins me to discuss his new book Biography of Resistance: The Epic Battle Between People and Pathogens. Dr. Zaman is a professor of Biomedical Engineering and International Health at Boston University and his research has led him to become a Fellow with the American Institute of Biological and Medical Engineering. He has shared his expertise with newspapers across globe with columns appearing in over thirty countries. Dr. Zaman joins me via Zoom from his home in Massachusetts to discuss the evolutionary history of bacteria and the microscopic war that has occurred between them for millions of years, the first human efforts to understand these organisms and influence that battle, and how those efforts have led the world of medicine into an age of highly resistant "superbugs."

For incredible gourmet freshly roasted coffee delivered to your door, check out Phil & Sebastian Coffee Roasters! Free shipping anywhere in the US or Canada!

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We are well familiar with the massive deployment of troops on the beaches on Normandy on June 6, 1944. But we are less familiar with the two years worth of groundwork laid behind enemy lines to ensure the D-Day invasion would be a success. My guest today is Sarah Rose, author of D-Day Girls: The Spies Who Armed the Resistance, Sabotaged the Nazis, and Helped Win World War II, and she joins me to discuss brave women who parachuted into Nazi-occupied France to work undercover as arms smugglers, army recruiters, and saboteurs. Sarah is a news and travel journalist whose columns have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Travel + Leisure Magazine, and the Saturday Evening Post. She joins me from Hawaii via Skype to discuss her second bestselling history book, D-Day Girls. 

For incredible gourmet freshly roasted coffee delivered to your door, check out Phil & Sebastian Coffee Roasters! Free shipping anywhere in the US or Canada!

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My guest today is BBC security correspondent Gordon Corera. Gordon studied modern history at Oxford and U.S. foreign policy at Harvard before becoming a reporter, a 20+ year career in which he has covered foreign affairs and security issues. He joins us today from the U.K. via Skype to discuss his latest book, Russians Among Us: Sleeper Cells, Ghost Stories, and the Hunt for Putin's Spies, which is an in-depth look at Russia's "Illegals Program" that survived the collapse of the Soviet Union and has evolved into Russia's high-tech foreign intelligence apparatus today.

For incredible gourmet freshly roasted coffee delivered to your door, check out Phil & Sebastian Coffee Roasters! Free shipping anywhere in the US!

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I am joined today on Alternate Histories by Gretchen Berg. "Gretchen was was born on the East Coast, raised in the Midwest, and spent a number of years in the Pacific Northwest. She has taught English in South Korea and in Northern Iraq and has traveled to all the other continents." She joins me on the podcast from Chicago via Skype to discuss her debut historical fiction novel, The Operator.

"Nobody knows the people of Wooster, Ohio, better than switchboard operator Vivian Dalton, and she’d be the first to tell you that. She calls it intuition. Her teenage daughter, Charlotte, calls it eavesdropping.

Vivian and the other women who work at Bell on East Liberty Street connect lines and lives. They aren’t supposed to listen in on conversations, but they do, and they all have opinions on what they hear—especially Vivian. She knows that Mrs. Butler’s ungrateful daughter, Maxine, still hasn’t thanked her mother for the quilt she made, and that Ginny Frazier turned down yet another invitation to go to the A&W with Clyde Walsh.

Then, one cold December night, Vivian listens in on a call between that snob Betty Miller and someone whose voice she can’t quite place and hears something shocking. Betty Miller’s mystery friend has news that, if true, will shatter Vivian’s tidy life in Wooster, humiliating her and making her the laughingstock of the town.

Vivian may be mortified, but she isn’t going to take this lying down. She’s going to get to the bottom of that rumor—get into it, get under it, poke around in the corners. Find every last bit. Vivian wants the truth, no matter how painful it may be.

But as Vivian is about to be reminded, in a small town like Wooster, one secret usually leads to another. . . ."

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Today, renown historian Sir Max Hastings joins me to discuss his latest book, Operation Chastise: The RAF's Most Brilliant Attack of World War II, on the plan to use specially designed bombs to break open several hydroelectric dams and flood the Ruhr Valley. Sir Hastings has had a long career in journalism as a foreign correspondent for the BBC and as an editor and editor-in-chief for the Evening Standard and Daily Telegraph. In his career as a historian, he has authored over twenty books on warfare and military history and has received numerous international awards. Sir Hastings was kind enough to join me from the U.K. via Skype to discuss the logistics of implementing such a audacious plan as Operation Chastise, the engineering that went into creating the so-called Upkeep Device capable of breaching a massive structure like a dam, and the brave pilots who flew at dangerously low altitudes to complete this famous mission.   

Check out the massive selection of comics, books, toys, and games available at Things from Another World!

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Mid-roll Music:

Megaepic by Alexander Nakarada | https://www.serpentsoundstudios.com Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/