CapRadio Reads

We are all impacted by racism and bias, but we can train ourselves to see each other differently. Author Terri Givens uses examples from her family history and her own life as examples of how to develop a new perspective on race without losing sight of the past. The path Givens lays out for us begins with a willingness to be vulnerable. It ends with creating change and building trust. The process, she explains, is gradual and achievable. And, Givens says, can be hopeful.

Scientists say we have 10 years to stop, if not reverse, the physical destruction of the earth. Their concerns apply to climate change and to the entire web of our environment. Though the condition of our planet is grave, many people continue to live in complacency. Abigail Dillen is a lawyer and President of Earthjustice, an organization dedicated to fighting for the planet. She is also a contributor to the anthology "All We Can Save" and feels realistic about the Earth’s current condition, if we take the necessary steps to combat global climate change. In this interview, she discusses her work as an environmental attorney and explains the responsibility we all share.

An author works to make a name for himself, and if he’s successful, that name can land on covers in bookstores around the world. So to achieve success as a writer and then change to a different name is a big risk. It seems to be working out just fine for Andrew Child, the author previously known as Andrew Grant. He recently adopted a new pen name to partner with his real-life brother, Lee Child, on the latest book in the popular Jack Reacher novel series, “The Sentinel.” Andrew was already a successful novelist when his brother decided to retire, but he was surprised when Lee asked him to continue the legacy of a series he had enjoyed and admired as a reader. Reacher, the main character, is a drifter who recognizes problems and solves them in his own unique way. The younger Child follows the tradition set by his brother in portraying Reacher as a strategic thinker and physically formidable opponent for villains and bullies. The subject of the 25th novel in the series is cybersecurity, with a focus on ransomware. The plot is a fictionalized version of tech crimes that pop up in the news.

More than 50 million people in the United States are caregivers for loved ones. Most are women, and many are women of color. They are often unpaid or underpaid. Caregiving didn’t enter Kate Washingon’s mind in her early forties. She and her husband Brad were focused on their careers – hers as a writer, his as a college professor – and raising their two young daughters. Their lifestyle came to a halt with Brad’s diagnosis of a rare form of lymphoma, accompanied by some equally rare side effects. His treatment spanned several years, during which he temporarily lost his vision, went through stem cell replacement and had to take early retirement. By the time Kate wrote and published her book, Brad was in remission. Kate considers her family fortunate in that they had good medical coverage and the funds to pay for care that was not covered by insurance, but they could not avoid the emotional strain of the situation. As an online stress assessment revealed to Kate, “You’re already toast.”

Hank Shaw has a lifelong love for fish. He gets excited about the catch. “The tug is the drug,” as he says. Every kind of fish has a different “feel” at the other end of the line, and every angler has a way of working the water. But unlike some anglers, Shaw has taken the time to learn the cultures that surround fish. He explores the unique styles of fishing around the globe, and he learns regional techniques for preparation and cooking. Shaw refers to fishing as a skill, but he treats it as a craft, and his artistry is as evident in “Hook, Line and Supper,” as it is in his other books and on his website, Hunter, Angler, Gardener, Cook. The photographs, paired with Hank’s descriptions, make for a delightful reading experience. This is not a cookbook. Hank Shaw creates an experience that gives his followers a close-up look at how your fillet reached the plate on your table. Even if you never catch a fish in your life, “Hook, Line and Supper” will help you become a wiser consumer of seafood.

From its initial poetry gathering in the Sierra to its annual series of writers’ workshops, the Community of Writers celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2021. Instructors and attendees are inspired by the magic of the Olympic Valley. They share insights about their craft. They listen to each others’ stories. They exchange wisdom about the publishing industry. But mostly, they write. The majority of each day is devoted to making magical connections between words. To celebrate this monumental anniversary of the poetry program, the Community of Writers published an anthology entitled “Why To These Rocks.” It includes the work of instructors and attendees from throughout the history of the workshops. Brenda Hillman did not attend the first meeting of poets, but she has been to many of the subsequent gatherings. She now serves as Director of the Poetry Program for the Community of Writers. Blas Falconer first came to the sessions as a participant, and returned as a leader. Hillman and Falconer both teach poetry at the university level throughout the year and meet with other published poets in the Olympic Valley every summer.

NOTE: This interview contains discussions about sexual assault. The annual arrival of houseguests was a horrifying event for Grace Talusan, who, as a child, was regularly assaulted by one of the visitors. Her memoir “The Body Papers” takes readers into the dark times of her youth, only some of which she can remember, as well as loving times she shared with her parents and niblings. Talusan is open and authentic in relating the effects of the assault on her mental and physical health. She also draws parallels to everyday occurrences – how fear shows up in crossing busy streets and how making yogurt becomes an opportunity to nurture. As a speaker and teacher at the university level, Talusan is mindful of the impact we have on each other. She is a prominent voice for Asian and Pacific Island communities and cancer prevention.

PTSD. Shell shock. Society has terms to recognize wartime trauma in soldiers and the same terms apply to the long-term effects felt by civilians who are caught in battle. Author Lan Cao was one of those people. She was a child in Vietnam during the war, and she has vivid memories of what she witnessed during those years, including the Tet Offensive in 1968. Cao fled to the U.S. in her early teens, but the trauma did not dissipate. It continued under the surface during her education and her successful career as an attorney and author. Those early experiences in Vietnam are still a part of Cao’s life, and they have filtered into her relationship with her daughter. “Family in Six Tones” is a vehicle that allows each of them to tell their perspective of their experiences. In the process, the pair educates readers on the effects of trauma and the therapy of empathy.

Malcolm X was an intriguing leader of the Black Power movement in the early 1960s, in part because of two sides of his persona – charismatic and angry. The origins of those traits are part of “The Dead Are Rising,” the biography of Malcolm X compiled by journalist Les Payne and his daughter Tamara Payne. Malcolm Little was born in Omaha, Nebraska in 1925. His parents, active followers of the teachings of Marcus Garvey, taught their eight children to take pride in their African and Caribbean heritage. Within a few years, the family would endure the brutal bias of the Ku Klux Klan, including the loss of land ownership and, Malcolm believed, the death of his father. As young adults, the Little siblings followed in their father’s footsteps as community organizers, albeit in a different direction. They became devout followers of Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam (NOI). Malcolm became a national spokesperson for the organization, though he eventually questioned Muhammad’s leadership and began to study how Islam was practiced in the Middle East and in Africa. It was a transformative experience shortly before his assassination in 1965. The identity of his killer is one of many questions explored by the Paynes in “The Dead Are Arising.” The scenes leading up to that event read like a movie script. The authors provide a detailed timeline and in-depth interviews with people witnessed Malcolm’s murder.

It starts with the unequal distribution of inheritance through the sale of a family farm. It ends with two sisters and a granddaughter finding peace in their passion for brewing beer. The women in this story are devoted to their craft, although not always to each other. Their journey will resonate with families of any background in any part of the world. Beer lovers will appreciate the attention to detail author J. Ryan Stradal brings to this novel, in which he pays tribute to his native Minnesota from his adopted home of Los Angeles. His ingrained love for family and tradition is gently blended with humor and a deep understanding of the grieving process. In “The Lager Queen of Minnesota,” Stradal has developed a story that draws us in and reminds us of what is truly important. What comes through in this interview, as in his writing, is Stradal’s appreciation of his roots. Blood is thicker than water, and apparently, so is beer.

In Iceland, December is a celebration of books. Jolabokaflod, which translates to “yule book flood,” is a tradition that dates back to war time and rationing, where people gave books as gifts during the holiday season because there was no shortage of paper. For this final episode of 2020, CapRadio Reads is taking a 75-year-old holiday tradition and extending it to all the holidays of this winter solstice month. In this podcast, you’ll hear from past CapRadio Reads authors, such as Alka Joshi and Georgeanne Brennan, on the books they like to give as gifts. And you’ll hear from CapRadio staff members about their favorite reads to share.

Poverty is more than a lack of money. Journalist Mary O'Hara says it also includes the psychological strain of being shamed by society and government. “The Shame Game” explores the long history of poverty in the United States and the United Kingdom and unsuccessful solutions pursued. O'Hara's childhood and adolescence give context to the data. The history of shame need not be perpetuated, according to O'Hara. By changing the narrative, people who live in poverty can improve how they see their place in society. The goal is to change the wording and attitudes of government agencies who provide services. O'Hara's Project Twist-It advances the conversation by encouraging gatherings and events that look beyond income levels and focus instead on the shared experiences of communities.

The dangers of travel are not new to African-Americans. In slavery and in freedom, movement has posed threats. Automobile ownership provided some safety and reduced the exposure to racism, but with caveats. “Driving While Black” offers the history of mobility and the network of resources available to African-American travelers. It explains the famous Green Book, but it goes far beyond that guide. As a historian, professor and museum exhibition curator, Dr. Gretchen Sorin understands the value of oral history. The gravity of racism is interspersed with remembrances of vacations and family gatherings, her own and those of others. The book documents mobility through the Civil Rights movement, but the story continues. “I want people to say, ‘I must get involved. I must do something. I must respond,’” Sorin said in this interview. In the final pages of “Driving While Black,” activists and police weigh in on law enforcement-community relations.

A road trip is a rite of passage at any age. For Cale and Penny, recent high school graduates who grew up in the Nevada desert, the road has defined them and mapped their future. Their desire to explore has also led to a lot of trouble. Ruchika Tomar’s “A Prayer for Travelers” reminds us of the people we grew up with and the mistakes that can be made as we come of age. Her portraits of the desert make you want to start your own adventure right away, while the events she describes will make you wish to turn back. Authors say their manuscripts have a way of emerging from the page in a way that surprises them. As this story played out, and Tomar became better acquainted with her characters, she knew she felt strongly about seeing their story through to the end. The process of writing “A Prayer for Travelers” was almost as intriguing as the plot, as Tomar initially had no idea it would take 10 years to complete the book.

Lakshmi is The Henna Artist, a 30-year-old woman who escapes an abusive, arranged marriage and builds a career working with the city’s elite circle. She doesn’t know she has a younger sister until the 13-year-old shows up on her doorstep … accompanied by Lakshmi’s estranged husband. This tale is rich in culture and tradition. Readers will appreciate the accounts of family, of compassion, of herbal healing, of negotiation. We witness Lakshmi’s evolution as a business woman. Every character in the book goes through some degree of transition, often an arc of redemption. Alka Joshi is an overnight success 10 years in the making. “The Henna Artist” is her debut novel, which was part of her work toward an MFA in creative writing. It quickly became a book club favorite with a contract for an episodic TV series. Within a year of publication, Joshi wrote the sequel – and this story is ripe for a couple of sequels.

Devi Laskar’s debut novel, “The Atlas of Reds and Blues,” is an account of systemic racism. The plot unfolds through a series of random memories and observations. They are the final thoughts of a woman of color who is shot in her driveway in suburban Atlanta. The story loosely reflects Laskar’s experience of a raid on her home.

In the memoir "Shores Beyond Shores," children of war maintain a bit of innocence in spite of the horror they witness. Irene Butter recalls the warmth of family even during the worst part of the Holocaust. In her early childhood, Irene’s family voluntarily moved to Amsterdam to escape Nazi Germany. Later they were forced to move to prison camps at Westerbork in The Netherlands and Bergen-Belsen in Germany. Through a series of what she calls “miracles,” the family of four stayed together through the war and their imprisonment. In 1945, Irene moved to the U.S. and was followed six months later by some other members of her family. After 40 years of silence, Irene began to discuss her story. Now in her late 80s, she makes presentations to young people who relate to her experience.

Julia Flynn Siler illuminates San Francisco history with a profile of the residents of a building near Nob Hill. We follow the managers and residents of Mission Home from 1848 through the 1960s. They survived an earthquake and fire, plague and pandemic, political and gang corruption, and racism. “The White Devil’s Daughters” combines history and biography with photos and descriptions culled from diaries, newspaper articles, and state archives. The stories of resilience are centered in an address on the edge of one of San Francisco’s most prestigious neighborhoods.

Editor’s Note: As Californians continue to stay at home during the Coronavirus crisis, CapRadio Reads has had to postpone some of its live author interviews. Like the rest of the world, we're unsure when those events will return, but in the meantime, we know that books can provide an escape or comfort in trying times. Join Host Donna Apidone as she talks with authors and others about the books that keep us going. Last week, I featured books about compassion and inspiration by well-known authors. These week’s titles are on similar topics, but the writers are not household names.

Editor’s Note: As Californians continue to stay at home during the Coronavirus crisis, CapRadio Reads has had to postpone some of its live author interviews. Like the rest of the world, we're unsure when those events will return, but in the meantime, we know that books can provide an escape or comfort in trying times. Join Host Donna Apidone as she talks with authors and others about the books that keep us going. Sometimes we stumble upon what we need.

Editor’s Note: As Californians continue to stay at home during the Coronavirus crisis, CapRadio Reads has had to postpone some of its live author interviews. Like the rest of the world, we're unsure when those events will return, but in the meantime, we know that books can provide an escape or comfort in trying times. Join Host Donna Apidone as she talks with authors and others about the books that keep us going. NPR’s StoryCorps series has a motto: “Listening is an act of love.” As we head into a new phase, reuniting with loved ones, it’s time to listen. These three books exemplify the power of a well-asked question.

Editor’s Note: As Californians continue to stay at home during the Coronavirus crisis, CapRadio Reads has had to postpone some of its live author interviews. Like the rest of the world, we're unsure when those events will return, but in the meantime, we know that books can provide an escape or comfort in trying times. Join Host Donna Apidone as she talks with authors and others about the books that keep us going. Since the inception of CapRadio Reads, Vicki Lorini has had the job of selecting and booking authors for our events with a live audience. I asked Vicki to tell us about some of her favorite fiction pieces.

Editor’s Note: As Californians continue to stay at home during the Coronavirus crisis, CapRadio Reads has had to postpone some of its live author interviews. Like the rest of the world, we're unsure when those events will return, but in the meantime, we know that books can provide an escape or comfort in trying times. Join Host Donna Apidone as she talks with authors and others about the books that keep us going. I am taking another book-related trip through the U.S. – this time, through the Deep South.

Editor’s Note: As Californians continue to stay at home during the Coronavirus crisis, CapRadio Reads has had to postpone some of its live author interviews. Like the rest of the world, we're unsure when those events will return, but in the meantime, we know that books can provide an escape or comfort in trying times. Join Host Donna Apidone as she talks with authors and others about the books that keep us going. We’ve been asked to stay at home, and I want to travel more than ever. I’m using a few good books as my escape.

Editor’s Note: As Californians continue to stay at home during the Coronavirus crisis, CapRadio Reads has had to postpone some of its live author interviews. Like the rest of the world, we're unsure when those events will return, but in the meantime, we know that books can provide an escape or comfort in trying times. Join Host Donna Apidone as she talks with authors and others about the books that keep us going. I am, by nature, a researcher. Give me a topic, and I will hunt high and low to discover all I can about it. This week, I explore online resources that can help explain what's happening in the world right now.

Author RO Kwon finds joy in being completely absorbed by her work. “I forget to eat. I forget I might be thirsty. All of that goes away and I’m gone.” Kwon visited Sacramento last year to discuss her debut novel, “The Incendiaries.” The book, which revolves around a college romance, loss of religion and a cult, took Kwon 10 years to complete. RO Kwon Interview Highlights On developing the story line and the characters: I almost always start with a question, and the central question for me with “The Incendiaries” was, “What happens when people who love each other believe entirely different things about the world? What happens as a result?” The questions breed more questions. It’s not even necessarily that the questions get answered, but the questions just lead to other questions. I tend to be so much less interested when I read, and when I watch things, in what happens than in how and why. On being a stickler for punctuation: Commas are so great. I love punctuation so much. I could think about punctuation all day. I really do believe that if a semicolon is turned into a colon, but it should have been a semicolon, then the sentence is ruined. If the sentence is ruined, the paragraph is ruined. If the paragraph is ruined, the page is certainly ruined. Then the whole book is ruined, and you may as well just start all over again. On why she chose to write much of the novel in the “conditional perfect” tense: I love thinking about tenses, too. I’m very alive to tenses in general, in prose. When the novel is not being narrated from Will’s point of view, he’s trying to imagine what phoebe and john leo would have said for themselves, how they might have experienced the same events that he’s thinking about. So he uses this tense a lot,especially when he’s narrating what he thinks the other two would have experience, because he doesn’t know. So He’s guessing. He’s imagining. He’s re-piecing things together from what he remembers, from pieces of a journal that phoebe leaves behind … There’s a lot of doubt in his narration and I thought this tense conveyed a lot of that doubt. On what she discovered about herself while writing “The Incendiaries”: I really, really love writing. Even when it’s really hard. And it’s often so hard. It doesn’t happen every day, but every now and then I get to a place where I’m deep in the writing, deep in a sentence, trying to make it he best possible version it could be, really moving around that comma, and I just get so absorbed that I really do forget all sense of myself. I forget to eat, I forget I might be thirsty. All of that goes away and I'm gone. And that is the deepest purest joy I know. And it’s something that I feel so lucky to have. I feel lucky to love something this much. It’s possible to think “how the hell did it take me 10 years to write one book? What is the matter with me? What is this life?” That is one way to think about it. But I could also think about it as ”I got to spend 10 years with one book. What a privilege to be so fascinated by something that I could take 10 years on it and still be perplexed and fascinated by it.

In person, as on the page, Mark Arax is a captivating storyteller with a rich tone to his voice. If you think you don't care about water, listen anyway. Our live audience was mesmerized by what he had to say and how he said it. To the East of Silicon Valley is another low-lying region that is just as innovative, although the product feeds our bodies rather than our minds. For more than 100 years, the Central Valley has reflected the world's changing tastes in fruits, vegetables and nuts. Much of the Valley is naturally arid, and ranchers count on the relocation of water for their crop. Author Mark Arax traces the fascinating flow of water on its natural and unnatural paths in "The Dreamt Land." Interview Highlights: You're a resident, you're also a native of the Valley. When did you first understand that what we do with water might be a little different than what everybody else does with water? My grandparents, after we sold the last ranch along the San Joaquin River, moved to a suburb in Fresno called Fig Garden, and three houses down was this huge irrigation canal, and my grandmother made me promise I would never go near it. She said, “It's got a magical power to it. It will lure you up and into the waters, and you will drown.” She said, “And no one will come to save your body.” I said, “Why not, Grandma?” She said, “Because the flow of one irrigation canal is much more important to the Valley than the body of one silly boy.” To recover would mean to shut down that flow. So I had a sense that something was strange but I never bothered to ask where that water was coming from, where it was going, and to whom and by what right. So that's when I had a sense. One of your influences was Saroyan, and you come from the land of Saroyan. What was it about his writing? Saroyan was a very earthy writer. I knew him. He was a friend of my grandfather. He said, “I have 300 words in my vocabulary. Count them.” I never actually counted them, but I got what he was saying. You don't need a thesaurus to write beautifully, and he took those 300 words and they were magic. So I learned from him. You put into print the perfect description of a smell or the flow of water. Are you aware of how poetic it is? If someone is writing, and they're being honest with you, they're writing from insecurity. You always think that thing is going to leave you. It visits, and then sometimes it doesn't visit, and you can't articulate anything. The work involved in capturing something like that takes a lot. Saroyan might have been a genius and just tossed off these incredible lines. That doesn't happen for me. It's going in and polishing and polishing and polishing. Sometimes something comes out full blossom, but mostly it's work. Hard work. CapRadio's Donna Apidone interviewed Mark Arax on May 23, 2019.  Water Music; George Frideric Handel. Akademie fur Alte Musik Berlin.

Jonathan Kauffman's “Hippie Food” introduces us to the people who changed what we eat. Prior to the 1960s, our meals were in a Cold War rut. The counterculture turned us onto food that freed us from that lifestyle. The result was the popular consumption of tofu, brown rice, yogurt and something called granola. CapRadio's Donna Apidone spoke with Kauffman about the political and spiritual reasons these foods became mainstream. Interview Highlights: What inspired you to write this history of “Hippie Food”? It really was my culinary autobiography. I was a restaurant critic, and I liked to review restaurants up and down the spectrum. I took some friends with me to a vegetarian restaurant in Seattle. We sat down to this meal, and this food was so familiar to me, but I hadn't seen it for a long time. And I was like, “Oh my gosh. I love this.” The transition to a cleaner way of farming and eating seemed to happen spontaneously. It was a grassroots movement. It was happening all over the country, all at the same time. And I knew the stories of the people who were in the movement were going to be great. I went to talk to the Lundberg Brothers, and I said, “Do you know anything about macrobiotics? Because every time I think about macrobiotics, I think of brown rice.” They said, “Oh, well, the whole reason we converted to organics was because of macrobiotics.” That started a whole year-long research project of interviewing macrobiotics folks all over the country. You call it “Hippie Food,” but you tell stories that predate the 1960s. There were lots of yoga teachers in LA in the 1910s and '20s.  You have this long tradition of alternative health seekers. The LA Times started up a column on alternative health in 1899, and it ran all the way through the 1940s. To make one's bread was a rite of passage from being a prisoner to being free. It's about creating a new life, and taking control of one's life. White bread became a symbol for everything that was wrong with the food supply. Brown bread became the opposite. It tasted so different that even if you didn't like it you were going to fight your way toward liking it.   CapRadio's Donna Apidone interviewed Jonathan Kauffman on March 21, 2019. Listen to her curated playlist for the event below.

Attorney Dismas Hardy's secretary Phyllis McGowan is suddenly caught up in a murder case. She's arrested in connection with the shooting death of a coyote who was smuggling people across the southern border of the U.S. Hardy must work fast to keep McGowan from being convicted. Author John Lescroart's “The Rule of Law” makes up for the fact that he left readers hanging in another recent novel “Fatal.” In “The Rule of Law,” there's a new plot and an answer to the unsolved mystery from the previous book. CapRadio's Donna Apidone sat down with the author to discuss the novel and Lescroart's approach to the subject. Interview Highlights: I've been hearing that this is your last book. Is that true? It's my latest book. It's a book that I've written most recently. I really don't   want to answer that right now because I'm a suspense writer, and I think it's important to keep a little bit of mystery going. Phyllis McGowan, who works with Dismas Hardy, is not frightening. Usually, we can depend on her. She's the gatekeeper, she's organized, she's very orderly. She started acting really weird. Right at the beginning of this book, she disappeared for two days. I didn't know what happened. I was worried about her now. And then all of a sudden, she's not at work anymore. Suddenly she becomes this totally enigmatic person, which I just had to run with, and it took off. You always include a current topic in your book, maybe more than one. But the one that is running through this book is very current and very controversial and it was a big risk for you to be writing about immigration, to be writing about ICE, to be writing about the underground railroad that exists in our part of the country. And you just go there without any hesitation, or so it seems to us. Was there hesitation when you chose to write it? I try to make the books have a serious core. The whole Idea of ICE and the DACA kids, it was really important to give this book a little bit of heft and to deal with some of the issues that are confronting us daily. Yeah, it was scary to put it down because I didn't want to get it wrong. The whole subtext of the book was very much part of what we're all going through right now, especially with the immigration problem. CapRadio's Donna Apidone interviewed John Lescroart on Jan. 23, 2019.

Vanessa Hua's “A River of Stars” is about the privileges of citizenship and the perseverance of motherhood. It's also about knowing how to take every advantage of a situation. The story takes place primarily in San Francisco's Chinatown. Perfume Bay is a maternity hotel in California, a residential facility where women come from other countries to give birth. Babies born in the U.S. are automatically citizens, and that privilege is a benefit for mother as well as child. Maternity hotels are not glamorous. They operate like processing centers, with landlords cashing in on desperate pregnant women. CapRadio's Donna Apidone sat down with the author and journalist to find out what inspired the story. Interview Highlights: What came first: the character or the situation? The situation. I think often with my fiction I begin with a premise or a circumstance. The book opens in a maternity hotel in southern California, which I first heard about when I was pregnant with my own kids and living east of Los Angeles. And I began hearing in the news about these suburban homes where pregnant women were coming and going in the alleyways. The trash can was overflowing with diapers and cans of empty cans of formula. And the neighbors were baffled. Why were these Chinese women coming and going? To me it sounded like a brothel in reverse. And it turned out they were coming here so their kids could get U.S. citizenship at birth. But since I was pregnant at the time, for me, as a woman, I knew it was one of the most vulnerable times in my life. And I wondered what it was like to be so far from friends and family and what was it about U.S. citizenship that mattered to them so much for their children's sake that would bring them here. And that is where the premise then sparked my thoughts about what kind of character would find herself in this situation and how would she get herself out of it. Do you have to decide as you're writing who will improve, who will stay the same, who will go downhill? That's an interesting decision you have to make. Well I think in some ways, the character takes you there. So I'm not saying it's as easy as a ghost enters me and like the novel just pours out. But I do think your characters do lead you there if you set them up. The sort of the possibilities narrow, and as you establish their character, it's sort of your lead to where the novel needs to go. Donna Apidone interviewed Vanessa Hua on August 23, 2018.

“The Last Watchman of Old Cairo” centers on a synagogue guarded by men of Muslim faith. The "watchmen" protect magical, ancient texts like the Ezra Scroll, which has such strong energy, it emits a shimmering vibration, causing everything around it to glow. Michael David Lukas' novel bounces between three eras. Some of the characters are in Egypt now. Others knew Moses. A third group, from the 1800s, could have come right out of an Agatha Christie mystery. Lukas brilliantly weaves together the three storylines and the connection of each one to the sacred texts. He sat down with CapRadio's Donna Apidone to talk about what inspired him to write this book. Interview Highlights Talking about Cairo and the diversity and the many facets of religion and culture in that city, did you know all of that in advance or did you have to dig in and do some research to write this? A little bit of both. I first experienced Cairo when I was studying abroad in 2000. I was a junior in college and had been studying Arabic a little bit. I had lived in the Middle East, in Israel before, but I had never lived in the Arab world. And being Jewish and being American, I felt a little disconnected from the city, and at the same time was completely in love with it. Why? What do you like about Cairo? It's a hectic and sort of decrepit and welcoming and overwhelming and beautiful city. Like Istanbul and other cities, you can see the layers of history. In Istanbul it's there for the taking, but with Cairo, you have to work a little more for it. I appreciated that.   Yet there was this disconnect between my love of the city and my sense of Jewish identity. For good reason or not, I felt nervous about coming out to people as Jewish. This disconnect continued for a few months and then one day I happened upon a graveyard. I noticed these Jewish Star of David headstones and came upon this synagogue, the Ben Ezra Synagogue which is at the center of the book. I heard this tour guide talking about 1,000 years of Jewish history in Cairo. It's not an exaggeration to say it made me feel whole again. It connected these two parts that had been disconnected. And from then on, I was kind of obsessed with the Jews of Cairo. Donna Apidone interviewed Michael David Lukas on July 19, 2018.

Journalist Lauren Markham's book, “The Far Away Brothers,” is the story of twin teens who came to the U.S. illegally from El Salvador. They wind up in Oakland, California, trying to start a new life. Markham's storytelling reveals the intricacies of the U.S. immigration system and the true experience of two unaccompanied minors fleeing gang violence in their home country. She discussed their story with CapRadio's Donna Apidone. Interview Highlights You talk right up front about the "binary politics of a border wall." Can you explain that a little bit? Yes absolutely. When I talked about the "binary politics of the border wall," really too often we reduce the conversation around immigration to these very simplified "yes or no" questions: Should we build a wall? Should we not build a wall? Should we rescind DACA? Should we not rescind DACA? These are of course important questions, but the question of immigration is much deeper and complex and much more nuanced than "wall or no wall,""DACA no DACA." So these two [teens from El Salvador], Raul and Ernesto… how did you find them? How did you meet them? So I met them at the school where I work. And I had been reporting on this issue for about two years. A coworker at Oakland International High School said, "Hey we really need to do something about all these kids. I have all these kids with upcoming court dates."It sort of hit me like, "what are you talking about? All of these students who have court dates?" The number of students at our school who are unaccompanied minors had skyrocketed under our noses. In retrospect, that shouldn't have been a surprise because the number was skyrocketing nationally. Do you have any opinion you're willing to state about some possible solutions? Can our governments ever get together and help? Or do we always just have to do it from crisis? Right. I think we try to think about immigration as something that happens at, and after, the border. And we litigate immigration at the border. But immigration is something that happens long before that. It's a set of circumstances far away — ­or relatively close by — where something is happening and a person decides that they should (or have to, in many cases) leave. And there's unfortunately no indications that the violence is stopping in Central America and certainly in El Salvador. Nothing we can do here, if those conditions persist, will stop people from trying to find a way to come. So I guess my answer would be: investing in El Salvador and working with Salvadoran leaders and other countries that are big drivers of immigrants to this country. Donna Apidone interviewed Lauren Markham on May 17, 2018.

Robin Sloan pokes fun at Silicon Valley's robots and flavorless protein drinks in his second book, "Sourdough." It's the perfect title for a book about various cultures in and around the Bay Area. And there are plenty of them: food culture, Saturday morning market culture, technology culture, and, of course, sourdough bread culture. The book is about a young programmer named Lois who moves to California to work for a robotics company. She winds up becoming a part of the underground food world in San Francisco. When she starts using a robotic arm to help her make bread, it does make one wonder how far is too far when it comes to technology. Sloan joined CapRadio's Donna Apidone to discuss his fascination with technology. Interview Highlights You fit a robot into "Sourdough." Not a whole robot, just an arm. There's a whole part that has to do with the fact that a robot can't crack an egg. How important is that? The reason people want robots to be able to crack eggs is that means that [task] can now belong to that world of repetition and copying. But the reason maybe some folks are not interested in having a robot arm crack their eggs is that they don't mind cracking their eggs every morning, or baking their bread. And I think that's delicious actually; that tension between the scale, the ease, and the leverage of code and technology, and then this other world [in which] the point is to do it again, and do it again, and do it again yourself, as a human. You managed a line that has just taken on a life of its own and you managed it on Page 5. It just seems to stop people in their tracks. People of a certain age are talking about this one sentence: “Here's a thing I believe about people my age: we are the children of Hogwarts and more than anything we just want to be sorted.” Let's talk about that. You know, honestly the thing that has been amazing — and this is very different even in the four or five years since my first novel came out — the way that books kind of travel around the Internet has changed quite a bit. And in particular, you can think of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter [as] kind of operating on little social objects. That's what they want. Books that can offer little bits, little isolatable chunks that can then flow without context through these networks, tend to do very well. There's a totally cynical way of thinking about that which is that you could engineer your novel to be full of these pithy little remarks. But actually it's more fun and I think more interesting to just write a novel as best you can and then see after the fact what pops out. That's such a passive line, that they "want to be sorted" and not sort things out themselves. Yeah, I think it's true though. Actually I think you could substitute in almost any generation in that line, or any group of people, or just people generally. I think that was part of the powerful appeal of that story. And if folks don't know, it's a reference to the “Harry Potter” books. Early on in the very first “Harry Potter” book, young Harry encounters this artifact at the wizard school called the Sorting Hat, which does the most amazing thing: it tells you where you belong. And it tells you who your tribe is. And I think there's something just deeply compelling about that for anyone, everyone, of any age. Have you been sorted? Have I been sorted … well, yeah. I think my “Sorting Hat” wasn't quite as neat as, you know, the magical top hat. Honestly, I think it was the public library. I think when I walked into the public library, however many years ago that was, in Troy, Michigan, where I grew up, I was like, "Oh yes, I understand now. This is where I belong." [Laughs]      Donna Apidone interviewed Robin Sloan on March 27, 2018.

Tens of thousands of undocumented women have made the journey across the southern border of the United States. The trip is expensive. Some migrants are raped by guides or fellow travelers. That was Soli's story in the novel "Lucky Boy," by author Shanthi Sekaran. Soli arrives in the U.S. pregnant and tries to juggle motherhood and work as a nanny in Berkeley, California. When immigration agents find out about her, she's faced with deportation and possibly being forced to relinquish her child to adoption. That's when her path crosses with an Indian-American couple wanting to adopt. Soli may have to accept that someone else could love her child. Through the story of one "Lucky Boy," Sekaran explores the complexities of U.S. immigration and adoption policies. She sat down with CapRadio's Donna Apidone to talk about it.  Interview Highlights Why is this boy "lucky"? He's lucky in a very sincere way because he is loved very much by these two mothers and by Rishi [his foster mother's husband]. So, in that he's lucky, you know, he's wanted. But also there's some irony in that. [He's] lucky because he doesn't know — people don't know where he's going to end up. His fate is sort of thrown to the wind because of this love, because of these people who have had him and who want him. The book is named for the child. How do you get from these people who are very integrated into each other's lives and still keep that focus on the child at all times? How do you get all that on paper? It's all about the child really. It's about an unborn child. It's about Ignacio, the son of Soli. Rishi has a line where he says, "That's all people want. They just want healthy babies." So that's what the people in the novel all kind of center around, whether they know it or not. They're distracted by all these other things but I think the core of the book is Ignacio. You wrote a piece for The New York Times late last year called "The Privileged Immigrant" and you said that Indians are different in coming to the U.S. because they have a path. Can you talk about that? Yeah. So this piece I wrote for The New York Times talked a little about my parents and the fact that they were brought over. They came over to the U.S. in the mid ‘60s because the U.S. was recruiting foreign medical graduates. And so it was very hard for them. They were up in Albany, New York. You know I think around 1960 there were like a total of 12,000 Indians in the entire United States. So it was a lonely experience and it was physically cold and it was probably emotionally very isolated.  My point was that my parents and South Asians of their generation, especially who were brought over on things like the foreign medical graduate program, were given a visa. They were given a training program to be in here. My father and mother were given an apartment in Albany. It was very hard but they had these little steps put in place for them that allowed them to have a job, earn money, save money, create credit history. It allowed them to take the steps that they needed to take to establish a stable life in this country. And now we have a lot of people in America who were not given this path. They work here. They make money. There are technically legal ways for an undocumented immigrant to start something like a bank account. But it's terrifying to walk into a bank, you know, if you're undocumented and you could be picked up at any moment, to walk into a bank and give them your name and be officially then on the record. So that has ramifications for generations. They don't save the money. They don't establish credit history. They cannot integrate themselves into the economy and into the system of succeeding the way that maybe my parents could. Donna Apidone interviewed Shanthi Sekaran on Feb. 7, 2017.

Author John Lescroart's 28th book, "Fatal," is centered around a massive, deadly terrorist attack in San Francisco. There's no sign of the usual main characters from many of his other thrillers: lawyer Dismas Hardy and Abe Glitsky. Instead, he writes from the perspective of a new character: Sergeant Beth Tully, a homicide inspector for the San Francisco Police Department dealing with the aftermath of the attack. "Fatal" explores the complex ways that humans cope with trauma in the wake of disaster. Lescroart sat down with CapRadio's Donna Apidone to talk about it. Interview Highlights This is very much a book about unfinished business in a lot of different ways. In fact, there's one line that you wrote: “Could you build a life on a basic falsehood?” And I found myself being suspicious, maybe more so than [in] your other books, very suspicious of everybody who came into the book. Well this is the difference between writing what I started to write and a traditional mystery where I knew the playground of people that I was working with. This book does not have that particular playground of people. It's a whole group of people who I'd never met before and I had to find and get comfortable with but also within the general context of the story I had guys who were, I thought, fascinating. They were fascinating but you didn't know, I didn't know, what they were going to do. And they say that if, you know, you can write a book that surprises the author, then the readers are going to be surprised. There were a number of emotional dilemmas that people in the book faced. You dealt very openly with anorexia. I think you've said you described it better than you knew when you were writing.  I had written a scene about anorexia. I know nothing about anorexia, other than what we all do. I had this moment in the story that I wanted to have something happen to [a character] that was dramatic and serious. And so I had her go into a very serious medical state where she had to get 911 called, taken to the hospital. And I called up a social worker and she explained this thing called the refeeding syndrome. That was exactly what happened in the book. Exactly. I mean I didn't have to change a word other than to acknowledge what it was. And you know that's the kind of thing that happens all the time in these books — that you realize you're kind of onto something that's majorly correct even if you don't really know why. There was also a big part for PTSD. [It] applied to so many of the characters. Everyone reacted in different ways and that's what PTSD is: a lot of different reactions that even the people involved don't recognize that they are going through or acting out. Well it's because of major trauma. And that is in the center of this book. In fact, it's the main thing in the book, from my perspective anyway. It's what makes the whole city go haywire. And in fact, what makes the world that we're living in go haywire. We're all going a little bit nuts, because it's a hard time. Donna Apidone interviewed John Lescroart on June 13, 2017.

The Nazis were famous for raiding and ruining art collections throughout Europe during World War II. Author Elizabeth Rynecki's great-grandfather Moshe Rynecki was a Jewish artist in Poland who created hundreds of paintings depicting everyday life. Moshe distributed them so they wouldn't be destroyed. He later died in a concentration camp, but his son George (Elizabeth's grandfather) survived and wrote a memoir. "Chasing Portraits" is Elizabeth Rynecki's story of trying to track down her great-grandfather's paintings and piece together the rest of her family's history. She spoke with CapRadio's Donna Apidone about her quest and the book that resulted from it.  Interview Highlights I want to talk about two individuals and something that occurred between them: Moshe died in a concentration camp but he made decisions that led him there, whereas his son George made a different set of decisions that led him to a different place. Moshe decided he wanted to be in the ghetto in the 1940s when the Nazis built the Warsaw ghetto. Over 400,000 Jews were ultimately in the ghetto, which was about 1.3 square miles, which if you go home and measure that for your own city and think about it, it's really a profound number. But I think he felt very torn. He, I think, didn't trust the Germans [and] thought going into the ghetto was a bad idea. But I think that he felt compelled to be with his people. And my great grandfather and my Grandpa George had a phone call, and my Grandpa George said, “I can get you out.” And my great grandfather said, “No I'm going to stay in the ghetto, and if it's death, so be it.” Things in life happen in a linear fashion, but memories hardly ever do. So, Grandpa George wrote them down as he thought of them. A lot of that message, he made very clear, was for you to know. Not so much for your dad, not so much for anyone else, but he specifically identified it being for you. Talk about that responsibility. For those of you not familiar with the quote, basically what Grandpa George said in the memoir is, “I'm writing this down and there are a lot of survivors who are writing these things down. And I don't care, I'm writing them anyway. And I'm writing them if, for no other reason than for my granddaughter Elizabeth to know and not to be afraid of the truth.” …I can still sort of feel a [weight] on my shoulders. And it's a huge responsibility as well. Why? So, in 1992 when he died … To me survivors could bear witness and everybody else could listen. But that was kind of it. And I didn't know what the heck I was supposed to do with that. He was gone. I didn't understand what my relationship to that history was. It wasn't my history. I didn't have to process it. But I realized that survivors were going to start dying. And so it was some point between my dad self-publishing Grandpa George's memoir, building the website, discovering more paintings had survived the war and wondering what had happened to the other 700. And suddenly pieces just started to come into shape. And I realized that the paintings were survivors. And that they couldn't speak, but I could tell their story. And that I was in a really unique position to tell their story. And it's important to make that clear: you were not trying to claim these to say they're my family's or my great grandfather's. I want them back. That might have been your goal, but it's not your goal now. Right. When I started this process I was really angry. That's me being very polite. I wanted the paintings back. This was ridiculous. My great grandfather's name was on them. He signed them. They were his. He was murdered and they belonged to my family. I started talking to a lot of people who were a lot smarter and a lot better informed about provenance research and laws and how this whole process works. Artists give paintings away, they sell paintings, they trade them, they barter them. How could I prove that what somebody else had actually belonged to my family? And so it just became incredibly difficult. You're dealing with all sorts of stuff that's super complicated. What is your goal? My goal eventually became to be a historian to rescue my great grandfather's legacy. That to me seems more of a win. Having people aware of who my great grandfather was and what his art was and what it tells us about Polish Jews before the war seems to me more valuable than my having another painting to shove in a closet. Donna Apidone interviewed Elizabeth Rynecki on Nov. 14, 2017. Music by PREMIUMAUDIO/POND5.

Gain insight into your favorite writer or discover your next great read on the new CapRadio Reads podcast. CapRadio's Morning Edition Host Donna Apidone sits down with prominent authors and fresh writers. Subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Google Play or wherever you get your podcasts.