Booktalk with Diana Korte

Host Diana Korte speaks with Priyanka Kumar, author of 3 books, whose newest title is “The Light Between Apple Trees: Rediscovering the Wild Through a Beloved American Fruit.”  As a child in the foothills of the Himalayas, Priyanka Kumar was entranced by forest-like orchards of diverse and luscious fruit—especially apples. These biodiverse orchards seemed worlds away from the cardboard apples that lined supermarket shelves in the United States. Yet on a small patch of woods near her home in Santa Fe, NM Kumar discovered a wild apple tree—and the seeds of an odyssey were planted. Could the taste of a feral apple offer a doorway to the wild?   Kumar is a prize winning filmmaker (“The Song of the Little Road”), novelist (“Take Wing and Fly Here”), environmental author (“Conversations With Birds”), and acclaimed naturalist.  

Host Diana Korte speaks with Jade Chang, author of 2 books, whose newest title is WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE about an accidental self-help guru. This book blends humor with an exploration of what it means to be living in our current moment, and for many of us, constantly consuming and being consumed by stories on social media. Eventually, Lola Treasure Gold, the book's heroine, also takes a hard look at what actually is meaningful in life, just as she’s finally beginning to reckon with her complicated past. 

Host Diana Korte speaks with Artis Henderson whose newest title, “NO ORDINARY BIRD. Drug Smuggling, a Plane Crash, and a Daughter's Quest for the Truth,” is a page-turning true crime book based on personal history, interviews with long-lost family members (and co-conspirators), along with government records.   They all illuminate the life of her experienced pilot dad, Lamar Chester, who died in his private plane that was very likely sabotaged—and what lead up to that event.  The author who was 5 years old then was with him, but survived with injuries.   Her father had been one of the biggest marijuana smugglers in Miami in the 1970s. At the time of his death, he was about to testify in a US trial that had swept up politicians, a prime minister, and Colombian drug cartels. But the deeper Artis digs, the more unexpected the story becomes. 

Georgia Hunter's first historical novel, “We Were the Lucky Ones” was born of her quest to uncover her family's staggering history. The book’s chapters are written in the voices of her ancestors, most of whom were in Poland at the beginning of World War II when 3 generations still gathered at the dining room table. By the end of the war, they had scattered to five continents. This book has been published in 20 languages and adapted into a critically acclaimed TV series. Georgia Hunter and I met for this conversation in 2018. Her newest historical novel is "One Good Thing."

Host Diana Korte speaks with author and historian Scott Ellsworth about his fifth title, MIDNIGHT ON THE POTOMAC, my favorite civil war book. Its pages are full of compelling details and new research that brings us a story many of us might have felt like we already knew. But turns out there are so many more facts he discovered in obscure places. It’s about the last year of the war, the Lincoln assassination, and the rebirth of America. And according to the author, “this is a book about how we almost lost our country.”Readers are swept across the Canadian border, into the backroom meetings of Confederate spies, onto the battlefields in Virginia, and inside the White House where Lincoln came close to giving up the presidency. Classic Civil War giants are featured, but so are common soldiers, runaway enslaved people, and intrepid female war correspondents.   New findings reveal John Wilkes Booth was not just a disgruntled, pro-South renegade working on his own, a characterization that has been cemented in history and Hollywood for more than a century and a half. Rather, Booth was just one of many working with the Confederate Secret Service to terrorize the Union and destroy the possibility of re-uniting the states.      

Host Diana Korte speaks with Julie McFadden, author of  2 books--her New York Times bestselling “Nothing to Fear,” published in 2024, and her newest, “The Nothing to Fear Journal: Questions and Reflections for Demystifying and Preparing for the End of Life.” In both she interweaves emotional insight and practical advice. Julie is a hospice/palliative care nurse with more than 15 years of experience. Passionate about normalizing death and dying, she has over 3 million followers across social media as @hospicenursejulie. She has been featured in major media outlets worldwide.    She actively engages with her audience across various social platforms, including TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, fostering a more open conversation about death.      

Host Diana Korte speaks with award-winning journalist Becky Aikman about her new book, “SPITFIRES. The American Women Who Flew in the Face of Danger During World War II.” This is a fast paced true story of the 25 US women who flew the world’s most dangerous aircraft through the treacherous skies of Britain during World War II eighty years ago. Another fifty years would pass before the first American woman piloted a US fighter plane in combat.They were crop dusters and debutantes, college girls and performers in flying circuses — all of them pilots who wanted to serve in World War II. Because they were women, their own country turned them away. But Great Britain, in a desperate fight for survival, would let anyone — even Americans, even women -- fly warplanes. Twenty-five of them bolted for England in 1942. They became the first American women to fly perilous missions in military aircraft. In England these “spitfires” lived like women decades ahead of their time. They risked their lives in one of the deadliest jobs of the war, flying new, barely tested fighters and bombers to air bases and returning shot-up wrecks for repair. Many transport pilots died in crashes or made spectacular saves.  

Host Diana Korte speaks with award-winning journalist and novelist Anne Hillerman, author of 18 books, whose newest title is SHADOW OF THE SOLSTICE (#10 in her Leaphorn, Chee & Manuelito series). In the new book, Navajo Nation police are on high alert when a U.S. Cabinet Secretary schedules an unprecedented trip to the little Navajo town of Shiprock, New Mexico. The visit coincides with a plan to resume uranium mining along the Navajo Nation border. Tensions around the official’s arrival escalate when the body of a stranger is found nearby. Is it coincidence that a cult with a propensity for violence arrives at a private camp outside Shiprock the same week to celebrate the summer solstice?Anne Hillerman was approached several years ago by Robert Redford and George R.R. Martin to create the popular tv series, “Dark Wind,” now in its third season that is based on her and her dad’s (Tony Hillerman) crime novels.            

Host Diana Korte speaks with bestselling author Chloe Dalton who rescued and reared a wild hare in the English countryside during the Covid lockdown  about her memoir, Raising Hare. Imagine you could hold a baby hare (similar to rabbit, but bigger and wilder) and bottle-feed it. Imagine that it lived under your roof and lolloped around your bedroom at night, drumming on the duvet cover when it wanted your attention. Imagine that, over two years later, it still ran in from the fields when you called it and slept in your house for hours on end during the day and gave birth to baby hares in your study. For political advisor and speechwriter Chloe Dalton, who spent lockdown deep in the English countryside, far away from her usual busy London life, this became her unexpected reality.Raising Hare chronicles their journey together and serves as a reminder that the best things, and most beautiful experiences, might arise when we least expect them.

Host Diana Korte speaks with former FBI Agent Scott Payne, author of the memoir, “CODENAME: PALE HORSE: How I Went Undercover to Expose America’s Nazis.”A decorated agent dubbed the “Hillbilly Donnie Brascoe,” Payne takes readers along with him on some of the most terrifying and riskiest assignments in FBI history. His book begins in 2019 on a hot summer’s day in Georgia where he joins the Base, one of the fastest-rising, most radical white supremacist groups operating in the US. Payne spent 28 years in law enforcement investigating cases against drug trafficking organizations, human traffickers, outlaw motorcycle clubs, gangs, public corruption, and domestic terrorists. He was also a SWAT team operator and instructor for firearms, tactics, and undercover operations.

Host Diana Korte speaks with award-winning Karen Russell about her newest book, THE ANTIDOTE , which begins on Black Sunday, as a historic dust storm in the 1930s ravages the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska. But Uz is already collapsing—not just under the weight of the Great Depression and the dust bowl drought but beneath its own violent histories. The book follows five characters--a "Prairie Witch,” whose body serves as a bank vault for peoples’ memories and secrets; a Polish wheat farmer who learns how quickly a hoarded blessing can become a curse; his orphan niece, a basketball star and witch’s apprentice in furious flight from her grief; a talkative scarecrow; and a New Deal photographer whose time-traveling camera threatens to reveal both the town’s secrets and its fate. Russell’s “climate change” fiction in novels and short stories, includes the bestsellers Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove. Author of six books, she has received MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellowships and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. 

Host Diana Korte speaks with Elizabeth Greenwood, author of Playing Dead. A Journey Through the World of Death Fraud, tells us just how hard it is to permanently disappear or fake your death.  She should know. Dealing with $100K in college loans, Elizabeth dabbles with the notion herself, details the how to make it happen, and describes the common pitfalls that interfere with success.  (Hint #1: Don’t call Mom. Hint #2: Forget a fake drowning. Hint #3: Never Google yourself.)This classic interview took place several years ago. 

Host Diana Korte speaks with award-winning novelist Marie Benedict, author of nine books, whose newest title, QUEENS OF CRIME, features the 5 greatest women writers of the Golden Age of Mystery (1920s-1930s) and their bid to solve a real life murder.   That murder is the death of May Daniels, a young English nurse on an excursion to France with her friend, who seemed to vanish into thin air as they prepared to board a ferry home. Months later, her body is found in the nearby woods.  The death has all the hallmarks of a locked room mystery for which these authors are famous: how did her killer manage to sneak her body out of a crowded train station without anyone noticing? If, as the police believe, the cause of death is manual strangulation, why is there is an extraordinary amount of blood at the crime scene? What is the meaning of a heartbreaking secret letter seeming to implicate an unnamed paramour? Determined to solve the highly publicized murder, the Queens of Crime embark on their own investigation, discovering their combined skills and friendship make them stronger together.      

Host Diana Korte speaks with Crime Writer Robert Crais, whose books have been translated into 42 languages, about his private investigator Elvis Cole and his enigmatic partner Joe Pike who race to find a terrifying, unidentified killer in this unpredictable thriller, THE BIG EMPTY.   Traci Beller was thirteen when her father disappeared in the sleepy town of Rancha, not far from Los Angeles. The evidence says Tommy Beller abandoned his family, but Traci never believed it. Now, ten years later, Traci is a high-profile influencer with millions of followers and the money to hire the best detective she can find: Elvis Cole. Elvis heads to Rancha where an ex-con named Sadie Givens and her daughter, Anya, might have a line on the missing man.  But when Elvis finds himself shadowed by a gang of vicious criminals, the missing persons cold case becomes far more sinister. He calls his ex-Marine friend, Joe Pike, for help, and they follow Tommy Beller's trail into the depths of a monstrous, hidden evil.     

Host Diana Korte speaks with Neurologist Scott Small about his debut book “FORGETTING. The Benefits of Not Remembering” in a 2021 conversation. Who wouldn’t want a better memory?  Until recently, most everyone—memory scientists included—believed that forgetting served no purpose. But new research in psychology, neurobiology, medicine, and computer science tells a different story. Forgetting is not a failure of our minds. It’s not even a benign glitch. It is, in fact, good for us—and, alongside memory, it is a required function for our minds to work best.   As frustrating as a typical lapse can be, it’s precisely what opens up our minds to making better decisions, experiencing joy and relationships, and flourishing artistically.

Host Diana Korte speaks with author Lydia Reeder whose research and writing brings to light the stories of little-known or forgotten pioneers in their professions and daily lives. Her newest book is “The Cure for Women: Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Challenge to Victorian Medicine That Changed Women's Lives Forever."   It shines a light on the first women doctors in America, especially Mary Putnam Jacobi, MD (1842-1906), who altered the course of American history while uplifting the lives of women.   She was one of the most important physicians, female or male, of the nineteenth century. Her scientific research dismantled some of the myths about women’s bodies, transformed medicine, and laid the groundwork for the future advancements of women, including the right to vote.     Lydia Reeder’s previous award-winning book is “Dust Bowl Girls. The Inspiring Story of the Team that Barnstormed its Way to Basketball Glory.”

Diana Korte spoke with Game Show Host and author Ken Jennings, probably better known now for his more recent appearances on Jeopardy. He authored "MAPHEAD: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks" about a dozen years ago when we met up to chat about this new book. You map nerds know who you are. Travelers, road geeks, map collectors. Some of you crisscross maps working an endless geographic checklist: visiting all 3,143 U.S. counties, for example, or all 936 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Or how about the computer whizkids behind Google Maps and other geo-technologies.   Ken Jennings was a map nerd from a young age himself, you will not be surprised to learn, even sleeping with a bulky Hammond atlas at the side of his pillow, in lieu of the traditional Teddy bear.   

Host Diana Korte speaks with Musicologist and Washington University Professor of Music Todd Decker,  who specializes  in commercial US popular music, about the first of his five books, “Music Makes Me: Fred Astaire and Jazz.”                                            Is stunning dancer and singer Fred Astaire also one of the great jazz artists of the twentieth century? He is best known for his unforgettable dancing in the movie musicals of the 1930s, but in Music Makes Me, Todd Decker argues that Astaire’s work as a dancer and choreographer—particularly in the realm of tap dancing—made a significant contribution to the art of jazz.   In 30 films from the 1930s to the 1950s, he danced elegantly—often to jazz--with the leading women dancers of the day including 10 times with fan favorite Ginger Rogers. Among his most popular movies were the timeless classics Top Hat,You Were Never Lovelier, and Swing Time.          

Host Diana Korte speaks with New Zealand-born, Australia-raised, Brooklyn-based writer Ella Morton  who co-authored the first title in this book collection, the “Atlas Obscura: An Explorer’s Guide To The World’s Hidden Wonders.” For sure this is not your usual travel guide. In a 2017 conversation with me, Ella describes the book’s beginnings and how it came to be filled with some 700 sights you’ve likely not seen. Not many people have. Such as the Stairway to Heaven in Hawaii, the secret apartment in the Eiffel Tower and that flaming hole in the Turkmenistan desert. The most recent book in the Atlas Obscura collection, published in 2024, is “Wild Life: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Living Wonders.”              

Salman Rushdie, author of more than 20 books, spoke with me in 2019 about his “Quichotte: A Novel,” a  contemporary story about chaotic political times that live on today.    He takes readers on a road journey across America in a Chevy Cruze.  Rushdie’s road traveler, Quichotte, is a simple man who has watched too much television.     Perhaps because of that, it’s an anything-can-happen sort of trip sprinkled with cyber-spies, opioids, science fiction, racism of course, all mixed in with heavy doses of family ties real or imagined.    Born in India, mostly educated in England, and a current long-time resident of New York City, Rushdie’s published work includes novels, books of non-fiction, a memoir and children’s books.