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NWPR Books
10:45 am
Mon June 17, 2013

'Cows' To The Rescue! Soil's Secrets For Saving The Earth

Credit Chelsea Green Publishing
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By editor

Originally published on Tue June 18, 2013 7:57 am

In her book Cows Save The Planet, journalist Judith Schwartz argues that the key to addressing carbon issues and climate change lies beneath our feet. Schwartz says that proper management of soil could solve a long list of environmental problems.

"The thing to realize is that while we think about this as a sky thing — that it's all about all the fossil fuels that we're burning and all that spewing into the atmosphere — it's actually also a ground thing," she tells NPR's Neal Conan.

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NWPR Books
10:42 am
Mon June 17, 2013

In 'TransAtlantic,' The Flight Is Almost Too Smooth

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Credit iStockphoto.com
Colum McCann's new book imagines the intersections of three historic flights across the Atlantic Ocean.
Credit Dustin Aksland
Colum McCann won the National Book Award in 2009 for Let the Great World Spin.
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Originally published on Mon June 17, 2013 12:22 pm

Here we go into the wild blue yonder again with Colum McCann. In his 2009 novel, Let the Great World Spin, McCann swooped readers up into the air with the French aerialist Philippe Petit, who staged an illegal high-wire stunt walk between the twin towers of the World Trade Center in 1974. Strictly speaking, Let the Great World Spin was not a Sept. 11 novel, and yet almost everyone rightly read it as one, since McCann's tale commemorated the towers at the literal zenith of their history.

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NWPR Books
10:42 am
Mon June 17, 2013

WWII 'Deserters': Stories Of Men Who Left The Front Lines

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Credit Penguin Press
The Deserters is Charles Glass' second book relating to World War II. His last book, Americans in Paris, told the story of the U.S. citizens who remained in the French capital after the 1940 German invasion.
Credit Penguin Press
John Bain, shown above in 1940, is one of the men Glass profiles in The Deserters.
Credit Penguin Press
Bain, show above at 85 in 2007, deserted from the Gordon Highlanders.
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Originally published on Mon June 17, 2013 2:11 pm

Few citizens are more honored than military veterans, and there's particular reverence for those who defeated the Nazis in World War II. Like any war, however, World War II was complicated and traumatic for those on the ground, and not a few deserted from the front lines.

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NWPR Books
10:31 am
Mon June 17, 2013

This Blumesday Celebrates Judy, Not Joyce

Credit Suzanne Plunkett / AP
Judy Blume is the author of many books for kids and teens, including Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and Blubber. Her fans have riffed on Bloomsday (a celebration of James Joyce's Ulysses) and created Blumesday in her honor.
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By Deena Prichep

Today is Blumesday. Not the Bloomsday where readers celebrate James Joyce's novel Ulysses — that was Sunday. Today's Blumesday is also a holiday for literature lovers, but of a different sort.

Blumesday creators Joanna Miller and Heather Larimer are writers, and they're pretty well-read. But they were never huge fans of Ulysses. "We sort of self-deprecatingly said, 'Well, the only way we could participate in Bloomsday was if it were Judy Blumesday.' And then the joke turned into, 'Wait, why aren't we doing this?' " Miller explains.

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NWPR Books
11:57 pm
Sun June 16, 2013

In Neville's Thrillers, Belfast's Violent Past Still Burns

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Credit Paul McErlane / AP
Bonfires light up the Belfast skyline on July 12, 1997, as Protestant loyalists commemorate the 17th century victory of a Protestant king over his deposed Catholic predecessor. Known as the Battle of the Boyne, the confrontation is part of a long history of tensions in the region.
Credit Peter Macdiarmid / Getty Images
The Victoria Square shopping center's observation deck offers a panoramic of Belfast's skyline.
Credit Noah Adams / NPR
Belfast's No Alibis Bookstore has helped launch at least two of Stuart Neville's mysteries.
Credit Robert Young / Flickr
The Palm House in Belfast's Botanic Gardens houses a range of tropical plants.
Credit Christopher Furlong / Getty Images
The peace wall on Belfast's Falls Road was traditionally used to display political messages from Irish Republicans. Today, artists use their skills to highlight political messages from around the world.
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Originally published on Mon June 17, 2013 10:13 am

At 41, with long black hair, Stuart Neville looks more like the rock guitarist he used to be than the author he is now. He lives in a small town with his family — not in Belfast, Northern Ireland, the city that plays a central role in his thrillers, but just outside it.

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