Writer's Voice with Francesca Rheannon

We spend the hour talking with journalist Joel K. Bourne, Jr. about population, the threat of famine and new ways to feed a crowded world. His book is The End of Plenty: The Race To Feed A Crowded World.

WV takes the pulse of Brazilian society with journalist Juliana Barbassa — the forces holding it back and the people’s push for more democracy. Her book is Dancing with the Devil in the City of God. Then, Ta Ne-hisi Coates just received a MacArthur "genius" fellowship. We re-air our 2008 interview with him about his memoir, The Beautiful Struggle.

Wendell Stevenson talks about her book, Circling The Square: Voice From The Egyptian Revolution (Harper Collins, August 2015.) Then we re-air our 2011 interview with Marina Sitrin about Occupy Wall Street.

Marcel Theroux talks about his new novel Strange Bodies. It's a fantastic multi-genre romp — part sci-fi, part thriller, part disquisition on literary immortality. And then we pivot to the renaissance in radio storytelling, talking with cartoonist Jessica Abel about her graphic book, Out On The Wire: The Storytelling Secrets of the New Masters of Radio.  Marcel Theroux Some people have their bodies cryogenically frozen when they die in the hopes of being able to be revived at some future point when  technology can make them young and healthy. Well, what if you could live again with the same mind — only in a different body? No need for freezing and thawing; just a clean and simple software download of your mind into someone else? The question is, how would you create a software identity? Marcel Theroux has the answer in his brilliant novel Strange Bodies (Farrar, Strauss Giroux 2015). It tells the story of two reincarnations: that of one of English literature's greatest figures — Samuel Johnson — into the body of a 21st century thug and the reincarnation of a Johnson scholar, failed academic Nicholas Slopen, killed in a mysterious accident. How and why these two figures come together drives the action of this terrifically engaging story — which is at heart a consideration of how literature creates identity, both in the author and the reader. Marcel Theroux is the author of four previous novels, including Far North (a finalist for the National Book Award.) Read an excerpt from Strange Bodies Jessica Abel Radio is experiencing a renaissance. It started with This American Life twenty years ago —when Ira Glass announced a completely new format of making radio on the show’s very first episode. TAL has been followed by a plethora of other such radio offerings: shows like the award-winning Radio Lab, the live performance show The Moth Radio Hour, the narration-less Radio Diaries and Snap Judgment with its incandescent host, Glenn Washington. Then came the podcasts, more of which come on the digital airwaves each day — shows like Invisibilia and Serial. And now you, too, can create a podcast of your own! My guest Jessica Abel has written  a wonderful guide in graphic form that's filled with the story-telling secrets of the greats. Jessica Abel is the author, among other books, of the award-winning graphic novel La Perdida. She was co- editor of the Best American Comics series for six years and teaches at the School of Visual Arts and elsewhere. Jessica Abel’s podcast, Out on the Wire

We talk with Paul Ham about his new book, HIROSHIMA NAGASAKI: The Real Story of the Atomic Bombings and Their Aftermath. We also listen back to an excerpt from last year’s interview with Naomi Klein about her book, THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING: Capitalism vs The Climate. It’s just out in paperback from Simon and Schuster.

Translator Peter Filkins talks about the third novel in German Jewish writer H.G. Adler's trilogy about the Holocaust, The Wall. Later, we re-play a previous interview with Filkins about his translation of the first novel in the trilogy, The Journey.

James Angelos talks about his illuminating look at the Greek crisis, The Full Catastrophe. Also, political analyst Peter Mathews discusses the state of democracy in the US. His book is Dollar Democracy.

Joseph Luzzi talks about his moving new memoir and contemplation of Dante's Divine Comedy, In A Dark Wood. Then, we hear some voices from the recent marathon reading of Melville's Moby Dick put on by the legendary Sag Harbor NY bookstore, Canio's.

We speak with Michelle Goldberg about Indra Devi, who helped to spark the yoga craze in America. Her biography is The Goddess Pose: The Audacious Life of Indra Devi, the Woman Who Helped Bring Yoga to the West.

Frances Jensen talks about her book, The Teenage Brain: A Neuroscientist's Survival Guide to Raising Adolescents and Young Adults . And marijuana is being used to successfully treat some illnesses. But it's not so healthy for the developing brain. Addiction psychiatrist Kevin Hill tells us about risks and benefits of pot. His new book is Marijuana: The Unbiased Truth About The World’s Most Popular Weed.

Biographer and poet Rosemary Sullivan talks about her extraordinary new biography of Svetlana Stalin, Stalin's Daughter (Harper Collins, June 2015.) Then, Russian émigré Elena Gorokhova explores the inner divide that splits the soul of the immigrant in her new memoir Russian Tattoo.

Hannah Nordhaus, author of The Beekepper’s Lament, talks about her latest book, a wonderful history/slash memoir of her ancestor Julia Staub. It’s called American Ghost: A Family's Haunted Past in the Desert Southwest. And if apple pie is a symbol of America, apples may be a symbol of New England. Russell Steven Powell talks about his book, Apples of New England: A User’s Guide.

David Flusfeder discusses his novel, John The Pupil. It’s about a medieval journey that prefigures the Renaissance era to come. And then another work of fiction that reimagines a historical figure: urban philosopher David Kishik talks about his book, The Manhattan Project. It imagines what Walter Benjamin would have written about New York had he succeeded in escaping to the US from Nazi-dominated Europe.

David Kishik Urban philosopher David Kishik talks about his book, The Manhattan Project. It imagines what Walter Benjamin would have written about New York had he succeeded in escaping to the US from Nazi-dominated Europe. When the German philosopher Walter Benjamin committed suicide on the French-Spanish border in 1940, he left behind one of the most brilliant and idiosyncratic cultural critiques of a city the world has ever known. Unfinished at the time of his death, The Arcades Project was a massive collection of notes about Paris -- filled with penetrating insights, fragmentary analyses and vivid descriptions of the city in which Benjamin spent the last 13 years of his life. Walter Benjamin killed himself in despair on finding the Spanish border temporarily closed when he was trying to flee Nazi occupied France and make it to New York City, where he had obtained a visa to teach at the New School. But what if he faked his suicide? What if he actually made it to New York? And what if he continued his investigations of urban philosophy by pursuing a "Manhattan Project" like The Arcades Project about Paris? That’s the thesis of David Kishik’s new book, The Manhattan Project: A Theory of A City. The book is a scholarly study of an imaginary text by Benjamin about New York. An urban philosopher himself, Kishik examines the city through the lens of Benjamin’s sensibility -- for lovers of New York, Walter Benjamin, Jane Jacobs and urban philosophy in general, it is a fascinating exploration of Manhattan as the capital city of the twentieth century. David Kishik teaches in the Institute for Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies at Emerson College.  He is  also the author of Wittgenstein's Form of Life and The Power of Life.

Catherine Price talks about her book VITAMANIA: Our Obsessive Quest For Nutritional Perfection. Then food psychologist Traci Mann tells us why diets don’t work and how we can get to -- and stay at -- our leanest live-able weight. Her book is Secrets from the Eating Lab: The Science of Weight Loss, the Myth of Willpower, and Why You Should Never Diet Again.