Best of AOT: Garrison Keillor Serenades the Tattered Cover Audience

Garrison Keillor, founder and host of the acclaimed radio show A Prairie Home Companion and the daily program The Writer’s Almanac, has become the voice of the American midwest, or at least the voice that brings us back to the idyllic midwest of days past. While on tour for his Lake Wobegon novel Pontoon, Keillor visited the Tattered Cover book store, bringing with him his favorite cowboy songs, recalling the old west instead.

During the choruses of the classic tune “Get Along Little Doggies,” Keillor even got the Tattered Cover crowd to sing along, a moment that won’t soon be forgotten by those in attendance.

If you enjoyed this Best of Authors On Tour podcast, please listen to the entire Garrison Keillor podcast.

This podcast was originally recorded on September 13, 2007.

AOT #198: Lucinda Scala Quinn Podcasts Mad Hungry: Feeding Men & Boys

Born to a family that always cared about food, Lucinda Scala Quinn started cooking professionally as a teenager. She has worked as a chef, cooking teacher, caterer, and food writer. She is Executive Food Director for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, and she appears regularly on NBC’s Today and Martha, as well as co-hosting PBS’s Everyday Food. Quinn discusses her new book Mad Hungry: Feeding Men & Boys. With four hungry brothers, three ravenous sons, and a husband who loves to eat, Quinn has spent much of her life feeding the men and boys in her life and teaching them how to feed themselves. In her new book, she shares winning strategies for how to sate the seemingly insatiable, trade food for talk, and get men to manage in the kitchen.

($29.95) Workman ISBN #978-1-57965-356-9. You can visit Lucinda Scala Quinn’s official web site as well.

AOT #197: T. A. Barron Podcasts Merlin’s Dragon: Doomraga’s Revenge

T.A. Barron is the award-winning author of fantasy novels such as The Lost Years of Merlin epic–soon to be a major motion picture. He serves on a variety of environmental and educational boards including The Nature Conservancy and The Land and Water Fund of the Rockies, and is the founder of a national award for heroic children. Barron reads from and discusses his new book Merlin’s Dragon: Doomraga’s Revenge, in which Basil becomes Merlin’s partner as they battle the mysterious shadows that threaten the new Avalon. In this jaw-dropping sequel to the mega-hit Merlin’s Dragon, Barron sends Merlin, Rhia, and Basil, the greatest dragon ever, on a mission across Avalon to root out this new enemy. But sacrifices will be made, relationships will be tested, and precious lives will be lost.

($19.99) Philomel ISBN #978-0-399-25212-9. You can visit T.A. Barron’s official web site as well.

AOT #196: Elizabeth Beckwith Podcasts Raising the Perfect Child through Guilt and Manipulation

Successful actress, stand-up comedienne, and television writer Elizabeth Beckwith reads from and discusses her hilarious first book Raising the Perfect Child through Guilt and Manipulation. A frequent guest on The Late, Late Show and one of seven comics featured in the Time magazine article, “Funny: The Next Generation,” Beckwith now puts forth a hilarious new parenting philosophy that would shock Dr. Spock and traumatize T. Berry Brazelton. Raising the Perfect Child through Guilt and Manipulation is a riotously irreverent take on contemporary child rearing.

($14.99) HarperCollins ISBN #978-0-0617-5957-4 . You can visit Elizabeth Beckwith’s official web site as well.

AOT #195: Karl Alexander Podcasts Jaclyn the Ripper

In Karl Alexander’s book Time After Time, H.G. Wells used his time machine to chase after Jack the Ripper who was on a killing spree in 1979 San Francisco. After H.G. met Amy Catherine Robbins, the love of his life, and banished the serial killer to the indefinite future, H.G. and Amy returned to 1893 London, believing they could live happily ever after. But that wasn’t the end of the story. Alexander reads from and discusses his sequel to Time After Time, Jaclyn the Ripper, in which Amy returns to the present, accidentally freeing Jack from his prison in the far future while also transforming Jack into a woman. Jaclyn the Ripper sets out on a new killing spree in 2010 Los Angeles, vowing revenge on H.G. and Amy. With the panache, excitement, and thrills that made Time After Time so popular, Karl Alexander has penned another winning tale of Wells: author, inventor, and unlikely hero.

($24.99) Tor ISBN #978-0-7653-1894-7. You can visit Karl Alexander’s official web site as well.

Best of AOT: Isabel Allende Finds a Bride for Her Son

If you’ve read any of Isabel Allende‘s memoirs, you know that no detail about her or her family’s lives is off-limits. You can also image that Allende feels very comfortable involving herself with all details of her family members’ personal situations.

In this excerpt from The Sum of Our Days Allende reads from the chapter “Searching for a Bride.” She tells the hilarious tale of her quest to find a wife for her son Nico after his divorce.

Spoiler alert: Mother knows best!

If you enjoyed this Best of Authors On Tour podcast, please listen to the entire Isabel Allende podcast.

This podcast was originally recorded on April 10, 2008.

AOT #194: Brandon Sanderson Podcasts The Gathering Storm

The final volume of the Wheel of Time, A Memory of Light, was partially written by Robert Jordan before his untimely passing in 2007. Brandon Sanderson, New York Times bestselling author of the Mistborn books, was chosen by Jordan’s editor–his wife, Harriet McDougal–to complete the final book. The scope and size of the volume was such that it could not be contained in a single book, so The Gathering Storm is the first of three novels that will make up A Memory of Light. Sanderson reads from and discusses Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time: The Gathering Storm).

($29.99) Tor ISBN #978-0-7653-0230-4. You can visit Brandon Sanderson’s official web site as well.

AOT #193: Jonathan Lethem Podcasts Chronic City

Jonathan Lethem, the acclaimed author of Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude, reads from and discusses his new book Chronic City, a gorgeous, searing portrayal of Manhattanites wrapped in their own delusions, desires, and lies. Like Manhattan itself, Lethem’s newest masterpiece is beautiful and tawdry, tragic and forgiving, devastating and antic, a stand-in for the whole world and a place utterly unique.

($27.95) Doubleday ISBN #978-0-385-51863-5. You can visit Jonathan Lethem’s official web site as well.

AOT #192: Eoin Colfer Podcasts And Another Thing…

Eoin Colfer is the author of the internationally best-selling Artemis Fowl series. His books have won several awards, including the British Children’s Book of the Year, the German Children’s Book of the Year, and a Betelgeusean Bloater award for shortest newcomer, which he keeps in his head as it is radioactive and scares the children. Colfer reads from and discusses And Another Thing…, the rather unexpected, but very welcome, sixth installment in the late Douglas Adams‘ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. It features a pantheon of unemployed gods, everyone’s favorite renegade Galactic President, a lovestruck green alien, an irritating computer, and at least one very large slab of cheese.

($25.99) Hyperion ISBN #978-1-40132-358-5. You can visit Eoin Colfer’s official web site as well.

AOT #191: James Ellroy Podcasts Blood’s a Rover

James Ellroy, author of the internationally bestselling L.A. Quartet novels-The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, and White Jazz-as well as many other bestselling mysteries and a critically acclaimed memoir, reads from and discusses his new book Blood’s a Rover. Summer, 1968. Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy are dead. The assassination conspiracies have begun to unravel. And fate has placed three men at the vortex of history. Ellroy’s new story is political noir as only he can write it. Blood’s A Rover is a novel of astonishing depth and scope, a massive tale of corruption and retribution, of ideals at war and the extremity of love.

($28.95) Random House ISBN #978-0-679-40393-7.

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