Joe Donahue

David Baldacci is a global #1 bestselling author, and one of the world's favorite storytellers. His works have been adapted for both feature film and television. David Baldacci is also the cofounder, along with his wife, of the Wish You Well Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting literacy efforts across America.

Amos Decker is the Memory Man. Following a football-related head injury that altered his personality, Decker is now unable to forget even the smallest detail which is as much a curse as it is a blessing. In Baldacci's gripping new thriller, "The Fallen," Decker's life might be about to change again.

When a terrible crime shocks a New Jersey community, all signs point to one suspect. But if he's innocent as he claims, it means the murderer is still out there.

From #1 New York Times bestselling author and “Queen of Suspense” comes "I've Got My Eyes on You," a thrilling investigation asking what we truly know about the those we trust, and the secrets lying in even the most idyllic of neighborhoods.

Jeffery Deaver is the #1 international bestselling author of more than thirty novels, three collections of short stories, and a nonfiction law book. His books are sold in 150 countries and translated into 25 languages. His first novel featuring Lincoln Rhyme, "The Bone Collector," was made into a major motion picture starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie.

His new book in that series is "The Cutting Edge."

Shawn Stone joins us to talk about what he's seen lately and what cultural events are coming up this week in our region.

Seen: "Isle of Dogs"

Upcoming:

• Janiva Magness, Eva Cappelli - Iron Horse Music Hall, Northampton, Mass., Friday 4/20, 7 PM
• Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo - The Egg, Albany, Friday 4/20, 8 PM
• Anna & Elizabeth - Caffe Lena, Saratoga Springs, Friday 4/20, 8 PM
• "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" - Home Made Theater, Spa Little Theater, Saratoga Springs, opens Saturday 4/21 at 7:30 PM, through May 6
• Octavo Singers with the Capital District Youth Chorale - John Rutter’s Mass of the Children, Faure’s Requiem, Poulenc’s Gloria - Proctors, Mainstage, Schenectady, Saturday 4/21, 7:30 PM
• The Mountain Goats, Dead Rider - Upstate Concert Hall, Clifton Park, Saturday 4/21, 8 PM
• Travis Tritt Acoustic Show - Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, Troy, Saturday 4/21, 8 PM
• Schenectady Symphony Orchestra with pianist Young Kim - Rimsky-Korsakov, Beethoven, Borodin Proctors, Mainstage, Schenectady, Sunday 4/22, 3 PM
• Three Stooges Film Festival - Palace Theatre, Albany, Monday 4/23, 7 PM
• Women and Power in America: Cokie Roberts, with Danielle Belton, Kathy Sheehan and Jill Stein - New York State Writers Institute at the Hearst Media Center, next to the Albany Times Union, Colonie, Tuesday 4/24, 7:30 PM

New movies: "I Feel Pretty," "You Were Never Really Here," "Super Troopers 2"

The Roundtable Panel: a daily open discussion of issues in the news and beyond.

Today's panelists are WAMC’s Alan Chartock, Daily Freeman Publisher Emeritus Ira Fusfeld, Communications Consultant Theresa Bourgeois and Siena College Professor of Comparative Politics, Vera Eccarius Kelly.

Newscaster Carl Kasell, a signature voice of NPR who brought his gravitas to "Morning Edition" and later his wit to "Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me!" has died. He was 84. He fully retired in 2014.

Kasell's radio career spanned half a century. He was a newscaster for 30 years on "Morning Edition" until 2009. Kasell then became the official judge and scorekeeper of the Chicago-based show "Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me!" in 1998. He left his voice on hundreds of answering machines as part of that show's prize. We spoke with him in November of 2009 – when he’d decided to step down from doing morning newscasts at NPR.

The last time our tech guru Jesse Feiler was here he talked with us about Blockchains and Cryptocurrency. This morning he lightens the mood and shares with us about ideas for Spring Walks in our listening area.

Friends of Saranac River Trail will be holding its first-ever Jane’s Walk, a walking conversation to explore and celebrate Downtown Plattsburgh, on May 5 from at 10 a.m - 11:30 a.m.

Jesse Feiler is an app developer, author, and consultant specializing in small business and nonprofit organizations. His most recent books are “The Nonprofit Risk Book: Finding and Managing Risk in Nonprofits and NGOs” written with Gail B. Nayowith and “Learn Computer Science with Swift.” His most recent apps are “CyberContinuity,” a free app to learn about your vulnerabilities and “The Nonprofit Risk App,” a companion to the book.

Luke Cyphers who is on the board of the Clinton County Historical Association also joins us. Luke Cyphers is an award-winning freelance journalist and current contributing writer for Adirondack Life magazine, a former a senior editor at ESPN The Magazine, and former sports writer for the New York Daily News, among other outlets. A resident of the City of Plattsburgh, he is a trustee of the Clinton County Historical Association and past chair of the Saranac River Trail Advisory Committee.

South Jersey, circa 1983: A distinctive sub-region, as if a section of the south or Midwest was grafted onto the east coast. Francis, a defrocked college student who has made a mess of both his scholastic career and his life, finds himself back home at the Jersey shore and gainfully employed at a sprawling, subterranean gas station.

“Petroleum Transfer Engineer” is not just Francis’s story, but is also the chronicle of a time and place that is slowly disappearing: The farmland, little eateries, and raucous bars giving way to development; the resorts of Atlantic City morphing into its soulless casino incarnation. Francis must navigate a terrain that is simultaneously familiar and off-kilter. Somehow, he must struggle to piece his life back together.

Richard Klin lives in New York’s Hudson Valley. He is the author of “Something to Say: Thoughts on Art and Politics in America and Abstract Expressionism For Beginners.” He will be at the Golden Notebook in Woodstock, New York for a reading and signing on Saturday afternoon at 4 p.m.

The Roundtable Panel: a daily open discussion of issues in the news and beyond.

Today's panelists are WAMC’s Alan Chartock, Communications Consultant Theresa Bourgeois, Berkshire Eagle reporter Jenn Smith, and investigative journalist Rosemary Armao.

Tara Westover’s memoir, “Educated,” has made its way to the number one spot on the New York Times bestsellers list.

She tells her story of being a young girl who, kept out of school, leaves her survivalist family and goes on to earn a PhD from Cambridge University.

James J. Sexton is a trial lawyer with two decades of experience negotiating and litigating high-conflict divorces.

In his new book, "If You're in My Office, It's Already Too Late: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together," he uses his years of experience and observation to reverse engineer relationships and to identify and fix what does not work.

Today's Book Picks list comes from Rachel Person of The Northshire Bookstore.

List:
“The Big Umbrella” by Amy June Bates and Juniper Bates
“Things That Make White People Uncomfortable” by Michael Bennett
“A Princess in Theory” by Alyssa Cole
“The Serpent's Secret” by Sayantani Dasgupta
“Stray City” by Chelsey Johnson
“Bachelor Girl” by Kim Van Alkemade
“The Prince and the Dressmaker” by Jen Wang
“The Gefilte Manifesto” by Jeffrey Yoskowitz and Liz Alpern

Whether married, single, widowed, divorced, with children or without, at some point women inevitably ask the question, "What's next for me?"

Amy Nobile and Trisha Ashworth create a road map for how to embrace and thrive in this new phase of life in their book, "Just When You’re Comfortable in Your Own Skin, It Starts to Sag: Rewriting the Rules to Midlife."

The Roundtable Panel: a daily open discussion of issues in the news and beyond.

Today's panelists are WAMC’s Alan Chartock, Political Consultant Libby Post, Associate Editor of the Times Union Mike Spain and the Empire Report’s J.P. Miller.

"If I Die Tonight" is the latest stand-alone novel from Edgar nominee Alison Gaylin.

Gaylin, a USA Today bestselling author, is known for her well-drawn characters and emotionally driven, psychological suspense.

"If I Die Tonight" highlights dynamic characters, family drama, and absorbing plot twists. After a high school outcast falls under suspicion for the murder of another student, Gaylin taps into the fears of a small-town community and a parent’s worst nightmares.

In December of 2017, President Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Despite the sweeping changes it has enacted, the new act still fails to fully address the issues that have plagued our tax code for decades. We know we need a fairer and more efficient tax code, but what exactly does this look like? And how do we achieve the necessary changes?

Veteran correspondent and bestselling author T. R. Reid travels the world in order to find out what makes for good taxation and brings that knowledge home in his new book, "A Fine Mess: A Global Quest for a Simpler, Fairer, and More Efficient Tax System."

Peter Golden is the author of the new novel, "Nothing Is Forgotten," about a young man from New Jersey who travels to Khrushchev’s Russia, where he discovers love and the long-buried secrets of his heritage.

Golden’s previous novels include "Wherever There Is Light" and "Comeback Love." An award-winning journalist, Golden has interviewed many world leaders, including Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Henry Kissinger, Yitzhak Rabin, and Mikhail Gorbachev.

Golden will be joined by first-time novelist Sara Nović for a pair of New York State Writers Institute events on April 17.  The events are cosponsored by UAlbany’s Disability Resource Center, State Education Department’s Office of Cultural Education, and Friends of the New York State Library

We live in a time of fast moving, complex change on both the personal and the global level. Welcome or unwelcome, nothing is more certain than the constant and uncertain movement of change. Whether change is met with excitement or met with fear, we can easily become overwhelmed by all of that movement.

ChangeAbility = the ability to effectively navigate change with more ease

Sharon Weil engages twenty-five leading change-makers: artists, political and environmental advocates and activists, teachers, spiritual leaders, psychotherapists, somatic practitioners, and more in a conversation about how to meet change, hold hope, align with nature, have courage, and find the passion that fuels responsive innovation. Based on Weil’s acclaimed podcast, Passing 4 Normal: Conversations with Authors, Artists, Activists and Awakeners about Seeding Change in the World, this book weaves together the insight, humor, compassion and hard-earned wisdom of those who have mastered the art of ChangeAbility in a wide range of applied experiences.

The Roundtable Panel: a daily open discussion of issues in the news and beyond.

Today's panelists are WAMC’s Alan Chartock and Communications Consultants Theresa Bourgeois and Joe Bonilla and Political Consultant Libby Post.

Scientists such as Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, and Sam Harris tell us that our most intimate actions, thoughts, and values are mere byproducts of thousands of generations of mindless adaptation. We are just one species among multitudes, and therefore no more significant than any other living creature.

Now comes Brown University biologist Kenneth R. Miller to make the case that this view betrays a gross misunderstanding of evolution. Natural selection surely explains how our bodies and brains were shaped, but Miller argues that it’s not a social or cultural theory of everything. In "The Human Instinct," he rejects the idea that our biological heritage means that human thought, action, and imagination are pre-determined, describing instead the trajectory that ultimately gave us reason, consciousness and free will.

Dr. Menhaz Afridi is an Associate Professor of Religious studies and Director of Holocaust, Genocide, and Interfaith Education Center at Manhattan College. She is committed to interfaith, and the Holocaust education. She teaches contemporary Islam, Holocaust, Genocide and issues of gender within Islam. 

She will join the Sidney and Beatrice Albert Inter-Faith Lectureship Program at The College of St. Rose next Tuesday, April 17 to present a lecture entitled “The Rise of Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia: Solutions and Challenges.”

The New York State Writers Institute and the UAlbany Speaker Series presents Salman Rushdie in an afternoon craft talk and evening presentation on Thursday, April 19.

Rushdie's new novel is The New York Times bestseller, "The Golden House," a parable of contemporary America set against the backdrop of current American culture and politics. We spoke with Rushdie on The Book Show when the book was published and this is an encore presentation of that interview.

    The Roundtable Panel: a daily open discussion of issues in the news and beyond.

Today's panelists are WAMC’s Alan Chartock, Associate Editor of the Times Union Mike Spain, Counter-Terrorism Expert Malcolm Nance, and Siena College Economics Professor Aaron Pacitti.

No writer plunged more wholeheartedly into the chaotic energies of the 1960s than Norman Mailer, as he fearlessly revolutionized literary norms and genres to capture the political, social, and sexual explosions of an unsettled era.

Library of America has released a new boxed set of Mailer's work from that decade. There are two novels, two booklength masterpieces of new journalism, and thirty-three essays.

J. Michael Lennon emeritus professor of English at Wilkes University, is Norman Mailer's editor and biographer, and president of the Mailer Society. His books include "Norman Mailer: A Double Life" and "Selected Letters of Norman Mailer."

Across the pond, Brits have scoffed that Americans are ruining the English language. Here in the U.S., Americans fawn over British accents and giggle at the preposterous syllables in gobsmacked and kerfuffle.

As an American linguist teaching in England, Professor Lynne Murphy is on the linguistic front line. In her new book, "The Prodigal Tongue: The Love-Hate Relationship Between American and British English," she explores the fiction and reality of the special relationship between British and American English.

From legendary character actor Stephen Tobolowsky, who currently appears on "The Goldbergs" and HBO’s "Silicon Valley," and Norman Lear’s new "One Day at a Time," author of "The Dangerous Animals Club" and The Tobolowsky Files podcast; "My Adventures with God" is a funny, introspective collection about love, catastrophe, and triumph, all told through the lens of his evolving relationship with the mystery that is “God.”

As Tobolowsky explains, “It’s hard to believe in nothing. Even cats believe in suppertime. As much as we love certainty, we are often shaped by the invisible, the unexplainable—something we call faith. We are inclined to acknowledge the holy. Even if it is only a paper heart we find in an old suitcase.”

   The Roundtable Panel: a daily open discussion of issues in the news and beyond.

Today's panelists are WAMC’s Alan Chartock, Communications Consultant Theresa Bourgeois, Siena College Professor of Comparative Politics, Vera Eccarius Kelly, and Edward P. Hamilton Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Francine Berman.

PS21: Performance Spaces for the 21st Century in Chatham, New York is opening a new state-of-the-art black box theater this Saturday, April 14.

The black-box is the all-weather portion of the new Pavilion Theater which will open this summer.

The festive evening celebrating the future of PS21 will feature a ribbon cutting ceremony, champagne toast and a dance concert with the delightful Caleb Teicher and Nic Gareiss!  There will be a post-performance reception with the artists and tours of the new theater.

PS21 was founded under the leadership of PS21’s Board President Judy Grunberg in 1999 to bring world-class performances to New York’s Columbia County and adjacent counties. Judy joins us to tell us more about the new space and their upcoming season.

The classic Noël Coward comedy, Blithe Spirit, is being produced at The REP, through May 6th, directed by Maggie Mancinelli-Cahill, and featuring three of the region's best known Equity actresses: Yvonne Perry, Brenny Rabine and Eileen Schuyler, together on stage for the first time.

In the play, we meet cantankerous novelist Charles Condomine, re-married to Ruth but haunted (literally) by the ghost of his late first wife, the clever and insistent Elvira who has been conjured up by a visiting “happy medium.”

To tell us more – we welcome actors Yvonne Perry (Elvira) and Eileen Schuyler (Madame Arcati).