Jim Schumock hosts a "Best Books Special," featuring reviews of some of the best fiction and nonfiction books of the last year with guests Will Peters of Anni Bloom's Books and Sally McPherson of Broadway Books. There will be many literary thank you gifts for listeners who become KBOO members during the show, including a signed first edition of "Fight Club," by Chuck Palahniuk.

Host David Naimon talks with writer,  Nathan Englander,  about his new short story collection What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank.  

Englander burst on the literary scene in 1999 with For The Relief of Unbearable Urges, a story collection that earned him the PEN/Faulkner Malamud Award and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Sue Kauffman Prize.   His first novel, The Ministry of Special Cases, set during Argentina’s Dirty War, came out in 2007.  And this year finds Englander particularly busy, with a play,  The Twenty-Seventh Man, premiering at The Public Theater in New York, the release of his original translation of the Haggadah, the prayerbook used during the Passover seder, edited by Jonathan Safran Foer,  and his much anticipated story collection that we will talk about today, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank.

“It takes an exceptional combination of moral humility and moral assurance to integrate fine-grained comedy and large-scale tragedy as daringly as Nathan Englander does.”
—Jonathan Franzen

"What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank vividly displays the humor, complexity, and edge that we've come to expect from Nathan Englander's fiction--always animated by a deep, vibrant core of historical resonance."
—Jennifer Egan
 

The memoir "Chinaberry Sidewalks" debuted in early 2011. It was the first venture into the world of prose for "Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame" member and performing artist Rodney Crowell. Crowell also provided the reading for the audio book of his memoir. He won an award for his efforts. "Chinaberry Sidewalks" is now due to come out in paperback on March 13.

Wayne and Kathy, from the "Swing & Country" DJ collective conduct this interview with Rodney Crowell. Crowell reads and comments on chosen passages and answers questions by the two hosts.

On Between the Covers, Suzanne LaGrande interviews painter, arts educator and author, Ted Katz about The Studio Within, a series of short vignettes that together make up his artist's journey.   Mr. Katz  studied at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts and at the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts. The paintings of Ted Katz have been shown across the country, from New York City to Portland. 

In this interview, Mr. Katz talks about  the importance of getting lost in order to make new creative discoveries and the choices that led him to be a painter, teacher and writer.