Books and More with William Cooper

A longtime international correspondent, Amos spent much of her award-winning career at National Public Radio. Her reporting on the Middle East and refugees in the U.S. regularly featured on NPR’s Morning Edition, Weekend Edition, and All Things Considered. We discuss it in depth.
She recently covered the Syrian and Iraqi refugee crises, the economy in the Middle East, and the Arab youth surge. Previously she reported for ABC’s Nightline and PBS’s Frontline.
Amos is the author of two books: Eclipse of the Sunnis: Power, Exile, and Upheaval in the Middle East, and Lines in the Sand: Desert Storm and the Remaking of the Arab World. She has won several major journalism honors, including a Courage in Journalism Award from the International Women’s Media Foundation, a George Foster Peabody Award, an Edward R. Murrow Lifetime Achievement Award, and an Emmy.
https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/deborah-amos/eclipse-of-the-sunnis/9781586488543/?lens=publicaffairs
https://journalism.princeton.edu/people/deborah-amos-2018/

We discuss her new book, Chasing Nirvana: A Seeker's Story of Love, Loss, and Liberation.
https://www.priyahutner.com/
Raised under the spell of a charismatic female guru from Brooklyn, Priya Hutner grew up in a world of bizarre rituals, spiritual promises, and suffocating control. In this gripping memoir, she recounts her epic adventure to attain enlightenment and a daring quest to escape a cult-like community, reclaim her voice, and discover that true freedom comes from within.   
 

As we discuss, Anxiety Rx by Dr. Russell Kennedy is a book that offers a holistic, body-based approach to healing anxiety, arguing it originates in stored trauma in the body, not just the mind. Drawing from his own experience, Kennedy combines neuroscience, psychology, and somatic (body-focused) practices to help readers release "background alarm" and heal old wounds, moving beyond traditional talk therapy by addressing the physical sensations of anxiety. The book provides practical techniques to change both your "mindset" and "body-set" for lasting relief. 
https://www.dr-russ.com/

A delightful conversation with Pamela Paul, a writer at large for The Wall Street Journal. She was previously an Opinion columnist for The New York Times, where she also spent nine years as the editor of The New York Times Book Review and oversaw all books coverage at The New York Times. She is the former host of the weekly Book Review podcast for The Times. She is the author and editor of ten books. Visit her online at www.pamelapaul.com.

Tobias Grey writes for The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Financial Times, among others. In the process he has interviewed such legends as Kazuo Ishiguro and John le Carré. Hear his story on Books and More.
 
will-cooper.com

Walt Hunter is a professor of English at Case Western Reserve University and a contributing editor at The Atlantic, focusing on poetry. We discuss poetry, literature, artificial intelligence, and his new The Atlantic article Stop Meeting Students Where They Are.
https://www.theatlantic.com/author/walt-hunter/
 
 

We discuss Mike's books about JFK, RFK, and Marilyn Monroe.
https://www.geminibooks.com/books/gemini-adult/reckless
 
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Ken Levy, a tenured law professor at LSU, was suspended for criticizing Donald Trump in the classroom. Hear his story on Books and More.
will-cooper.com

We discuss Jeffrey's new book: BOUTWELL: Radical Republican and Champion of Democracy.
https://www.jeffreyboutwell.com/
George S. Boutwell is the most consequential American political figure you've never heard of.  During his career from 1839 to 1905, he was Governor of Massachusetts, served in the U.S. House and Senate, was Treasury Secretary for Ulysses Grant and Commissioner of Internal Revenue for Abraham Lincoln, helped create the Republican Party in the 1850s, and challenged the efforts of Presidents McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt to annex the Philippines in 1900 following the Spanish-American war.  He was instrumental in framing the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, initiating the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, and investigating white vigilante violence against Blacks in Mississippi in the 1870s.  For seven decades, George Boutwell sought to "redeem America's promise" through racial equality, economic equity, and the humane use of American power abroad.
 

Chasing the Panther:
https://www.harpercollinsfocus.com/9780785255185/chasing-the-panther/
A cinematic and vibrant coming-of-age memoir, Chasing the Panther captures the thrilling and, at times, heartbreaking early years of Carolyn Pfeiffer, a pioneering film producer and one of Hollywood’s first female executives—a “mini-mogul” in the words of the Wall Street Journal.  
For a moment in the 1980s, Carolyn Pfeiffer was the only woman in Hollywood who could greenlight a movie. Working with directors like Sam Shepard and Wes Craven, and with actors like River Phoenix and Bette Davis, she had a hand in producing or distributing many landmark films, among them Ridley Scott’s The Duellists, Alan Rudolph’s Choose Me, and the Academy Award-winning Kiss of the Spider Woman. However, long before establishing herself as a player in the world of film, Carolyn was a horseback-riding tomboy who dreamed of exploring the world beyond her small hometown. Her journey turned out to be a tale fit for the movies.
As a young girl jumping from rock to rock in a rural North Carolina town, Carolyn felt a calling she couldn’t articulate but that she nonetheless understood: it was a tug on her heart, a yearning for something more. When she could, she set out for New York City, a refuge for young women exercising their independence and resisting the pressures of marriage and motherhood. There, swept up in the glamorous world of beat poets and millionaires, Carolyn brushed shoulders with a young Burt Reynolds and became fast friends with an English journalist named Penny. 
As the turbulent 1960s dawned, Carolyn booked a one-way passage to Europe. Her plan was to visit Penny and to travel around Europe for the summer but, instead, the world opened up to her in ways she never could have imagined. She found herself on set with Italy’s great filmmakers, in the couture houses of Paris’ fashion icons, and swept up in the youthful energy flooding London. She learned about film and found work on iconic movies like Federico Fellini’s 8 ½, Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard, and David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago, and she came to befriend and work alongside luminaries like the Beatles, Tennessee Williams, Francoise Truffaut, and Barbra Streisand. Amid these adventures and misadventures, Carolyn fell in and out of love, and was beset by tragedies and triumphs that resoundingly affirmed what she’d known since girlhood—that she was always destined for something more.
Set against the dazzling backdrop of Fellini’s Rome, the Paris of the French New Wave, and Swinging London, Chasing the Panther reads like a true-to-life novel revealing Carolyn’s unforgettable journey to find her place in the world.