Episode · The Book Review · 2017-10-13
Ron Chernow on The Book Review: books mentioned (Oct 2017)
Ron Chernow on 'Grant'
Gilbert Cruz discussed Grant by Ron Chernow, Greater Gotham by Mike Wallace, and Gotham by Edwin G. Burrows and others. Ron Chernow discussed Hamilton by Ron Chernow and Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow. Pamela Paul discussed Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant by Ulysses S. Grant. Mike Wallace discussed The Passing of the Great Race by Madison Grant. Alexandra Alter recommended Turtles All the Way Down by John Green, and discussed The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. Also mentioned: The lost weekend by Charles Jackson, Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens by Alice Walker, Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward, The Power by Naomi Alderman, and Look at Me by Jennifer Egan.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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Grant
Grant by Ron Chernow is an exhaustive, thousand-page biography chronicling the life and times of Civil War general and U.S.
Discussed“biographer Ron Chau will be here to talk about his new book Grant”
Where to get it
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Greater Gotham
Greater Gotham by Mike Wallace is a comprehensive historical volume examining the transformation and history of New York City during a pivotal era.
Discussed“historian Mike Wallace will join us to talk about greater Gotham”
Where to get it
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Hamilton
Hamilton by Ron Chernow is a comprehensive and detailed biographical account of the life and times of founding father Alexander Hamilton, exploring his profound impact on American history.
Discussed“it's funny after you know Hamilton people said to me you should really do Thomas Jefferson”
Where to get it
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Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow is a comprehensive historical biography that chronicles the life, political career, and lasting legacy of one of America's founding fathers.
Discussed“you know in Alexander Hamilton even in George Washington there were these great figures of History”
Where to get it
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Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant
Personal Memoirs of U.
Discussed“Grant wrote what is widely considered to be the best Memoir by a president and one of the best Memoirs of all time”
Where to get it
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Gotham
Discussed“his previous book Gotham history of New York City to 1898 won the Pitzer prize for history in 1999”
Where to get it
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The Passing of the Great Race
The Passing of the Great Race by Madison Grant is a notorious 1916 historical and pseudoscientific work that promoted eugenics and racial hierarchies.
Discussed“people like Madison Grant who writes a book called the passing of the great race in 1916 is picked up by one Adolf Hitler”
Where to get it
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The Fault in Our Stars
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green is an acclaimed young adult novel that follows two teenagers coping with terminal cancer diagnoses who fall in love while navigating the painful realities of mortality.
Discussed“and the faar Stars alone has more than 23 million copies in print and of course that's been boosted by some of the film adaptations”
Where to get it
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Turtles All the Way Down
Turtles All the Way Down is a young adult novel by John Green that explores themes of anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder through a fictionalized context.
Recommended“so the thing that really stands out about this new novel which is called Turtles all the way down is that it's even I think more I think it's even darker in some ways”
Where to get it
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The lost weekend
The Lost Weekend by Charles Jackson is a classic psychological novel about severe alcoholism that later inspired the acclaimed Billy Wilder film adaptation.
Recommended“I finished the Lost weekend by Charles Jackson which I brought up last week and the reason I bring it up again is because I was enjoying it”
Where to get it
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Never Let Me Go
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro is a haunting dystopian novel that explores the poignant lives of students at a seemingly idyllic English boarding school who slowly discover a dark and tragic truth about their engineered existence.
Discussed“well I know I that red never let me go and I I have to say that I was not I know that you and Rika are huge fans”
Where to get it
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In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens
In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens by Alice Walker is a groundbreaking collection of prose pieces in which the author explores Black feminism, creativity, and the spiritual lives of women of color.
Discussed“um so I'm reading two books right now I started with Alice Walker's in search of our mother's Garden”
Where to get it
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Sing, Unburied, Sing
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward is a powerful Mississippi-set novel that functions simultaneously as a raw road trip narrative and a haunting ghost story.
Discussed“and and then I'm also reading Sing unburied Sing by jusmine Ward which we just reviewed twice”
Where to get it
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The Power
The Power by Naomi Alderman is a speculative science fiction novel set in a world where teenage girls develop the physical ability to emit deadly electrical shocks, fundamentally upending global power dynamics and patriarchy.
Recommended“so I'll mention it it's a novel named the power by Naomi Alderman it's her fourth novel”
Where to get it
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Look at Me
Discussed“she goes back and and looks at earlier novels including the only Jennifer Egan novel that I had never read which is called look at me it was her second novel”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (12) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
“his followup to the Pitzer prize winning book Gotham Alexander alter will tell us about the latest goings on in the literary world”
“because you of course have written biographies of the warberg of Hamilton of Washington and now Grant”
“you spoke on a panel about biography I think this was after tit your John D Rockefeller biography came out”
“and out of that came Gotham and you start that history in 1524”
“I've collected a lot of these in a book called Mickey Mouse history”
“Mike Wallace is the author of Gotham which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1999 and it's sequel now out greater”
“today we're gonna talk about the young adult author John Green who finally published a new novel his fans had been waiting for years since the fonar stars came out in 2012”
“I'm gonna keep reading him because I I have I haven't read the remains of the day which obviously I think I should read”
“have you read her previous books yeah Salvage the bones made me cry and I that's always the definition of a good book”
“I am also reading Jennifer Egan and and our listeners probably know that she has a new novel out Manhattan Beach that's not the that I'm reading”
“I really loved her debut book which was a Story collection called Emerald City and her first novel”
“and her first novel then I I read after that was the invisible circus which was a novel about a couple of sisters”