Category: 3-BookTalkDaily

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NBN Book of the Day - Kelly A. Spring, “SPAM: A Global History” (Reaktion, 2025)

The year 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, a conflict that solidified SPAM’s place in global food culture. Created by Hormel Foods in 1937 to utilize surplus pork shoulder during the Great Depression, SPAM became an essential resource during the Second World War, and helped shape perceptions of American culture. SPAM: A Global History (Reaktion, 2025) by Dr. Kelly Spring explores SPAM’s complex history, from its inception to its resurgence during the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting its enduring legacy in places like Hawaii, Guam, the Philippines, Okinawa and South Korea. It demonstrates how SPAM, a long-lasting and valuable protein, played a crucial role during wartime and continues to influence dietary practices worldwide.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.

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NPR's Book of the Day - Liane Moriarty on her novel ‘Here One Moment’ and on writing ‘women’s fiction’

In Liane Moriarty's Here One Moment, a woman on a flight from Tasmania to Sydney, Australia looks around at her fellow passengers and reveals how each of them will die. Moriarty says the idea for the novel – which is now out in paperback – came to her during a time when she was contemplating her own mortality. In today's episode, the author speaks with Here & Now's Robin Young about putting her characters in difficult situations and being known as an author of women's fiction.

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PBS News Hour - Art Beat - Palestinian American comedian uses humor to process the war in Gaza

Comedy has long been a way to bring a different, lighter lens to heavy topics. That holds true for Palestinian American comedian Sammy Obeid, who has taken to the stage to spotlight the pain of the war in Gaza. Amna Nawaz sat down with Obeid for our arts and culture series, CANVAS. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders
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NPR's Book of the Day - ‘The Last Sweet Bite’ is a cookbook that documents the way conflict changes cuisine

Michael Shaikh's The Last Sweet Bite is filled with recipes, but it's also a document that reflects the way conflict alters cuisine. The project, which blends travel writing, memoir and the traditional cookbook structure, profiles six regions impacted by war, violence and genocide. In today's episode, Shaikh joins NPR's Leila Fadel for a conversation that touches on how he went from covering human rights abuses in conflict zones to creating this non-traditional cookbook.

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PBS News Hour - Art Beat - Film critics reveal their favorite and most anticipated summer movies

Superman, one of the summer’s most eagerly anticipated blockbusters, delivered with a big opening weekend. Jeffrey Brown sat down with a pair of film critics to share their top picks on the big releases, comedies and some lesser-known choices. It’s part of our arts and culture series, CANVAS. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders
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NPR's Book of the Day - In Ann Patchett’s latest, a mother tells her daughters about a seminal summer

The author Ann Patchett has talked about her decision to focus on her writing and to forgo entering the world of motherhood. But in her latest book, Tom Lake, the main character Lara made a different choice: She chose being a mother over pursuing acting and the fame that may have come with it. In today's episode, Patchett speaks with NPR's Mary Louise Kelly about the decision to make Lara a mother who is reveling in time spent with her daughters, sharing the tale of one seminal summer before they were born.

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NBN Book of the Day - On Bullshit in Politics

Today we’re continuing our series on philosopher Harry Frankfurt’s seminal work, On Bullshit. Our guest is Michael Patrick Lynch, Provost Professor of the Humanities and Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut. Michael is the author of the recently published book, On Truth in Politics: Why Democracy Demands It (Princeton University Press, 2025). The topic of our discussion today will be on bullshit in politics, and how we might think about ways to combat it.

Caleb Zakarin is editor of the New Books Network.

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PBS News Hour - Art Beat - Remembering presidential advisor and political analyst David Gergen

Presidential advisor and former News Hour contributor David Gergen died at 83 after being diagnosed with Lewy body dementia. Throughout his career, Gergen served four presidents, both Democrats and Republicans, and he spent many Friday nights offering his insights and analysis here on the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. Geoff Bennett has this remembrance. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders
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NBN Book of the Day - Phil Tiemeyer, “Women and the Jet Age: A Global History of Aviation and Flight Attendants” (Cornell UP, 2025)

Women and the Jet Age: A Global History of Aviation and Flight Attendants (Cornell University Press, 2025) is a global history of postwar aviation that examines how states nurtured airlines for competing political and economic goals during the Cold War. While previous histories almost exclusively stress US and Western European aviation progress, Dr. Phil Tiemeyer examines how smaller, poorer states in socialist Eastern Europe and in the postcolonial Global South utilized airlines of their own to forge rival pathways to modernization.

Part of this modernization involved norms for working women. Stewardesses at airlines around the globe encountered novel threats to their dignity as the Jet Age approached. By the late 1960s, stewardesses endured harsh objectification: High hemlines, tight uniforms, and raunchy marketing were touted as modern and liberated. These women, whether from the West, East, or South, forged their own pathways to achieve greater dignity at work. In Women and the Jet Age, Dr. Tiemeyer's global account of the rise of air travel and of early feminist strivings among stewardesses is one of the first histories to place such developments—political, economic, and feminist—in dialogue with each other.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/book-of-the-day

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NPR's Book of the Day - New books ask how we can protect threatened land in the Amazon rainforest and Hawaii

Two new books ask how we might protect vulnerable ecosystems in the Amazon rainforest and Hawaii. First, journalist Dom Phillips was reporting in the Amazon when he and a colleague were shot and killed. Phillips was in the middle of writing a book – and now, that project, How to Save the Amazon, has been completed by his widow and a team of contributors. In today's episode, Alessandra Sampaio, Phillip's widow, and co-author Jonathan Watts join NPR's Ari Shapiro to discuss the challenges they faced in completing the book. Then, Sara Kehaulani Goo's new book, Kuleana, chronicles her family's effort to hold onto ancestral land in Hawaii. In today's episode, she speaks with NPR's Michel Martin about her own complex relationship with Hawaii and what tourists might consider before they visit.

To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday

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