David Remnick

David Remnick is the author of The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama. From his 2010 Q & A with Mary Ann Gwinn for The Seattle Times:

Q. Do you remember the first time you heard about Obama?

A. I do. Around the office, somebody mentioned that there was a guy with a funny name, running for the Senate, and we were looking for election stories to do that weren't presidential elections. The more I heard about him from the writer, Bill Finnegan, the more it became obvious that it would be a great piece [titled "The Candidate," it ran in The New Yorker in May 2004].

And there was even mention of him running for president [then]. I became completely incredulous. I lost a bet with my editor, Dorothy Wickenden. She said, "I think this guy could be president." I thought, there was no way in the world. Hillary Clinton was running; a guy named Barack Hussein Obama in a post 9/11 world?

Q. What are the special problems and challenges of writing about a sitting president?

A. Some of them are obvious. To write a history of a president who's...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue

Jonathan Balcombe

Jonathan Balcombe's new book is What a Fish Knows: The Inner Lives of Our Underwater Cousins. From his Q & A with Deborah Kalb:

Q: You describe fish as “the most exploited (and overexploited) category of vertebrate animals on Earth.” How has that situation developed?

A: We’ve been fishing for millennia. Most fishing…has been sustainable, not self-destructive. In the last couple of centuries we’ve developed trends that are problematic, with a growing population and advances in technology.

It’s like bobbing for apples with our hands, not our mouths. People are able to locate large schools of fishes with technology, and are able to take as many as they want to, [leading to extinction for some species].

Q: Do you see this trend continuing?

A: In the near future. I’m hopeful [looking further ahead that people] will start to change their behavior. There’s a 10 percent decline in meat consumption in the U.S. over the last decade, so trends change. In the near future, the situation doesn’t look great, but I’m hopeful there will be a turning point.

It’s critical for...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Jonathan Balcombe's website.

The Page 99 Test: Second Nature.

--Marshal Zeringue

Arsalan Iftikhar

Arsalan Iftikhar is the author of Scapegoats: How Islamophobia Helps Our Enemies and Threatens Our Freedoms. From the transcript of his interview with NPR's Michel Martin:

MARTIN: Now I want to talk about the second part of the title of the book, though, which is that it helps our enemies and threatens our freedoms. That's what you say islamophobia does. I mean, the premise of your book is that there is a broader, corrosive effect on the society if that mentality is maintained. Tell me why you think that.

IFTIKHAR: Well, because as I look at American history, right? Because even though the fill-in-the-blanks is Muslims today, tomorrow it could be anyone else. I mean, when the USA Patriot Act came out in 2001, you know, this was a 348-page document that trumped 50 federal laws. And it wasn't just targeted at brown Muslims who were suspected of terrorism. This allows the federal government to come in and, without a warrant, get all of your information without even notifying you, going to college registrars, getting all their information. I mean, it affects everybody.

You know, political rhetoric leads to laws. And that's important to keep in mind, is that again, you know, the internment camps of World War II didn't come out of a vacuum. You had people - President Roosevelt's general, who was the head of Pacific Command, James DeWitt, was quoted in Congress as saying once a Jap, always a Jap. I mean, this sort of anti-Japanese rhetoric was actually what led to the internment camps.

And that's the thing, is that, you know, we can't just see this as, you know, ha ha, this is just kind of silly political rhetoric that's coming out. This could - you know, if somebody - if Donald Trump comes out tomorrow and says, you know, we should put Muslims in internment camps - well, you know, we've had them in the past. Who's to say that...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue

Emily Arnold McCully

Emily Arnold McCully is the author of the new children's book, Clara: The (Mostly) True Story of the Rhinoceros who Dazzled Kings, Inspired Artists, and Won the Hearts of Everyone ... While She Ate Her Way Up and Down a Continent.

From her Q & A with Deborah Kalb:

Q: How did you learn about Clara the rhinoceros, and was there anything that particularly surprised you about her story?

A: I learned about Clara when browsing the stacks of my local university library (a wonderful boon to have access to it--browsing yields wonderful discoveries not usually available when simply searching for titles on a computer).

The book, by Glynnis Ridley, a scholar, is a detailed examination of every aspect of Clara's journey. I saw a children's book embedded in its detail.

I was as innocent of information about the rhinoceros as those 18th century Europeans, so much surprised me. I was very impressed by the endurance of both Clara and the Captain, and by the effect she had on onlookers.

I had seen Longhi's paintings in Venice and always found them wonderfully evocative. They aren't really very accurate portraits, but...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue

Fawaz Gerges

Fawaz Gerges is a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics and author of ISIS: A History. From his Q & A with World Policy Journal:

WPJ: While you write that the United States-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 was responsible for the initial rupture of Iraqi society, your book emphasizes the failure of al-Maliki to build strong and healthy governance in the years following. What action, if any, do you believe Western powers could have taken a decade ago to help minimize today’s situation with ISIS?

FG: There is no single cause that really explains the resurgence of ISIS. This is a very important point. Many commentators and journalists really simplify it a great deal. The global jihadist movement existed before the U.S. invasion, and the most important factor in the rise of al-Qaida in Iraq was not only the invasion. It was also the dismantling and destruction of Iraqi institutions. This allowed al-Qaida to infiltrate politics, to plant itself within the local Sunni communities, and to depict itself as a defender of the Sunnis. Besides the U.S. invasion and the destruction of state institutions, the third factor in the rise of al-Qaida in Iraq was the dismal failure of the post-Saddam Hussein political elite in Iraq to mend the ideological and social rift between the Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds.

However, there are two major mistakes made by the U.S. that could have prevented not only the emergence of al-Qaida in Iraq but also the deepening of sectarian tensions.

The first one was the dissolution of the Iraqi army and security forces. In one stroke, the U.S.-led occupation authorities dissolved the army, thus turning three hundred thousand Iraqis into potential rebels. And secondly, sadly, the U.S. helped construct a sectarian based regime in Iraq by dividing the spoils along sectarian lines, as opposed to building a system based on citizenship and the rule of law. These mistakes are still with us today. Iraq does not really have a functioning, effective army, because the army had to be built from scratch.

These three factors: the U.S. invasion, the dissolving of Iraqi institutions, and replacing Saddam Hussein’s regime with a sectarian-based system really helped al-Qaida in Iraq, which is now called ISIS. Do you see what I’m trying to say? ISIS is not alien. It did not...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue

Laurie Ann Thompson

Laurie Ann Thompson is the author of the children's picture book Emmanuel's Dream: The True Story of Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah.

From her Q & A with Deborah Kalb:

Q: How did you learn about Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah, and why did you decide to write a picture book about his story?

A: I first heard about Emmanuel’s story in 2005 when he appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show to help promote a documentary about his life, Emmanuel’s Gift, which Oprah herself narrated.

I was working on a book for teens about unsung heroes, people who’ve changed the world but whose names and faces we may not recognize, and I knew instantly that one of the chapters in that book had to be about Emmanuel!

His story was so inspiring to me, both because of the obstacles he overcame and the way he went about it, that I just couldn’t...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue

Cathryn J. Prince

Cathryn J. Prince is the author of American Daredevil: The Extraordinary Life of Richard Halliburton, the World's First Celebrity Travel Writer.

From her Q & A with Deborah Kalb:

Q: Why did you decide to write a biography of Richard Halliburton?

A: The seeds for the book were planted a long time ago. When I was growing up my father used to tell the story of how he absolutely had to see the Taj Mahal because one of his favorite books when he was a boy was Richard Halliburton’s Complete Book of Marvels.

He’d talk about the way Halliburton used words to bring the monument to life, so much so that when he was serving in in the Air Force in Vietnam he used a rare R&R to travel to the Taj Mahal. The story stayed with me.

Then in 2013 my parents took my daughter to Memphis. While there they visited Rhodes College and saw the Richard Halliburton exhibit that Bill Short maintains as part of the Richard Halliburton collection.

At the time I was working on Death in the Baltic, which was a dark, somber subject to say the least. So when I heard them talk about their visit to the college, and the many things of Halliburton that were there, something clicked.

I could so easily visualize him, his boundless energy, his swashbuckling good looks, and all the things he did - from flying around the world in an open cockpit plane, to swimming the Panama Canal.

I felt compelled to write the book because I believed that not only what he did - his adventures and writing - but who he was - a fearless and hardworking person - would...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Cathryn J. Prince's website.

The Page 99 Test: Death in the Baltic.

Coffee with a Canine: Cathryn J. Prince & Hershey and Juno.

The Page 99 Test: American Daredevil.

--Marshal Zeringue

Laura Lippman

Laura Lippman 's new novel is Wilde Lake.

From the author's Q & A with Gabriella Souza for Baltimore Magazine:

How did the idea for this book come to you?

Well, it’s a little bit of a convoluted story. It began when the Woody Allen/Dylan Farrow story surfaced again. I read a lot, and I thought a lot about it. The conclusion I came to is that as an individual, I was going to believe people who said they were sexually assaulted. I just decided for my own humanity that I would start always at a place of saying, 'Yes, the victim is telling the truth' . . . But then I thought, if you really embrace this idea, how do you deal with the story told in To Kill A Mockingbird? Big disclaimer: I don’t think Tom Robinson is a rapist. He’s clearly innocent. But, I thought, what if you thought of it differently, but not in the pre-Civil Rights era? And where would this story be most interesting? It’s about an African-American man who is handsome and is generally seen as a good person. He is accused of raping a young woman who’s seen from being from the other side of the tracks, not as being a particularly well-thought-of member of society . . . I thought about the era in which I grew up, and the place I went to high school, and I began thinking, 'This is a story that...[read on]

Visit Laura Lippman's website.

The Page 69 Test: Wilde Lake.

My Book, the Movie: Wilde Lake.

--Marshal Zeringue

Mary Simses

Mary Simses's new book is The Rules of Love & Grammar.

From her Q & A with Deborah Kalb:

Q: How did you come up with the idea for The Rules of Love & Grammar, and for your main character, Grace?

A: The idea started with something that happened when I was a teenager. When I was 14, I had a huge crush on a boy in my ninth grade class. He was very cute and very popular. Unfortunately for me, he was dating another girl who was also very cute and very popular (definitely more in his league). But he was always friendly to me, as he was to everyone…

That memory [of our one dance together] had been rattling around in my head for years, and I guess it was destined to emerge in a story sooner or later. Although I wanted to use an incident like that as a springboard, I didn’t know where one dance was going to take me in terms of a whole book.

And then another idea came to me through a conversation I had with a friend. We were talking about how people often feel guilt over the death of a loved one – they didn’t do this or they should have done that – and how it can haunt someone forever. It was an idea I wanted to explore and with those two fragments, I began to build a tale.

I think the character of Grace came to me largely because of a little article I read years ago in a newspaper. It was a story about two guys who were traveling across the country and along the way they were correcting all the grammatical mistakes they encountered – in restaurant menus, posters, newspapers, flyers, you name it.

They explained how they would approach the “owner” of the mistake and ask if they could correct it. Most people said yes; others were...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Mary Simses's website and follow her on Facebook.

My Book, The Movie: The Irresistible Blueberry Bakeshop & Cafe.

--Marshal Zeringue

Sebastian Junger

Sebastian Junger's new book is Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging.

From his Q & A with Adam Linehan for Task & Purpose:

Over the past couple of years, I’ve heard a lot of American veterans express interest in flying to Iraq to join the fight against ISIS as civilian volunteers. Quite a few of them have. Why do you think some combat veterans miss the battlefield? Why do they volunteer to go back?

The demands of combat on the human mind and body are extraordinary. Human likes functioning at an extraordinary level. They love it. And so I think it’s very hard to find a job back home that requires you to function at the level that combat requires. The stakes are life and death. In other words, they’re the highest stakes possible. There’s a huge amount of adrenalin, and the requirement of very intense interpersonal commitment and bonding with other people — all those things produce just a cocktail of pleasurable endorphins and hormones in the bloodstream. All these things really feel good to the human brain. So it’s very, very hard to find a job that reproduces that feeling in the civilian world.

Do you think people can become addicted to combat?

I don’t think the chemical reactions to adrenaline rival those of synthetic drugs — cocaine, stuff like that. When you use the word addiction, you’re really talking about a chemical dependency. I don’t think anyone is chemically dependent on adrenaline. I think...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue