Shows / Baum on Books
Baum on Books
With an eye on reviewing fiction and nonfiction that has regional resonance for Connecticut or Long Island, Joan Baum considers the timeliness and significance of recently published work: what these books have to say to a broad group of readers today and how they say it in a distinctive or unique manner, taking into account style and structure as well as subject matter.
Episodes
- Baum on Books
Book Review: 'Mirror Image'
In Lauren Rico’s psychological thriller Mirror Image, a psychiatrist treats a woman who lost her identical twin, forcing her to confront her own grief while…
- Baum on Books
Book Review: 'Songbook Summit'
Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Cole Porter and George Gershwin! These are just a few of the innovators of American music featured in Songbook Summit: Fifteen…
- Baum on Books
Book Review: 'Sold'
The young adult novel Sold features a first-person account of the sex trafficking world in Nepal. It’s also one of the most banned books in the United States…
- Baum on Books
Book Review: 'Cool Machine'
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Colson Whitehead is out with Cool Machine - the final novel in his Harlem Trilogy. Our book critic Joan Baum says it features…
- Baum on Books
Book Review: 'Blunt Instrument'
In author Amy Bloom's first murder mystery, Blunt Instrument, a former English professor turned PI must manage her emotional mess while tracking down a killer…
- Baum on Books
Book Review: 'Regime Change'
Regime Change, by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, is the result of 3 arduous years of meticulous investigation into the second…
- Baum on Books
Book Review: 'Someone Else's Husband'
A team of climbers journeys up Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, but they don’t all make it back down. The fallout from their expedition follows the team back…
- Baum on Books
Book Review: 'Aristotle - The First Teacher'
What is happiness? Why do we need art? What is virtue? Aristotle had answers to these deep questions. Now a new book, Aristotle - The First Teacher by Philip…
- Baum on Books
Book Review: 'London Falling'
A British teen falls to his death from an apartment in London. Was it an accident? Suicide? Murder? His grieving parents seek answers. WSHU's Book Critic Joan…
- Baum on Books
Book Review: 'A Fair Corpse'
It’s 1939, and Flushing, Queens, is buzzing with preparations for The World’s Fair. But the festive energy takes a grim turn when one of the mural artists is…
- Baum on Books
Commencing your life: A few reflections by Joan Baum
The diplomas have been dispersed. The caps have been tossed. The last semester has been paid for. College life is now over. But WSHU’s Joan Baum says now is…
- Baum on Books
Book Review: 'A Journey North'
Historian Louis Masur’s A Journey North follows Thomas Jefferson and James Madison on a 1791 horseback trip through New York and New England during a tense…
- Baum on Books
Book Review: 'Flesh'
A young Hungarian man simply flows with the random events that shape his life for him. This profound feeling of detachment guides the main character of the…
- Baum on Books
Book Review: 'The Correspondent'
An older woman learns that her eyesight is waning. That prompts her to start writing letters while she still can. Lots of letters. And these letters make up…
- Baum on Books
Book Review: 'Illusions of Trust'
A no-nonsense lawyer takes on a dubious divorce case. Big mistake. He soon becomes embroiled in a Big Pharma scandal and murder. This is not a story from the…
- Baum on Books
Book Review: Nabokov's 'Lolita'
Lolita, the novel by Vladimir Nabokov, still stirs controversy seven decades after its first publication. The basic storyline is infamous. WSHU’s Book Critic…
- Baum on Books
Book Review: 'The Long Goodbye'
It’s a vintage hardboiled detective novel, complete with greed, addiction, a mysterious death, and lots of colorful language. But WSHU’s Book Critic, Joan…
- Baum on Books
Book Review: 'Accidental Philanthropist'
He didn’t set out to be a philanthropist. But attorney Sandor Frankel’s life took an unanticipated turn, and he found himself managing a multi-billion-dollar…
- Baum on Books
Book Review: 'Be Ready When The Luck Happens'
In her new memoir, Be Ready When The Luck Happens, Ina Garten reflects on her 77 years of life, love, work, and her creative concoctions from the kitchen…
- Baum on Books
Book Review: 'Heartwood'
In Heartwood, Valerie Gill disappears while hiking the Appalachian Trail in Maine. Lost in the woods and her grief, her vanishing raises questions as a tense…
- Baum on Books
Book Review: The Greatest Sentence Ever Written
Two hundred fifty years ago this year, the United States was born. It was written into existence with the Declaration of Independence. A new work by journalist…
- Baum on Books
Book Review: 'Herscht 07769' by Laszlo Krasznahorkai
WSHU’s Book Critic Joan Baum was curious about the Nobel Prize-winning author for literature, a Hungarian writer whose work has been described as challenging…
- Baum on Books
Book Review: A second look at 'The Great Gatsby'
It was published 100 years ago, but The Great Gatsby continues to resonate with readers. WSHU's Book Critic Joan Baum reread F. Scott Fitzgerald's iconic novel…
- Baum on Books
Book Review: What's With Baum?
Anxious, dyspeptic, self-denigrating. That’s Asher Baum, the protagonist in Woody Allen’s new novel, What’s With Baum? Fans of Allen’s work will recognize the…
- Baum on Books
Book Review: 'Season of Fear'
In Mark Rubinstein’s latest thriller, Season of Fear, an escaped psychotic animal killer is on the loose in Bridgeport, Connecticut. One of his human targets…
- Baum on Books
Book Review: 'And to Think We Started as a Book Club'
New Yorker cartoon satirist Tom Toro has published 200 of his drawings in a new collection. Toro says his work covers a broad range of ideas, including…
- Baum on Books
Banned Book Review: Huck Finn
Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has made a repeated appearance on the Banned Book List since it was first released 43 years ago. WSHU's Book Critic…
- Baum on Books
Book Review: 'A Better Ending'
In his memoir, A Better Ending, author James Whitfield Thomson documents his personal 20-year-long investigation into his sister’s death. WSHU’s Book Critic…