Read Beat (...and repeat)
If you're like me, you like to know things but how much time to invest? That's the question. Here's the answer: Read Beat--Interviews with authors of new releases. These aren't book reviews but short (about 25-30 minutes on the average) chats with folks that usually have taken a lot of time to research a topic, enough to write a book about it. Hopefully, there's a topic or two that interests you. I try to come up with subjects that fascinate me or I need to know more about. Hopefully, listeners will agree. I'm Steve Tarter, former reporter for the Peoria Journal Star and a contributor to WCBU-FM, the Peoria public radio outlet, from 20202 to 2024. I post regularly on stevetarter.substack.com.
Episodes
301 episodes
"The Last Ride" by Chris Enss
Your typical cowboy movie features stagecoaches, lots of horses, Indians, and a saloon with swinging doors. The women depicted are either saloon girls or school teachers, noted Chris Enss, who’s worked hard for the past 30 years to dispel that ...
"Forty Ways to Know a Tree" by Joan Maloof
Joan Maloof doesn’t think hugging a tree is silly. As the founder of the Old-Growth Forest Network, an organization that seeks to preserve the few old-growth forests we have left in this country, Maloof is passionate about trees.Today, l...
"When Women Ran Fifth Avenue" by Julie Satow
You remember the department store, that big, multi-level center of the downtown that offered everything from an afternoon tea to wedding attire?That's where Jack Benny went every year to find a tie for Don Wilson or something for Mary Li...
Working-Class Girls Don't Become Artists" by Janet Zandy
Janet Zandy makes a case for art, both its appreciation and its execution, not just for the select few.In her book, Working-Class Girls Don’t Become Artists (University of Illinois Press), Zandy shares the exploits of nine artis...
"Woodlands of the Mind" by Kevin O'Donnell and Scott Honeycutt
Not all the lessons learned at college take place in the classroom. That’s one of the takeaways from Woodlands of the Mind: Rambles Through Campus Forests by Kevin O’Donnell and Scott Honeycutt.There’s more. You learn that state...
"The Illinois Terminal Railroad: The Road of Personalized Services" by Dale Jenkins
Passenger train service of the past is often depicted with bustling city stations and milling crowds pouring onto platforms. But that wasn’t the only way to catch the train back in the day. If you were out in the country in central Illinois, yo...
"Kentucky Barracuda" by Joe Goodbody
What started as a routine genealogical search turned into a six-year research project for Joe Goodbody, a retired Army colonel and the author of Kentucky Barracuda.The book documents the 19th-century exploits of Parker Hardin Fr...
“Agatha Christie: The Mother of the Cozy Mystery” by Nancy West
There’s more to Agatha Christie than slick plot twists and quaint settings (like the fictitious Chipping Cleghorn).Christie was an adventurous woman, said Nancy West, the University of Missouri English professor who authored the biograph...
"Beneath the Wage: Tips, Tasks & Gigs in the Age of Service Work?" by Annie McClanahan
To better understand Annie McClanahan’s book, Beneath the Wage: Tips, Tasks & Gigs in the Age of Service Work, one needs only peruse recent stories such as: --the Chicago Teachers Union’s bargaining to include a demand ...
"The Adventures of Jelly Bean" by Amy Pollack
You can't accuse Amy Pollack of rushing into print. Although she first had the idea of Jelly Bean, a fictional fourth-grader, back when she was in fourth grade herself (1960), it wasn't until Pollack had completed more than 40 years of teaching...
"A Protest History of the United States" by Gloria Browne-Marshall
"The world will be made better by those who refuse to be silent." That statement tells you where Gloria Browne-Marshall stands.A law professor atJohn Jay College in New York, Browne-Marshall is the author of A Protest History of the ...
"If I Am Coming to Your Town, Something Terrible Has Happened" by Justin Glawe
Justin Glawe's new book, If I Am Coming to Your Town, Something Terrible Has Happened, provides a reporter's account of some of the biggest news stories of the past decade.Starting with the chaos that followed the killing of Mic...
"Sugar Coated" by Marion Nestle and Lisa Sutherland
To understand how the food business works, merely take a trip down the cereal aisle at your local supermarket.Cereal boxes represent food industry billboards: big, bold, and shouting for your (or your child's) attention, said Marion Nest...
"The Way Out: How To Overcome Toxic Polarization" by Peter Coleman
Toxic polarization is the division in society that pits neighbor against neighbor and family member against family member when political fervor reaches a fever pitch.It's a time when it's dangerous to be a public official, not just in Wa...
"America Unfinished" Edited by Alexandra Natapoff and Guy-Uriel Charles
“A new status quo has taken hold in Washington DC,” writes Jody Freeman, one of the Harvard Law School professors offering up short essays in America Unfinished: 250 Years of Law and Governance. “The federal government is m...
"We Are Eating the Earth" by Michael Grunwald
Michael Grunwald provides another take on the climate crisis. It's not just about reducing exhaust fumes from gasoline-powered cars; it's about agriculture.The world's fossil-fuel problem is still number one, but agriculture is number tw...
Interview with Bill Kemp, McLean County Museum of History
It’s a museum dedicated to McLean County, home to Bloomington-Normal, but the displays are as broad-based and American as apple pie: Abraham Lincoln, Route 66, and baseball.The McLean County Museum of History, 200 Main St. in Downtown Bl...
"Dreamsville" by Jon Burlingame
What was the most influential television show of the 1950s? I Love Lucy? Disneyland? Twilight Zone?Few would probably choose Peter Gunn, the private-eye show starring Craig Stevens that producer Blake Edwards launched i...
"Invasion of the Mind Snatchers" by Eric Burns
Television’s growth in the 1950s mirrored the rise of radio in the 1930s. Unlike radio, however, TV hasn’t looked back, demanding our attention now more than ever in the 21st century.Back in the 50s, television was still feeling its way....
"The Westerners" by Megan Kate Nelson
The old west came at us in a rush on 50s TV: So many shows; so many cowboys; so much history; and so much left out.Megan Kate Nelson attempts to fill some of the gaps in our frontier history in The Westerners, a book that chroni...
America’s Downtowns—A conversation with Erik Reader
If you have passed through small-town America in recent years, you may have noticed that, for the vast majority of towns, to use the phrase, “they ain’t what they used to be.” The downtown buildings may still be in place, but are no...
“Stealing America” by Linford Fisher
With the story of the American Revolution being retold as we approach this country’s 250th anniversary, we hear a lot about George Washington, Paul Revere, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Paine, among the many individuals who pl...
"Born Sick in the USA" by Stephen Bezruchka
Stephen Bezruchka has worked in the healthcare field for over 50 years. A graduate of Stanford Medical School, with a public health degree from Johns Hopkins University, Bezruchka began his career by setting up a community health project in the...
“America’s Hometown Movie Houses: Please Remain Standing” by Benita VanWinkle
Benita VanWinkle likes going to the movies. She’s gone to theaters in every state of the union. But she doesn’t always stay for the main feature.Instead, VanWinkle, an art professor at High Point University in North Carolina, pursues a p...
"A High Price for Freedom" by Clyde W. Ford
Don’t expect a big celebration on Juneteenth (June 19) from author Clyde W. Ford, who explains in A High Price for Freedom.“What a wonderful day that first Juneteenth must have been. Fetters gone. Shackles removed. Whips silence...
