The Year She Left Us By Kathryn Ma chats with Dr. Alvin

Kathyrn Ma Click Here To Listen   The Kong women are in crisis. A disastrous trip to visit her "home" orphanage in China has plunged eighteen-year-old Ari into a self-destructive spiral. Her adoptive mother, Charlie, a lawyer with a great heart, is desperate to keep her daughter safe. Meanwhile, Charlie must endure the prickly scrutiny of her beautiful, Bryn Mawr–educated mother, Gran—who, as the daughter of a cultured Chinese doctor, came to America to survive Mao's Revolution—and her sister, Les, a brilliant judge with a penchant for ruling over everyone's lives. As they cope with Ari's journey of discovery and its aftermath, the Kong women will come face-to-face with the truths of their lives—four powerful, [...]

By |May 20th, 2014|Adoption, Fiction, Parenting, Women|Comments Off on The Year She Left Us By Kathryn Ma chats with Dr. Alvin

Cooking With Fire By Paula Marcoux chats with Dr. Alvin

Paula Marcoux Click Here To Listen Paula Marcoux is a food historian who lives in Plymouth, Massachusetts; she has worked professionally as an archaeologist, cook, and bread-oven builder. She is the food editor of Edible South Shore magazine, writes on food history topics for popular and academic audiences, and consults with museums, film producers, and publishers. She also gives regular workshops on natural leavening, historic baking, and wood-fired cooking. Her web site is www.themagnificentleaven.com.

By |May 20th, 2014|Cooking / Food|Comments Off on Cooking With Fire By Paula Marcoux chats with Dr. Alvin

The Big Fix: The Hunt For The Match-Fixers Bringing Down Soccer By Brett Forrest chats with Dr. Alvin

Brett Forrest Click Here To Listen Known as the "beautiful game," soccer is the world's most popular sport, crossing borders and language barriers to entertain billions. But underneath it all—the raucous fans in the stadiums; the beloved players; and FIFA, the international governing body with a membership of 209 national associations—is a scandal that threatens to make soccer the ugliest sport in the world. An underworld of international gambling rings, corrupt players and officials, and shadowy figures preys on the far-flung edges of the game, making match-fixing in soccer one of organized crime's new, profitable businesses. Now, for the first time, journalist Brett Forrest takes us inside the $700 billion international soccer betting market. In [...]

By |May 20th, 2014|Crime, Sports|Comments Off on The Big Fix: The Hunt For The Match-Fixers Bringing Down Soccer By Brett Forrest chats with Dr. Alvin

Serve To Be Great By Matt Tenney chats with Dr. Alvin

Matt Tenney Click Here To Listen Matt Tenney is an international keynote speaker, a trainer, and a consultant with the prestigious Perth Leadership Institute, whose clients include numerous Fortune 500 companies. He works with companies, associations, universities, and nonprofits to develop highly effective leaders who achieve lasting success by focusing on serving and inspiring greatness in the people around them. Matt envisions a world where the vast majority of people realize that effectively serving others is the key to true greatness. When he’s not traveling for speaking engagements, he can often be found in Nashville, TN.

By |May 20th, 2014|Biography, Business, Leadership, Spirituality|Comments Off on Serve To Be Great By Matt Tenney chats with Dr. Alvin

Jack Of Spies By David Downing chats with Dr. Alvin

David Downing Click Here To Listen Live From The U.K. It is 1913, and those who follow the news closely can see the world is teetering on the brink of war. Jack McColl, a Scottish car salesman with an uncanny ear for languages, has always hoped to make a job for himself as a spy. As his sales calls take him from city to great city—Hong Kong to Shanghai to San Francisco to New York—he moonlights collecting intelligence for His Majesty's Navy, but British espionage is in its infancy and Jack has nothing but a shoestring budget and the very tenuous protection of a boss in far-away London. He knows, though, that a geopolitical catastrophe [...]

By |May 19th, 2014|Fiction, History, Military, War|Comments Off on Jack Of Spies By David Downing chats with Dr. Alvin

American Woman By Robert Pobi chats with Dr. Alvin

Robert Pobi Click Here To Listen A stifling heat wave rolls into New York City, amplifying the already critical level of tension in the fragile concrete ecosystem. The air tastes of electricity—the negative charge of bad things to come—but everyone hopes it’s just the temperature. Then, on the morning homicide detective Alexandra “Hemi” Hemingway finds out she is pregnant, a twisted serial killer makes his debut. And the heat goes up.   Not for the faint of heart—American Woman is a relentless ride that takes you through the fractured world of a nascent killer. And you will never feel safe again.

By |May 19th, 2014|Fiction|Comments Off on American Woman By Robert Pobi chats with Dr. Alvin

The Third Horseman: Climate Change And The Great Famine Of The 14th Century By William Rosen chats with Dr. Alvin

William Rosen Click Here To Listen In May 1315, it started to rain. It didn’t stop anywhere in north Europe until August. Next came the four coldest winters in a millennium. Two separate animal epidemics killed nearly 80 percent of northern Europe’s livestock. Wars between Scotland and England, France and Flanders, and two rival claimants to the Holy Roman Empire destroyed all remaining farmland. After seven years, the combination of lost harvests, warfare, and pestilence would claim six million lives—one eighth of Europe’s total population. William Rosen draws on a wide array of disciplines, from military history to feudal law to agricultural economics and climatology, to trace the succession of traumas that caused the Great [...]

By |May 19th, 2014|Agriculture, Environment, History, Military, War|Comments Off on The Third Horseman: Climate Change And The Great Famine Of The 14th Century By William Rosen chats with Dr. Alvin

The Rule Of Nobody By Philip K. Howard chats with Dr. Alvin

Philip Howard Click Here To Listen The secret to good government is a question no one in Washington is asking: “What’s the right thing to do?” What’s wrong in Washington is deeper than you think. Yes, there’s gridlock, polarization, and self-dealing. But hidden underneath is something bigger and more destructive. It’s a broken governing system. From that comes wasteful government, rising debt, failing schools, expensive health care, and economic hardship.Rules have replaced leadership in America. Bureaucracy, regulation, and outmoded law tie our hands and confine policy choices. Nobody asks, “What’s the right thing to do here?” Instead, they wonder, “What does the rule book say?”There’s a fatal flaw in America’s governing system—trying to decree correctness [...]

By |May 19th, 2014|Law, Politics|Comments Off on The Rule Of Nobody By Philip K. Howard chats with Dr. Alvin

Last Stand At Khe Sanh By Gregg Jones chats with Dr. Alvin

Gregg Jones Click Here To Listen In a remote mountain stronghold in 1968, six thousand US Marines awoke one January morning to find themselves surrounded by 20,000 enemy troops. Their only road to the coast was cut, and bad weather and enemy fire threatened their fragile air lifeline. The siege of Khe Sanh—the Vietnam War's epic confrontation—was under way. For seventy-seven days, the Marines and a contingent of US Army Special Forces endured artillery barrages, sniper fire, ground assaults, and ambushes. Air Force, Marine, and Navy pilots braved perilous flying conditions to deliver supplies, evacuate casualties, and stem the North Vietnamese Army's onslaught. As President Lyndon B. Johnson weighed the use of tactical nuclear weapons, [...]

By |May 16th, 2014|History, Military, War|Comments Off on Last Stand At Khe Sanh By Gregg Jones chats with Dr. Alvin