Mariam Said joins me on the Frumkes Show to discuss her mother Wadad Makdisi Cortas’s fascinating memoir entitled “A World I Love,” and also a book by her late Husband Edward Said and Daniel Barenboim entitled “Parallels and Paradoxes.” The former is the story of her mother’s pioneering attempts to educate girls in the Arab World in a non-parochial way while at the same time retaining pride in their national heritage, while the latter is a series of dialogues between the eminent Argentinian-Israeli pianist Daniel Barenboim and the late Edward Said who was a Palistinian-American  literary and cultural critic of great renown as well as an impassioned commentator on the Middle East. The two as it happens were also great friends. Mariam is a wonderful woman whom I think you will find it a pleasure to meet.

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Caryn James in The New York Times Book Review said of Lorrie “She may be the most acute and lasting writer of her generation,” and personally I don’t doubt it. One has only to read some of Lorrie’s short stories in “Birds of America,” “Like Life,” or “Self-Help,” or her novels, “Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?” “Anagrams,” or her latest “A Gate At The Stairs,” to realize that you are in the presence of a major talent. Yes she has won dozens of prizes for her writing, and yes she is a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin, but Lorrie Moore possesses that literary je ne sais quoi that is not immediately translatable until you meet her in the flesh. She has a certain charm, look, and disarming modesty that at first takes you off guard but soon announces itself as quiet confidence fused with high intelligence, playfulness, and a crackling sense of humor. A devastating combination I might add. Join me when I meet Lorrie for the first time in person and we get to know one another for you on the air. I think you’ll enjoy this remarkable writer. I did.

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As J.M Coetzee says, “It is an extraordinarily brave act for a writer to undertake to inhabit, fully and sympathetically, the life her mother lived. And yet that is exactly what Hanan Al-Shaykh does in “The Locust and the Bird,” her novel based on her mother’s story. We enter 1930’s Beirut through a nine-year-old child who arrives there from a small town in Lebanon. We see her drawn to the excitements of the city, to the thrill of the cinema, and most powerfully to Mohammad, the young man who will be the love of her life. Suffice that Hanan Al-Shaykh is a gifted story teller, the author of “Women of Sand and Myrrh,” “The Story of Zahra,” “Beirut Blues,” and “Only in London.” She lives in London and visits me to discuss her new tale about her mother. A beautiful and fascinating woman. Join us.

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This time Nick Sparks visits me to talk about his new book “The Last Song,” that he wrote for Miley Cyrus about a young girl’s first encounter with heart-break and . . . love. It will soon be released as a film by Disney. Two of his other books will also be released in the next few months and we talk about those as well. No one can tell a story like Nicholas Sparks and we get into the reasons for his success, his extraordinary background, gifts, and attitude. We also talk about his two guard dogs, Rex and Laura whom he trained from puppies to follow his every command and defend he and his family to the death if necessary. Find out things you never knew in this interview with Nicholas Sparks. . . I do every time I chat with him.

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Nicholson Baker is one of our most intelligent writers. Years ago, I reviewed Nicholson’s unusual self-meditation about his obsession with John Updike, “U and I” in the New York Times Sunday Book Review, and then watched as he produced one extraordinary book after the other. “The Mezzanine,” “Vox,” “The Fermata,” and a number of others. In this interview we are talking about “The Anthologist,” about Paul Chowder, a once-in-a-while published kind of writer who is experiencing “writer’s block” over an introduction to an anthology of poetry that he is supposed to write. The result is at once hilarious, profound, entertaining and brilliant, with throw-away insights by Baker that are worth the price of the book itself. Nick is such a modest and charming man that you won’t want to miss our little chat.

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Writer/neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks is best known for his collections of case histories offbeat neurological studies which he has published under the engaging titles The Man Who Mistook his Wife For a Hat; and An Anthropologist on Mars in which he describes patients struggling to live with conditions ranging from Tourette’s Syndrome to autism, parkinsonism, musical hallucination, phantom limb syndrome, and epilepsy and retardation. He has investigated the world of Deaf people and sign language in Seeing Voices; and a rare community of colorblind people in The Island of the Colorblind. The New York Times has referred to Dr. Sacks as “The Poet Laureate of Medicine,” and he received the Lewis Thomas Prize b Rockefeller University.

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Originally Aired in 2004; One of the most remarkable writers to come along in recent years Alexander McCall Smith is widely erudite and has written more than 60 books including his wildly popular No 1 Ladies Detective Agency series. His books range from the academic to children’s books. . . this charming and witty man is enormously well-traveled, a veritable fountain of words, ideas, and information. Absolutely delightful!

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Edward Teller, who agreed in 1988 to let me interview him after he heard the title of my book “How to Raise Your I.Q. By Eating Gifted Children,” for which of course I love him is one of the most important and controversial scientists of the 20th century.  At the time of our interview he had the President’s ear and  was the chief architect of the “Strategic Defense Initiative,” a network of anti-missile missiles which President Reagan believed would protect us from foreign nuclear attack. Credited with being the “father” of the “hydrogen bomb” which secures Teller’s place in history he asked me before the show not to refer to him as the “father” of anything. He also asked me what else I would ask him? When I replied that I would ask him to talk about some of the other famous scientists he had worked with, Von Neumann, Einstein, Von Karman, Szilard, Ulam, he said, “I will not talk about Ulam, Ulam is unimportant.” Stanislas Ulam, the brilliant Polish mathematician who was brought in to help Teller when the “Super” or hydrogen bomb wouldn’t work, apparently figured out the complex mathematics that would enable the bomb to ignite. It became known as the Teller/Ulam solution. Ulam had died two years before our interview and clearly Teller wished to keep him buried. When you hear Teller’s heavy Hungarian accent and slow manner of speaking in which he sets each word out one in front of the other like giant granite blocks you will understand why Terry Southern modeled his Dr. Strangelove after Teller.

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Originally Aired in 1999; David Foster Wallace was a bedeviled wunderkind who had already written several books by the time he was 22. His best-known work was Infinite Jest, which takes on additional irony when one considers that Wallace committed suicide in 2008. During his lifetime he produced novels, essays, and short-stories, and taught at a number of colleges. A graduate of Amherst college summa cum laude with a double major in philosophy and English he received the MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant” in 1997, and in the same year was also awarded the Aga Khan Prize for Fiction by editors of the Paris Review. In our interview in response to my question about what is his favorite word, Wallace prophetically tells me that while he doesn’t know if it counts as a favorite word, the word he used most in his writing is “troubled.”

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Yes, Hyatt Bass wrote, directed and produced the film “75 Degrees in July,” which was released in 2006 and now she has written a smoldering novel called “Embers” about family. . .  that Publisher’s Weekly called “A riveting narrative. . . “ Hyatt is not only talented she is a lot of fun. . . . join us for a half hour of playfulness and getting to know this bright and sweet new writer.

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