Host Diana Korte speaks with military historian Phillips Payson O’Brien, author of 5 books, whose newest title is “WAR AND POWER. Who Wins Wars And Why.”

He is an American professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews in Scotland and known for his work on 20th and 21st-century conflict, war, and politics.

His groundbreaking book reveals that military might alone is an incomplete and often misleading measure of power. Instead, he argues that victory in war is rooted in a far broader spectrum of forces: economic strength, technological innovation, political leadership, societal resilience, and alliance-building.

Phillips’s Newsletter,” his popular Substack, has frequent updates about the war in Ukraine.

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This is Diana Korte with Booktalk. My guest today is true-crime reporter Skip Hollandsworth⁠⁠, author of 2 books. His newest is SHE KILLS: The Murderous Socialite, the Cross-Dressing Bank Robber, and Other True Crime Tales.”

This book focuses on female perpetrators—from the high schooler who was so desperate to move back in with Mom that she had no choice but to poison her father’s refried beans, to the wallflower nurse in small-town Texas who one day started killing off her patients, to the lovelorn dental hygienist who ordered a hit on her rival.

Each of the eight stories is updated and provides background on Hollandsworth’s original storytelling and new information on the perpetrators and victims.

He joined the much awarded and popular Texas Monthly magazine over 30 years ago and wrote about Texas true crimes before such reporting became popular.

Meanwhile, don’t forget to follow Booktalk so you never miss an episode.

Host Diana Korte speaks with Priyanka Kumar, author of 3 books, whose newest title is “The Light Between Apple Trees: Rediscovering the Wild Through a Beloved American Fruit.”

As a child in the foothills of the Himalayas, Priyanka Kumar was entranced by forest-like orchards of diverse and luscious fruit—especially apples. These biodiverse orchards seemed worlds away from the cardboard apples that lined supermarket shelves in the United States.

Yet on a small patch of woods near her home in Santa Fe, NM Kumar discovered a wild apple tree—and the seeds of an odyssey were planted. Could the taste of a feral apple offer a doorway to the wild?

Kumar is a prize winning filmmaker (“The Song of the Little Road”), novelist (“Take Wing and Fly Here”), environmental author (“Conversations With Birds”), and acclaimed naturalist.