Host Diana Korte speaks with Artis Henderson whose newest title, “NO ORDINARY BIRD. Drug Smuggling, a Plane Crash, and a Daughter's Quest for the Truth,” is a page-turning true crime book based on personal history, interviews with long-lost family members (and co-conspirators), along with government records.

They all illuminate the life of her experienced pilot dad, Lamar Chester, who died in his private plane that was very likely sabotaged—and what lead up to that event. The author who was 5 years old then was with him, but survived with injuries.

Her father had been one of the biggest marijuana smugglers in Miami in the 1970s. At the time of his death, he was about to testify in a US trial that had swept up politicians, a prime minister, and Colombian drug cartels. But the deeper Artis digs, the more unexpected the story becomes.

Host Diana Korte speaks with Bill McKibben, environmental activist and author of some 20 books. His newest title is “HERE COMES THE SUN. A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization.”

Largely unnoticed by many of us is the rapid rise of power from the sun around the world. The cost of alternative energy—sun & wind—has fallen below the price of fossil fuels.

Globally, every 18 hours, people install solar panels equivalent to a coal-fired power plant. This is faster than any energy transition in history & it may be the only remaining chance to slow down the rapid heating of the earth.

From war-torn Ukraine to Pakistan and Texas, listen in to hear about the people and places creating the world-wide revolution in sun power.

Georgia Hunter's first historical novel, “We Were the Lucky Ones” was born of her quest to uncover her family's staggering history.

The book’s chapters are written in the voices of her ancestors, most of whom were in Poland at the beginning of World War II when 3 generations still gathered at the dining room table. By the end of the war, they had scattered to five continents.

This book has been published in 20 languages and adapted into a critically acclaimed TV series. Georgia Hunter and I met for this conversation in 2018.

Her newest historical novel is "One Good Thing."

Host Diana Korte speaks with author and historian Scott Ellsworth about his fifth title, MIDNIGHT ON THE POTOMAC, my favorite civil war book.

Its pages are full of compelling details and new research that brings us a story many of us might have felt like we already knew. But turns out there are so many more facts he discovered in obscure places. It’s about the last year of the war, the Lincoln assassination, and the rebirth of America. And according to the author, “this is a book about how we almost lost our country.”

Readers are swept across the Canadian border, into the backroom meetings of Confederate spies, onto the battlefields in Virginia, and inside the White House where Lincoln came close to giving up the presidency. Classic Civil War giants are featured, but so are common soldiers, runaway enslaved people, and intrepid female war correspondents.

New findings reveal John Wilkes Booth was not just a disgruntled, pro-South renegade working on his own, a characterization that has been cemented in history and Hollywood for more than a century and a half. Rather, Booth was just one of many working with the Confederate Secret Service to terrorize the Union and destroy the possibility of re-uniting the states.

Host Diana Korte speaks with Julie McFadden, author of 2 books--her New York Times bestselling “Nothing to Fear,” published in 2024, and her newest, “The Nothing to Fear Journal: Questions and Reflections for Demystifying and Preparing for the End of Life.” In both she interweaves emotional insight and practical advice.

Julie is a hospice/palliative care nurse with more than 15 years of experience. Passionate about normalizing death and dying, she has over 3 million followers across social media as @hospicenursejulie. She has been featured in major media outlets worldwide.

She actively engages with her audience across various social platforms, including TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, fostering a more open conversation about death.

Host Diana Korte speaks with award-winning journalist Becky Aikman about her new book, “SPITFIRES. The American Women Who Flew in the Face of Danger During World War II.”

This is a fast paced true story of the 25 US women who flew the world’s most dangerous aircraft through the treacherous skies of Britain during World War II eighty years ago. Another fifty years would pass before the first American woman piloted a US fighter plane in combat.

They were crop dusters and debutantes, college girls and performers in flying circuses — all of them pilots who wanted to serve in World War II. Because they were women, their own country turned them away. But Great Britain, in a desperate fight for survival, would let anyone — even Americans, even women -- fly warplanes. Twenty-five of them bolted for England in 1942. They became the first American women to fly perilous missions in military aircraft.

In England these “spitfires” lived like women decades ahead of their time. They risked their lives in one of the deadliest jobs of the war, flying new, barely tested fighters and bombers to air bases and returning shot-up wrecks for repair. Many transport pilots died in crashes or made spectacular saves.

Host Diana Korte speaks with award-winning journalist and novelist Anne Hillerman, author of 18 books, whose newest title is SHADOW OF THE SOLSTICE (#10 in her Leaphorn, Chee & Manuelito series).

In the new book, Navajo Nation police are on high alert when a U.S. Cabinet Secretary schedules an unprecedented trip to the little Navajo town of Shiprock, New Mexico. The visit coincides with a plan to resume uranium mining along the Navajo Nation border.

Tensions around the official’s arrival escalate when the body of a stranger is found nearby. Is it coincidence that a cult with a propensity for violence arrives at a private camp outside Shiprock the same week to celebrate the summer solstice?

Anne Hillerman was approached several years ago by Robert Redford and George R.R. Martin to create the popular tv series, “Dark Wind,” now in its third season that is based on her and her dad’s (Tony Hillerman) crime novels.

Host Diana Korte speaks with bestselling author Chloe Dalton who rescued and reared a wild hare in the English countryside during the Covid lockdown about her memoir, Raising Hare.

Imagine you could hold a baby hare (similar to rabbit, but bigger and wilder) and bottle-feed it. Imagine that it lived under your roof and lolloped around your bedroom at night, drumming on the duvet cover when it wanted your attention.

Imagine that, over two years later, it still ran in from the fields when you called it and slept in your house for hours on end during the day and gave birth to baby hares in your study.

For political advisor and speechwriter Chloe Dalton, who spent lockdown deep in the English countryside, far away from her usual busy London life, this became her unexpected reality.

Raising Hare chronicles their journey together and serves as a reminder that the best things, and most beautiful experiences, might arise when we least expect them.