Episodes

  • In the standard narrative, the Civil War ended atAppomattox Court House, with Robert E. Lee surrendering to Ulysses S. Grant. That surrender is an icon of American history and culture—a peaceful, conciliatory completion of a country’s most brutal conflict. The Appomattox surrender was an ending, to be sure. But only one ending. The war continued in fits and stops and starts. Finding any single trueending of the war is impossible, or so Michael Vorenberg argues in LINCOLN’S PEACE.

    MICHAEL VORENBERG is the author of Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment, which was a finalist for the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize and was used as the basis for the screenplay of Stephen Spielberg’s 2012 film, Lincoln. He is also the author of The Emancipation Proclamation: A Brief History with Documents, as well as a number of essays on legal and constitutional history. His writings have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, Politico, and the Washington Post. He teaches at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

    For more info on the book click HERE

  • Zodiac with a terrifying twist, in a taut thriller from author Mark Stevens about a reformed serial killer and the disgraced journalist he coaxes into finding the imposter trading on his name.

    For more info on the book click HERE

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  • TOM CLANCY LINE OF DEMARCATION starts with the destruction of a US Coast Guard cutter and the loss of her entire crew. But the USCG Claiborne was on an innocuous mission to open a sea lane between an oil field off the coast of South America and the refineries of southern Louisiana. The destruction of the ship—tragic as it is—won't stop that mission from continuing. So, who would sacrifice twenty-two men and women just to slow down the plan? That's the question plaguing Jack, who is in Guyana working on a deal to get his company, Hendley Associates, in on the ground floor of this new discovery. But Russia’s Wagner Group and a pack of Venezuelan narco-terrorists have other ideas—and will risk war with the United States to see them through. It's up to Jack to identify the killers before they draw a bead on him . . . but how can he do that when the line of demarcation between friend and foe is constantly shifting?

    ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

    M.P. Woodward is the New York Times bestselling author of Tom Clancy Shadow State and The Handler CIA espionage series (The Handler and Dead Drop). Woodward served for a decade as a U.S. Naval intelligence officer before going on to an international career in tech and streaming media. He lives in the Pacific Northwest.

    Thirty-five years ago, Tom Clancy was a Maryland insurance broker with a passion for naval history. Years before, he had been an English major at Baltimore’s Loyola College and had always dreamed of writing a novel. His first effort, The Hunt for Red October, sold briskly as a result of rave reviews, then catapulted onto the New York Times bestseller list after President Reagan pronounced it “the perfect yarn.” From that day forward, Clancy established himself as an undisputed master at blending exceptional realism and authenticity, intricate plotting, and razor-sharp suspense. He passed away in October 2013.

    For more info on the book click HERE

  • Brian has worked in book publishing, public relations, and marketing for three decades, having helped thousands of authors, from first-time, self-published writers to New York Times best-selling authors, including Dr. Ruth, Stephen Covey, Ken Blanchard, Mark Victor Hansen, and Comedian George Wallace, . A published author and an award-winning blogger (http://www.bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com),

    Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, he now resides in Westchester, NY.

  • Art Shamsky, 1969 New York Met and noted author, shares with readers stories and anecdotes from his 50-year association with the New York Mets. Through stories of varying lengths, readers will be privy to behind-the-scenes and first-hand accounts of the New York Mets from lovable losers to impossible winners in 1969, and beyond, including stories about today’s players. We witness the leadership of Tom Seaver, the steady hand of manager Gil Hodges, what it was like to share right field with charismatic Ron Swoboda, what it was like to grace a magazine cover with 1960s supermodel Lauren Hutton, in addition to a wealth of stories about the Mets, the organization, and its star players over the past half century.

    For more info on the book click HERE

  • Throughout the war on the Eastern Front, there were two consistent trends. The Red Army battled to learn how to fight and win, while involved in a struggle for its very survival. Butby 1944 it had a leadership that was able to wield it with lethal effect and with far more effective equipment than before. By contrast, the Wehrmacht had commenced a slow process of decline after the invasion of the Soviet Union.Hitler became increasingly unwilling to delegate decision-making to commanders in the field, which had been crucial to earlier success. The long years of fighting had also taken a heavy toll. Thousands of irreplaceable junior officers and NCOs were dead, wounded or prisoners.
    Renowned Eastern Front expert Prit Buttar expertly brings these contrasting fortunes to life, trends which culminated in the huge battles of Bagration. As this masterful study conclusively shows, in 1944 the Red Army finally puttogether a campaign that utterly destroyed the German Army Group Centre. The Wehrmacht suffered the loss of over 300,000 men killed, wounded or taken prisoner and the Red Army rolled forward across Belarus to the outskirts ofWarsaw. The end of the war was still many months away, and the Germans managed to reconstruct their line on the Eastern Front, but final victory for the Soviet Union was now only a matter of time as a direct consequence of Bagration.

    About the Author:

    Prit Buttar studied medicine at Oxford and Londonbefore joining the British Army as a doctor. After leaving the army, he worked as a general practitioner. An established expert on the Eastern Front in 20th-century military history, his most recent titles include the critically acclaimed new history of the siege of Leningrad: To Besiege A City:Leningrad 1941–42 and Hero City: Leningrad 1943–44. He lives in Kirkcudbright, Scotland.

  • Wall Street Journal bestselling author and attorney Robert Bailey consistently delivers propulsive legal thrillers that have earned him a passionate and devoted following of readers worldwide and favorable comparisons to John Grisham. His ten previous books have received wide critical acclaim for the tight pacing and twisty plots, as well as for their complex, layered characters who often grapple with ethical dilemmas.

    Bailey’s eleventh thriller, THE BOOMERANG, is somewhatof a departure for the celebrated writer. It’s a political, conspiracy thrillerfeaturing a breakneck road trip from the White House to the dusty plains of rural New Mexico. It’s also his most deeply personal book to date, as the story was inspired by his experience having a ringside seat in 2017 to two battles against cancer—fought by his father, who passed away, and his wife, who survived, thankfully.

    ABOUT ROBERT BAILEY

    Robert Bailey is the Wall Street Journal bestsellingauthor of the Jason Rich series, which includes Rich Justice, Rich Waters, and Rich Blood; the Bocephus Haynes series, which includes The Wrong Side and Legacy of Lies; and the award-winning McMurtrie and Drake legal thriller series, including The Final Reckoning, The Last Trial, Between Black and White, and The Professor. He also wrote the inspirational novel, The Golfer’s Carol.

    The author lives in Huntsville, Alabama, with his wife, Dixie, and they are the proud parents of three children, two dogs, and two cats.

    Website: www.robertbaileybooks.com

    Facebook:@RobertBaileyBooks

    Instagram: @rbailey32

  • About the Book

    When a plea for help sends retired Detroit cop Kurt Argento to the small desert town of Fenton, Arizona things immediately don’t appear to be as they seem, and he finds himself unraveling secrets that want to stay hidden and questioning his own moral compass.

    About the Author

    Adam Plantinga is a patrol sergeant with the San Francisco Police Department whose first two nonfiction books— 400 Things Cops Know and Police Craft— have become his calling cards to the world of thrillers. 400 Things was nominated for an Agatha, a Macavity, and was deemed “the new Bible for crime writers” by the Wall Street Journal. Adam’s fiction debut, The Ascent, was published in 2024 and became a USA Today bestseller.

  • About Only in America

    A probing biography of world-renowned Jewish singer and actor Al Jolson and the history of his performance in and the making of The Jazz Singer.

    About the Author

    RICHARD BERNSTEIN has been a reporter, culture critic, and commentator for more than thirty years. He was a foreign correspondent in Asia and Europe for Time and The New York Times, and was the first bureau chief in China for Time. He is the author of several books, among them China 1945; A Girl Named Faithful Plum; Ultimate Journey, a New York Times Best Book of the Year; and Out of the Blue, named one of the seven best books of the year by The Boston Globe. He lives in New York City.

  • In INGENIOUS, Richard Munson provides an incisive and rich account of Benjamin Franklin’s life and career, recovering this vital part of Franklin’s story, revealing his modern relevance, and offering a compelling portrait of a shrewd experimenter,clever innovator, and visionary physicist whose fame opened doors to negotiate French support and funding for American independence. Munson’s riveting narrative explores how science underpins Franklin’s entire story— from tradesman to inventor to nation-founder—and argues that Franklin’s political life cannot be understood without giving proper credit to his scientific accomplishments.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

    Richard Munson is an author and clean-energy advocate. His previous books include Tesla: Inventor of the Modern.

  • Alex Kenna is a mystery writer, prosecutor, and amateur painter. Her first novel, WHAT MEETS THE EYE, was a 2023 Shamus Award Finalist for best first P.I. novel. Her second novel, BURN THIS NIGHT, was released in November 2024. Alex lives in Los Angeles with her husband, sons, and giant schnauzer, Zelda.

  • In small towns throughout America, neighbors have gathered on summer evenings at Minor League stadiums, clambering into seats with popcorn and cheap beer in hand. Many of these Minor League towns were former textile and railroad hubs, hit hard in recent years by various economic forces, yet baseball persisted. That is, until 2020, when Major League Baseball (MLB) drastically contracted the minors, shutting down 42 teams. In HOMESTAND: Small Town Baseball and the Fight for the Soul of America (Doubleday), journalist and veteran Will Bardenwerper looks at the impact of this decision and what it says about America’s core values through the lens of one small town in upstate New York. This poignant memoir celebrates a working-class community that fought to keep their small baseball team alive. It’s not just a story about America’s pastime— it’s a story about America, and where we go from here.

    WILL BARDENWERPER has contributed to The New York Times, The Washington Post, Harper’s and other outlets and is the author The Prisoner in His Palace: Saddam Hussein, His American Guards, and What History Leaves Unsaid. He served as an Airborne Ranger–qualified infantry officer in Iraq and was awarded a Combat Infantryman Badge and Bronze Star. Before working in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, he received a B.A. from Princeton and M.A. from Johns Hopkins University. He will be available for interviews for pieces timed to publication, as would several of the memorable people who make up the Muckdog fanbase.

    For more info on the book click HERE

  • An in-depth history of the US Navy’s light aircraft carrier the USS Princeton and its operational exploits in the Pacific Theater of World War II.

    About the Author:

    David R. Leick served in the US Marine Corpsfollowing High School before attending California State University, Chico, where he earned a master’s degree and went into teaching. In 2005 he stepped away from the classroom to work as a security contractor in Afghanistan on the Ambassador’s Protective Detail before working more generally for the Worldwide Protective Service as a training manager. David now writes full time and lives in Lincoln, California.




  • Packed with personal accounts of the action, this is a vivid narrative history of the often-overlooked USAAF campaign in North Africa and Sicily in World War II.

    About the Author:

    Thomas McKelvey Cleaver has been a published writer for the past 40 years, with his work including the best-selling Osprey titles The Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club (2021), Going Downtown (2022), The Cactus Air Force (2022) alongside the late Eric Hammel, and most recently Clean Sweep (2023). Tom served in the US Navy in Vietnam.



  • A haunted woman stalked by a serial killer confronts the horrors of fairy tales and the nightmares of real life in a breathtaking novel of psychological suspense by a Bram Stoker Award–winning author.

    About the Author Cynthia Pelayo is the Bram Stoker Award–winningauthor of Forgotten Sisters, Children of Chicago, and The Shoemaker’s Magician. In addition to writing genre-blending novels that incorporate fairy-tale, mystery, detective,crime, and horror elements, Pelayo has written numerous short stories, including the collection Lotería, andthe poetry collection Crime Scene.The recipient of the 2021 International Latino Book Award, she holds a master of fine arts in writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She lives in Chicago with her family. For more information, visitwww.cinapelayo.com

  • The stupendous publication of Edna Ferber’s Giant in 1952 set off a storm of protest over the novel’s portrayal of Texas manners, money and mores with oil-rich Texans threatening to shoot, lynch or ban Ferber from ever entering the state again.
    In Giant Love, Julie Gilbert writes of the internationally best-selling Ferber, one of the most widely read writers in the first half of the 20th Century – her evolution from mid-west maverick girl-reporter to Pulitzer Prize winning, beloved American novelist, from her want-to-be actress days to becoming Broadway’s acclaimed prize-winning playwright whose collaborators – George S. Kauffman and Moss Hart, among them, were, along with Ferber, herself, the most successful playwrights of their time.

    bout the Author

    JULIE GILBERT was born in New York City and was educated at Boston University. She is the author of four books, among them a biography of her great aunt, Edna Ferber, Edna Ferber and Her Circle and Opposite Attraction: The Lives of Erich Maria Remarque and Paulette Goddard, Gilbert is a member of The Dramatists Guild, The Writers Guild of America, East, The Authors Guild, Actors’ Equity, and League of Professional Theater Women. She has taught Creative Writing at New York University’s School of Continuing Education and currently heads The Writers Academy at The Kravis Center for the Performing Arts in West Palm Beach, Florida where she lives part time, as well as in New York City.

    For more info on the book click HERE

  • Published to coincide with the 250th anniversary, this sweeping narrative is an astute exploration of thefive critical military events that changed the outcome of the Revolutionary War.

    About theAuthor:

    John R. Maass is a staff member of the NationalMuseum of the U.S. Army at Fort Belvoir. He received a BA in history from Washington and Lee University and a PhD in early American history at The Ohio State University. He is the author of several books on U.S. military history, including North Carolina & the French and Indian War (2013); Defending a New Nation, 1783-1811 (2013); The Road to Yorktown (2015); George Washington's Virginia (2017); and The Battle of Guilford Courthouse (2020).

    For more info on the book click HERE

  • Eloisa has published over 30 historical romances, many of which have hit the bestseller lists. She also wrote a bestselling memoir, Paris in Love, as well as a contemporary novel, Lizzie and Dante. Her books are published in 28 languages and 30 countries, from Slovakia to Sweden. Worldwide, she has approximately 7 million books published in print or electronically. She lives in New York City and Florence, Italy. After graduating from Harvard University, Eloisa earned a M.Phil. from Oxford University and a Ph.D. from Yale and eventually became a Shakespeare professor, publishing an academic book with Oxford University Press. Her "double life” as a professor and romance writer is a source of fascination to the media and her readers. In her professorial guise, she's written a New York Times op-ed defending the romance genre, as well as articles published everywhere from women's magazines such as More to journals such as the Romance Writers' Report.

  • The Last Manger: How Earl Weaver Tricked, Tormented,and Reinvented Baseball by journalist John Millerpublished by Avid Reader Press, a division of Simon & Schuster . This is the first major biography of the legendary Baltimore Orioles manager —who has been described as “the Copernicus of baseball” and “the grandfather of the modern game.”

    John W. Miller is a writer, baseball coach, and contributing writer at America Magazine. He has reported from six continents and over forty countries for The Wall Street Journal and has also written for Time, NPR, and The Baltimore Sun. Miller is the codirector of the acclaimed 2020 PBS film Moundsville and the founder of Moundsville.org.

  • She’s a romance writer burned out on love. He’s her famous baseball star ex-husband. The last man she wants to be forced to work with is the one who broke her heart.

    Becca Kinzer lives in Springfield, Illinois, where she works as a critical care nurse. When she’s not busy taking care of sick patients or using up all the storage on her phone with pictures of her dog, she enjoys making up lighthearted stories with serious laughs. She is the author of multiple titles including Dear Henry, Love Edith, which won the 2024 Carol Award for debut novel. First Love, Second Draft is her third novel. Visit Becca online at www.beccakinzer.com