Thecuriousmanspodcast

Matt Crawford speaks with author Will Bardenwerper about his book, Homestand: Small Town Baseball and the Fight for the Soul of America. What happens when a minor league team—the heart and soul of a Rust Belt town in western New York—is shut down by the billionaires who run Major League Baseball? Batavia, New York—betw

Matt Crawford speaks with Susan Polgar about her book, Rebel Queen: The Cold War, Misogyny, and the Making of a Grandmaster. A real life Queen’s Gambit, this captivating memoir tells the story of one of the most renowned women in chess history, Susan Polgar, taking on a sexist establishment and rewriting the rules of w

Matt Crawford speaks with author Helen Sheehy about her novel, Just Willa.  Just Willa is a family chronicle of rare beauty-more than reminiscent of Willa Cather in capturing the regional flavors of America-stretching over a span of decades through an intimate focus on the life of one woman. In it, Helen Sheehy gives u

Matt Crawford speaks with Beau L'Amour about his stewardship of his father Louis L'Amour's catalog. L'Amour eventually wrote 100 novels, over 250 short stories, and (as of 2010) sold more than 320 million copies of his work. By the 1970s his writings were translated into over ten languages. Every one of his works is st

Matt Crawford speaks with author Lady Dyana Ziegler about her book, Midnight Train From Georgia. Midnight Train from Georgia chronicles the incredible rise of Gladys Knight and the Pips from their origins singing in a small Atlanta church to their induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. When two families' destinie

Matt Crawford speaks with professor and author Shelly Fisher Fishkin about her book, Jim: The Life and Afterlives of Huckleberry Finn’s Comrade. Mark Twain’s Jim, introduced in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), is a shrewd, self‑aware, and enormously admirable enslaved man, one of the first fully drawn Black fathe