The HPPR Radio Readers Book Club is an on-air, on-line community of readers exploring themes of interest to those who live and work on the High Plains.
It’s time to build your summer reading list as recommended by HPPR Radio Readers!
Perhaps you have a book of your own to add to the list. It’s easy enough to do.
Simply select a book you’d like to recommend for summer reading. Write a 550 – 650 word essay about the book. It’s not a book report, but instead let us know what you liked about the book, why you’re recommending it. Imagine sitting in a coffee shop with a friend and talking about what you’re reading. Once you have your essay written, you record!
Starting in June, we’ll post the 2025 Summer Reading List and each week, with each Radio Readers BookByte, the list will grow. Oh, and if you need to buy a book, support your favorite independent bookstore. For a list of some of our favorites, click here.
If you’re interested in joining the Radio Readers Steering Committee, serving as a book leader or contributing a Radio Readers BookByte, click here or contact Kathleen Holt at kholt@hppr.org for more information.
Listen for Radio Readers BookBytes Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays during Morning Edition and All Things Considered. _____________________________________________________________________
Become a Radio Reader! · Contribute a Radio Readers BookByte from the convenience of your home or office!Click here for basic directions. Worried about recording at home? Click here for the HPPR Radio Readers Tips for Recording, or, if you’re a techie and want a deeper dive into recording, click here .
· Weigh in on the themes or suggest books for upcoming seasons! Join our email group by contacting Kathleen Holt at kholt@hppr.org. _____________________________________________________________________ Have a favorite Radio Readers BookByte from the past? Download materials from previous HPPR Radio Readers Book Club seasons by scrolling back through the archive below; you can also search the site for content at the top of this page. _________________________________________________________ HPPR's Radio Readers Book Club is made possible in part by generous gifts from long time friend Lon Frahm from Colby, Kansas and, of course, by your membership support.. To help this station further our regional features, join the mission with a pledge of support. Click to give, and THANK YOU!
For High Plains Polar Radio Readers Club, I'm Shane Timson in Colby, Kansas.Today, I'm talking about the book Dust Bowl, The Southern Plains in the 1930s by Donald Worster. This book is a fascinating read because I have studied this topic probably more than any other since moving to Kansas in 1986.
This is Jennifer Kassebaum, owner of Flint Hills Books in Council Grove Kansas, for High Plains Public Radio Reader’s Summer Book Club Reading List. Summer reading means different things for different people, but a good book is always in season. That is why I selected SIPSWORTH by Simon Van Booy as a book to review this summer for High Plains Public Radio.
I’m Leslie Barrett and this is a Radio Readers BookByte from High Plains Public Radio. I’ve just read Dangerous Latitudes, a historical spy novel by Jack Woodville London, a historian and award-winning author from Groom, located in the Texas panhandle.
For High Plains Public Radio Readers Book Club, I'm Shane Timson in Colby, Kansas.Today we are going to discuss Henry David Thoreau's Civil Disobedience. I chose this interesting book because we live in a world today where we disagree with the government and what it does; people take to the streets and protest, but they get violent.
Hello, Radio Readers. I’m Julie A. Sellers for the HPPR Radio Readers Book Club. Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murders by Jesse Q. Sutanto is a cozy mystery that combines a suspenseful who-done-it with themes of family, aging, usefulness, and dreams.
Hello, my name is Andrea Elise and I live in Amarillo, Texas.When we think of science and poetry, we often attribute one discipline to our left brains and the other to our right brains.
Hi, I’m Tara Shaw from Edina, Minnesota—although I grew up in Kansas and am a longtime HPPR listener. I’ve got a summer reading pick for you that might sound a little hefty, but I promise it’s a page-turner. It actually just hit #1 on the New York Times nonfiction list. The book is Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson.
Hello, everyone! From Pasadena, California, this is Jill Hunting for the HPPR Radio Readers Book Club.My choice for the 2025 Summer Read is F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. This year marks the 100th anniversary of its publication.
For High Plains Public Radio Readers Book Club, I'm Shane Timson in Colby, Kansas.I'm talking about the book When the News Broke by Heather Hindershot. This book talks about the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago.
This is Shelley Armitage for Radio Readers Book Bytes Summer Reading wishing you a good day. In my latest book of poems, From a Sandstone Ledge, I explore the ways in which landscape draws us into a greater understanding of ourselves and others by experiencing a deeper connection with the places we inhabit.
On Sunday, May 4, 2025, book leaders and contributors from the HPPR Radio Readers Book Club came together in Garden City, KS, for a two-hour, live on-air discussion of the novel, a travelogue, a memoir, and a comic blog explored with an impressive array of Radio Reader BookBytes this season.
I was somewhat filled with trepidation when we selected Humor Me! as the theme for the 2025 Spring Read. Perhaps it was a career working with troubled kids and families or maybe I am “just one of those people” but I find my personal humor somewhat dark.
Greetings from Goodwell in the Oklahoma Panhandle! I’m Marjory Hall with a BookByte for the Radio Reader’s Series. Words are important. The words we use reflect how we perceive the world and how we react to it. We can choose whether that perception is positive and accepting or negative, rejecting people and experiences without really giving them much consideration.
In his seminal work Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, Scott McCloud argues, “We all live in a state of profound isolation. No other human being can ever know what it’s like to be you from the inside. And no amount of reaching out to others can ever make them feel exactly what you feel.
Hello High Plains listeners.This is Stella for HPPR’s radio reader book club.I recently read Allie Brosch’s graphic novel, Hyperbole and a Half which is the fourth book included in our spring read.
Hi there. I’m Jenny Inzerillo, HPPR’s Music Director and host for High Plains Morning. Today, for HPPR Radio Readers Book Club, I’m going to review the fourth book in the Spring Read. The full title is Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened, by beloved underground blogger Allie Brosh.
Like many of the books in our series on humor, Allie Brosh's Hyperbole and a Half is so specifically temporally located that a less generous person, or even my younger college-aged students, might call it "dated." There is something about the freneticism, vulnerability, and seeming universality of "adulting," to crib a similarly dated phrase, that calls to mind BuzzFeed quizzes, Onion horoscopes, and the early days of YouTube virality.
Hello, Radio Readers. I’m Julie A. Sellers, author of the novel Ann of Sunflower Lane. Welcome to this High Plains Public Radio Radio Readers Book Club BookByte of Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened by Allie Brosh.
Hello! I’m Tito Aznar for the HPPR Radio Readers Book Club’s 2025 Spring Read. Allie Brosh’s Hyperbole and a Half is a book that thrives on failure: funny and painfully relatable failure. Whether it’s failing at adulthood, failing at self-improvement, or failing at simply understanding why she is the way she is, Brosh embraces her imperfections in a hilarious and deeply honest way.
Sometimes, being an adult just means being a larger version of the tiny little monsters we were when we were children. In Allie Brosh's Hyperbole and a Half, the book-length collection of Brosh's popular mid-aughts webcomic and blog, readers encounter the familiar struggles of getting up in the morning, compulsive behaviors, and everyday absurdities.
Congratulations to HPPR Radio Reader Miriam Scott of Amarillo, shown here with a 2022 Kansas Association of Broadcasters first place award for her commentary in a Radio Readers BookByte written and produced in the 2022 Spring Read – Graphic Novels: Worth a Thousand Words.
In case you missed it, the culmination of the Fall Read featured a two-hour live book discussion on Sunday, November 17th with book leaders and community partners discussing the breadth of books from the latest series, "Through the Eyes of a Child."
Well, Radio Readers, how about this fabulously curious Fall 2024 book series “Through the Eyes of a Child”? What a fascinating stretch of reading over the past several months, right? Alice in Wonderland, Everything Sad is Untrue, The Blue Book of Nebo, and Long Way Down: our reading journey this fall has immersed us in various settings, genres, and cultures.
My name is Deana Craighead and I am the Curator of Art at Panhandle Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, Texas. In the spring of 2024, the museum opened Dali’s Wonderland, an exhibition that features a limited-edition copy of Alice in Wonderland from the personal library of local philanthropist Sybil B. Harrington, illustrated by the artist Salvador Dali.
This is Nicole English for the HPPR Radio Readers Book Club for the 2024 Fall Read.This is a discussion of the book, Long Way Down written in prose by Jason Reynolds, and for those who enjoy visuals with their prose, there is the graphic novel version, beautifully illustrated by Danica Novgorodoff.
This is Whitney Hodgin from the historic Cimarron Hotel for HPPR’S Radio Readers BookBytes.When I encounter people with strong personalities, I often consider what it would be like if the two of us were stuck in a broken-down elevator.
Hello everybody, this is Miriam Scott from Amarillo Texas with my last Radio Readers BookByte on Jason Reynold’s Long Way Down.We are still on the elevator with Will and the ghosts of Buck and Dani.
Hello, Radio Readers. I’m Jane Holwerda in Dodge City, Kansas, about the fourth and last book in our Fall 2024 series, “Through the Eyes of a Child.” Published in 2017, Long Way Down is the work of North American author Jason Reynolds, recipient of Newbury and Caldecott literary awards for his children’s and young adult books.
Hello again, this is Miriam Scott from Amarillo Texas.Last time I shared with you that in our book Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds, the protagonist Will, a 15-year-old boy, is on his way to exact revenge on who he believes killed his brother Shawn.
More of Seven Books Plus – A Reading List to Save Democracy – Part IIIby Kansas Reflector columnist Max McCoy. This is a list of seven books to save democracy, one reader at a time.
Four of Seven Books – A Reading List to Save Democracy – Part II by Kansas Reflector columnist Max McCoy. This is a list of seven books to save democracy, one reader at a time.
One day last week, I went to a coffee shop downtown to meet a friend. I had a hardback book tucked under my arm to give to the friend, a historian who shares my interest in the twisting and sometimes tortured arc of American democracy.
Hi everyone. This is Andrea Elise coming to you from Amarillo, Texas, to talk about the memoir, Call Me Debbie.If you have never heard the name “Deborah Voight,” you are probably in the majority.
MIA – Hi, my name is Mia Mendez and I’m 13 years old and I’m from Cimarron, Kansas. I recently read the book Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna by Alda P Dobbs and her second book continuing on to that story The Other Side of the River.
Hello, this is Michelle Reid for the HPPR Radio Readers Summer Book Club. Today I’m here with my granddaughter Claire to talk about one of her favorite books.
Hello, this is Michelle Reid for the HPPR Radio Readers Summer Book Club. Today I’m here with my granddaughter Emma to talk about one of her favorite books. Good morning!
This is James Kenyon for the High Plains Radio Readers Book Summers Reading List. I am an active reader and writer. I authored Golden Rule Days. It is a history of the former high schools in all 105 counties in Kansas.
I am Tracy Million Simmons, owner of Meadowlark Press. As a small regional press specializing in stories from the Midwest, I’d like to take this moment to introduce you to a Meadowlark book. One of my all-time favorites is Gravedigger’s Daughter: Vignettes from a Small Kansas Town, by Cheryl Unruh.
I’m Emilie Moll, editorial assistant for Meadowlark Press, for the High Plains Public Radio Summer Reading List. Our small, independent press specializes in stories from the Midwest, and today I'll be talking about a Meadowlark Book, I’ve Been Fighting This War Within Myself by Antonio Sanchez-Day.
It is with deep sadness that we share the passing of PJ Pronger of Amarillo. PJ was a Book Leader for the 2020 Spring Read – Radio Waves and a contributor of Radio Reader BokBytes. We appreciated his insight as well as his eloquence. The HPPR Radio Readers Book Club is an on-air, on-line community of readers exploring themes of interest to those who live and work on the High Plains. We will miss PJ in that community and thank his family for sharing him with us.
The HPPR Radio Readers Book Club is sad to learn of the passing of Mike Strong of Hays and Kansas City. For more than five years, Mike has been a steady source of Radio Readers BookBytes. We continue to air his thoughts as a tribute to our friend and as a thank you to Mike for sharing his insight, eloquence and broad talent. Radio Readers across the High Plains will long remember you, Mike. Rest well.
Hello, Radio Readers! I’m Jane Holwerda and – believe it or not –it’s time to wrap up this most incredible of Spring Reads, “Water, Water, Neverwhere.”
To end this set of readings with Plainwater by Anne Carson feels perfect. If not perfect, well, it still feels. Carson, once described by Bruce Hainley as “a philosopher of heartbreak” doesn’t just mix genres in her works but calls into question linguistic and cultural bedrocks that inform our reading of the continuity of human experiences.
I’m Pat Tyrer from Canyon, Texas for the High-Plains-Public-Radio-Readers Book Club.Today I’ll be sharing some poetry, all tangentially connected to our spring theme of “Water, Water, Neverwhere.” I’ve included poems from famous poets as well as those from poets on the High Plains.
Hello, Radio Readers! I’m Jane Holwerda from Dodge City, Kansas, thinking about Plainwater, a multilayered work from early in the career of Anne Carson, a writer pegged as a contender for a Nobel.
I’m Pat Tyrer from Canyon, Texas for the High-Plains-Public-Radio-Readers Book Club.Today I’ll be sharing some poetry, all tangentially connected to our spring theme of “Water, Water, Neverwhere.”
Hello, Radio Readers! Jane Holwerda from Dodge City, Kansas, here to reflect on Anne Carson’s Plainwater, an eclectic collection of essays and poetry – and just in time for April, National Poetry Month.
Hello HPPR listeners. I’m Andrea Elise in Amarillo, and I am excited to tell you about a poem called “A Song of Winter Weather.”Isn’t it fun to stumble upon an author who, though widely published, is new to you?
Through essay and poetry, Carson envisions a present-day interview with a seventh-century BC poet, and offers varied lecturettes. She imagines the muse of a fifteenth-century painter attending a phenomenology conference in Italy.
This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR. The book is “Running With Sherman” by Christopher McDougall.Digit, another of our rescues, was a three-legged dog. Medium height, two front legs and one back leg. Wayside Waifs thought she had been run over and tried to put her broken back leg together but eventually had to amputate it. Still, for the most part, you would think she barely noticed, although going upstairs was tougher with only one rear leg to push her upward.
When I saw the selections for the Radio Readers Fall read I was so intrigued by the idea of donkey racing that I read the last book first! “Running with Sherman” by Christopher McDougall just sounded like a book I’d enjoy and its 340 pages didn’t disappoint.
Hello, Radio Readers! I’m Jane Holwerda from Dodge City, Kansas. I’ve been sitting with the words and imagery of Ada Limon, a poet who calls both Sonoma, California and Lexington, Kentucky home. The Hurting Kind is her 6th collection of poetry over 20 years.
I’m Bob Seay. This is the third of three HPPR book byte commentaries I’ve made about “Running with Sherman,” by Christopher McDougall.Sherman is more than a story of the little donkey that could. McDougall immerses his readers in the world of competitive burro racing, a sport I never even knew existed before I read this.
Hello, Radio Readers. I’m Jane Holwerda from Dodge City, Kansas, enjoying the gestalt of Christopher McDougall’s Running with Sherman: The Donkey with the Heart of a Hero. A journalist and marathoner, McDougall is a self-described city boy who moved with his family off the grid to Pennsylvania Amish country.
Hello, my name is Andrea Elise and I live in Amarillo, Texas.Let’s start this book byte with a quote from Robert Browning. Browning once wrote: “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” In other words, we can try all we want to achieve our goals, but if they are too easy, there is no challenge.
This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR. The book is “Running With Sherman” by Christopher McDougall.As much as “Running With Sherman” centers about a donkey who is rescued from near death caused by ignorant care, the author, with family and friends bring out a range of issues and needs vital to the functioning of community, relationships and living with a sense of personal worth.
I’m Bob Seay with another book byte from High Plains Public Radio. This segment is the second of three commentaries on the book, “Running with Sherman,” by Christopher McDougall.
This is Leslie VonHolten from the High Plains of Kansas with another HPPR Radio Readers Book Byte.Here on the High Plains, we can forget that some folks live lives separated from animals. I have two dogs, which I am obsessed with, and every so often my work finds me on a gravel road, chatting it up with curious cattle gathered along a fence line.
Hello, Radio Readers! I’m Jane Holwerda for High Plains Public Radio. About our 2023 Summer Read. You know, every week in June and through most of July, Radio Readers have talked about books worthy of sharing, and now we have an incredible book list. Do you have time for one more recommendation?
Hello, my name is Andrea Elise and I live in Amarillo, Texas. I just finished reading the excellent short story “Miss Brill” by Katherine Mansfield, published in the author’s 1922 collection of stories called The Garden Party.
Hi, I am Holly Mercer, Library Director at Dodge City Community College. I selected the book Poverty, By America written by Matthew Desmond because I read his first book Evicted when it was published in 2016 and found it to be intriguing.
My summer reading recommendation is not a book, but a magazine—which is also, in so many ways, a community. The New Territory calls itself “an autobiography of the Lower Midwest,”—the Lower Midwest being Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Northwest Arkansas, Southern Illinois, and Iowa. But in their words, quote, “When it feels right, we color outside those border lines.”
Hello, I’m Sara Crow, co-owner of Crow & Co. Books in Hutchinson. I’ll be talking about The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, by Michael Finkel, a true crime story about one of the world’s most successfully notorious art thieves in history, Stéphane Breitwieser.
Hello, HPPR Book Club members. My name is Andrea Elise and I live in Amarillo, TX.I just finished reading Barbara Brown Taylor’s extraordinary memoir, Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith.
Hello, my name is Andrea Elise and I live in Amarillo, TX. I just finished reading Rosemary Brown’s compelling memoir, Unfinished Symphonies, published in 1971.
I’m Pat Tyrer from Canyon, Texas for the High-Plains-Public-Radio-Readers Book Club. Over the past few years, I’ve noticed that some of the most provocative and enjoyable writing is being published in the genre of young adult novels. Such is the case with Daniel Nayeri’s Everything Sad is Untrue (A True Story). In fact, I was so affected by this book that I have bought and given away several copies.
Let’s turn to the book that is the subject of this review: Ann Nepolitano’s Hello Beautiful. I read – or rather devoured – this book shortly after it was released in March of this year due to an ordering error.
In case you missed it, the culmination of the Spring Read went down on Sunday, May 7th with book leaders and community partners discussing the breadth of books from the latest series, "In Touch with the World." Click the audio link at the op of this page to hear it in full.
The HPPR Radio Readers Book Club’s 2023 Spring Read – In Touch with the World ends on Sunday, May 7, 2023, with a two-hour, live book discussion. Since January, 27 contributors have posted 51 Radio Readers BookBytes covering 23 books from 14 countries.
Hello, friends. I’m Jane Holwerda for High Plains Public Radio Radio Readers with a friendly FYI: the end is near for this most incredible Spring 2023 Read, “In Touch with the World…At Home on the High Plains.”
Thank you for joining us for the High Plains Public Radio Readers Book Club. I’m Jessica Sadler, a Science Teacher and STEAM facilitator in Olathe, Kansas. I am here with the other book leaders to discuss Once Were Warriors by Alan Duff.
Once Were Warriors is a brutal story of a Maori family living in poverty in New Zealand. The author, Alan Duff, is also Maori, and he spent part of his childhood in low-income housing.
Our final book, the fourteenth in our series is Once Were Warriors, Alan Duff's harrowing vision New Zealand's indigenous people some two hundred years after the English conquest.
Welcome, this is Mary Scott with a Radio Readers BookByte for the HPPR Radio Readers Book Club. I recently finished “I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and was Shot by the Taliban” written by Malala Yousafzai and Christina Lamb.
Hi, I’m Marcy McKay from Amarillo, author of the award-winning novel, Pennies from Burger Heaven. I’m excited to be a Radio Reader for High Plains Public Radio’s Book Club. The book I chose for In Touch with The World was I Am Malala, by Malala Yousufzai. She’s the girl who stood up for education in Pakistan and was shot by the Taliban in 2012 when she was just 15 years old.
Hello, Radio Readers; this is Kim Perez, and I am coming to you from Hays with a few thoughts about the book I Am Malala for the spring 2023 Radio Readers Book Club.
Hello, Radio Readers. Jane Holwerda here from Dodge City, Kansas. It’s almost the end of our Fall 2022 read, Rural Life Revisited. And of course, we’re gearing up for our on-air program in mid-November to revisit the ways our perceptions of rural life may have been challenged by our conversations about Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg OH, Annie Proulx’s That Old Ace in the Hole, and Winfred Gallagher’s How the Post Office Created America.
As the United States expanded in the 1800’s, communication needs also expanded. Mail service was social media. People would write to tell relatives where they were and what they were doing. So, when Facebook’s subject line entices us with “Mamie Smith was in Hays …..” the line is far from new.
One of our most visible unnoticed most ubiquitous features of daily life was the result of the US Post Office solving a need and being sensitive to feelings. House numbers. Free city delivery by postal carriers to addresses. Much later, 1923, mailboxes on houses.
This is the first time for me to review a book for Book Byte. I am sitting at my kitchen table writing to you while my cat, Kitten, tries to take my pen away.
Hi, I'm Alan Erwin from Amarillo and I've been reading Winifred Gallagher's How the Post Office Created America.The American postal system is a marvel. Often maligned, it is a miracle of efficiency that every one of us takes for granted.
This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR. The book is “How the Post Office Created America” by Winifred Gallagher.As I was working on reviewing Winifred Gallagher’s book, I was also shooting photos and video for a dance concert. One of the pieces was nostalgic about physical, paper mail. Specifically, about getting paper rather than texts or email.
In the novel Medicine Walk by Richard Wagamese, hunting is a major theme. Perhaps some readers are surprised by how young Franklin Starlight is when he learns to clean a rifle, age five, and by age seven, he is learning to shoot. He shoots targets and learns now to track. At the age of nine, he gets his first deer.
Hi, I am Phillip Periman from Amarillo, Texas and I am one of the discussants for the HPPR Reader’s book club. This spring we are reading “Neither Wolf nor Dog” by Kent Nerburn. This is a book I would never have bought except that it was chosen for this year’s read.
Hi, this is Sara Crow, owner of Crow & Co. Books in Hutchinson, Kansas, recommending one of my favorite books of the past year: When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill."I encourage you to consider a question: who benefits, my dear, when you force yourself to not feel angry?"
Raylene Hinz-Penner here, coming from central Kansas, North Newton east of Wichita, but I grew up east of Liberal in High Plains territory and am delighted to share in the Book Byte program. A retired college English professor, I am sharing a book that is not fiction, my normal pick, but a lyric genealogical history by notable historian, Tiya Miles, a most amazing book about an object, a sparkling masterpiece of African American women’s history published in 2021. Its title: All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake.”
Hello, my name is Andrea Elise and I live in Amarillo, Texas.When you think of the different fairy tales you’ve read to your children or students, and those other people have read to you, what are the first four words that often come to mind?
Hello Fellow Readers. This is Jennifer Kassebaum, Owner of Flint Hills Books in Council Grove, Kansas for the High Plains Public Radio Readers Book Club.One of my favorite books this summer is LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY, a debut novel by Bonnie Garmus. I admit that I enjoy a book with a sense of humor, and LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY is witty and smart.
Hello, I am Jennifer Kassebaum, Owner of Flint Hills Books in Council Grove, Kansas.For my first review for the High Plains Public Radio Readers Book Club, I have selected a University of Oklahoma Press publication titled FOR WANT OF WINGS: A Bird with Teeth and A Dinosaur in the Family (2022) by author Jill Hunting. This book is about Hunting’s great-grandfather, Thomas Russell, who discovered 83-million-year-old dinosaur bones in western Kansas during an expedition with the legendary paleontologist O C Marsh in 1872.
Hello! This is Michelle Reid in Dodge City for HPPR’s Radio Readers Book Club Book Bytes. I’m the school librarian at Dodge City High School, and I will mostly be talking about some of the best young adult books I’ve read. Please don’t make the mistake of thinking that young adult books are only for teens. YA authors are producing some of the best written, most thoughtful books that are being published right now.
Welcome to “Book Bytes;” I am Dr. Mary Scott, Professor of Biology at Dodge City Community College. I want to introduce you to We are Not from Here by Jenny Torres Sanchez. This gut wrenching, acclaimed novel is based on factual research of the dangerous routes followed by undocumented immigrants desperate to get to the United States.
Hi, I am Holly Mercer, Library Director at the Dodge City Community College. If you are like me, you may have several authors you look forward to reading whenever a new book is published. For me, Brené Brown is one such author. Two of my favorite titles from her are Raising Strong and Dare to Lead.
Gilead (2004), Home (2008), Lila (2014), and Jack (2021) by Marilynne Robinson Recommended by Jane Holwerda, Dodge City, KS
Camp Fossil Eyes: Digging for the Origins of Words (2009) by Mark Abley and Kathryn Adams (Illustrator) Recommended by Andrea Elise, Amarillo, TX
Why Poetry? (2017), by Matthew Zapruder Recommended by Dr. Phillip Periman, Amarillo, TX
I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter (2019) by Erika L. Sánchez Recommended by Mary Scott, Dodge City, KS
Watch Your Tongue: What Our Everyday Sayings and Idioms Figuratively Mean (2018) by Mark Abley Recommended by Andrea Elise, Amarillo, TX
Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank Recommended by Conny Bogaard, Holcomb & Garden City, KS
Pennies from Hamburger Heaven by Marcy McKay (2015) Backstory by author Marcy McKay, Amarillo TX
Mountains Beyond Mountains, a Biography of Dr. Paul Farmer (2004) by Tracy Kidder Recommended by Andrea Elise, Amarillo, TX
Lost & Found by Kathryn Schulz (2022) and Running Out: In Search of Water on the High Plains by Lucas Bessire (2021) Recommended by Leslie VonHolten, Humanities Kansas, Lawrence, KS
Walking the Llano: A Texas Memoir of Place by Shelley Armitage (2017) Remarks by author Shelley Armitage, Los Cruces, NM and Vega, TX
The Island of Missing Trees: A Novel by Elif Shafak (2021) Recommended by Shelley Armitage, Los Cruces, NM and Vega, TX
1493- Uncovering the New World Columbus Created (2011)by Charles Mann Recommended by Dennis Garcia, originally from Garden City, KS, now Chula Vista, CA
On The Great Highway: The Wanderings and Adventures of a Special Correspondent (1901) by James Creelman Recommended by Mike Strong, KCK and Hays, KS
Modern Instances: the Craft of Photography. A Memoir by Stephen Shore (2022) Recommended by Dr. Phillip Periman, Amarillo, TX
PrairyErth: A Deep Map by William Least Heat Moon(1999) and My Flint Hills:Observations & Reminiscences from America's Last Tallgrass Prairie by Jim Hoy(2022) Recommended by Michael Grauer, native Kansan, long-time resident of the Texas Panhandle and the Llano Estacado, and currently Oklahoma City
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Family by Patrick Radden Keefe (2021) Recommended by Gaye Tibbets, Hutchinson, KS
Atlas of the Heart (2021) by Brené Brown Recommended by Holly Mercer, Dodge City Community College, Dodge City, KS
Children Whose Names We Do Not Know by Jenny Torres Sanchez (2021) Recommended by Mary Scott, Dodge City, KS
Amber & Clay by Laura Amy Schultz (2021) Recommended by Michelle Reid, Dodge City, KS
Japanese Fairy Tales compiled by Lafcadio Hearn (1948 & 1958) Recommended by Andrea Elise, Amarillo, TX
For Want of Wings: A Bird with Teeth and a Dinosaur in the Family by Jill Hunting (2022) and Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (2022) Recommended by Jennifer Kassebaum, Council Grove, KS
Japanese Fairy Tales compiled by Lafcadio Hearn (1948 & 1958) Recommended by Andrea Elise, Amarillo, TX
All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family’s Keepsake (2021) Recommended by Ralene Hinz-Penner, born & raised in SW Kansas, currently North Newton, KS
When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill (2022) Recommended by Sara Crow of Crow & Co Independent Book Seller, Hutchinson, KS
Neither Wolf nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder by Kent Nerburn (2002) Recommended by Dr. Phillip Periman, Amarillo, TX
Medicine Walk: A Novel by Richard Wagamese (2016) and Good Seeds: A Menominee Foods Memoir by Thomas Pecore Weso (2016) Recommended & reviewed by Thomas Pecore Weso, formerly of Lawrence, KS, now the San Francisco Bay Area, CA
Native American Stories for Kids: 12 Traditional Stories from Indigenous Tribes Across North America by Thomas Pecore Weso (2022) Recommended by Kathleen Holt, Cimarron, KS
This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR. The books are “Persepolis” and “Persepolis 2” by Marjane Satrapi. Marjane Satrapi was 10 in 1979. I was tending bar and waiting tables at The American Restaurant, the fancy-dining restaurant on top of Hall’s at Crown Center in Kansas City, working with an Iranian waiter and his Iranian wife. Their country was coming apart from the reports we heard.
Hello, Radio Readers; this is Kim Perez, and I am coming to you from the history department at Fort Hays State University. The books I will be discussing, the two-book series Persepolis and Persepolis 2 by Marjane Satrapi, are the first in our Spring 2022 reader’s theme: Graphic Novels: Worth a Thousand Words.
In 1990 when I was 10 years old, I remember a lot of talk about a very dangerous man and an invasion of a tiny country. I remember yellow ribbons and signs to support our troops. I remember that it was only a little while before we welcomed the troops home, and some of us kept the ribbons wrapped around our trees until they unraveled. In 1991, less than seven months after it began, my first war was over.
Hi I’m Valerie a radio reader from Topeka and I just finished the first book of our series this fall Graphic Novels: Worth a Thousand Words. The book was Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. I’ll be the first to admit that I do not read a lot of graphic novels nor am I a big fan of the genre for my personal reading pleasure. My main reason for not reading them more often is that the font of the dialogue is usually too small for me.
Hello, Radio Readers; this is Kim Perez, and I am coming to you from the history department at Fort Hays State University. The books I will be discussing, the two-book series Persepolis and Persepolis 2 by Marjane Satrapi, are the first in our Spring 2022 reader’s theme: Graphic Novels: Worth a Thousand Words.
Hi, I'm Alan Erwin from Amarillo and I've been reading Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi. Marjane is an Iranian artist, author and director.Persepolis is a graphic novel about Marjane’s life from age 10 to 24. A time of revolution and war in Iran. The book's mostly uncomplicated black and white artwork propels the story in a way that is sometimes very humorous and at other times just horrific.
This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR. The books are “Persepolis” and “Persepolis 2” by Marjane Satrapi.Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novels provide information we in the US did not get at the time. From a journalist’s perspective, I now know how much information was never provided to us by our news media. The coverage sounded too much like State Department press releases. The Iranian revolution of 1978-79 really started in 1953.
Born after the fall of the Nazi regime, Nora Krug lived with a long shadow cast by World War II. Yet, she knew little about her own family’s involvement. While all four of her grandparents lived through the war, they never spoke of it.
Hello, Radio Readers! Miriam Scott here. I was born in a small town called Mechernich in western Germany in September of 1979. Those of you who are “nearest town people” would recognize my home area as near Cologne, which is about 1.5 hours from Mechernich. My parents owned a restaurant/hotel/ bowling alley/movie theatre -- yes, all in one weirdly shaped building.
This is Miriam Scott from Amarillo, Texas.This book grabbed my attention with the title and cover alone, quickly. “Belonging” is what I like to call a substantial word. Let me explain what I mean: substantial words, they pack a lot of meaning.
I’m Hannes Zacharias from Lenexa for High Plains Public Radio, Radio Reader’s Book Club. The book is “Elevations: A Personal Exploration of the Arkansas River” by Max McCoy.As Patrick Dobson says, “Max McCoy’s Elevations is a sensitive, in-depth view of a river and its human and natural history…as fluid and adsorbing as the river itself.”
Hi I’m Valerie a radio reader from Topeka and I just finished Elevations: a Personal Exploration of the Arkansas River by Max McCoy. The volume was chosen as a 2019 Kansas Notable book and I can see why. I really enjoyed this book. Elevations fits into this fall’s Radio Readers theme of Rivers: Meandering Meanings as it is an intimate telling of the histories of the land and communities surrounding McCoy’s by-water-voyage of the Arkansas River...
This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR, Radio Reader’s Book Club. The book is “Elevations” by Max McCoy.Where do you go with meandering rivers, one of water - sometimes - and another of thought? Journalist Max McCoy follows the track of the Arkansas River...
I’m Hannes Zacharias from Lenexa for High Plains Public Radio, Radio Reader’s Book Club. The book is “Elevations: A Personal Exploration of the Arkansas River” by Max McCoy.As George Frazier says “McCoy floats through a valley haunted by gold-not only in mines along the Continental Divide, but also in corporate wheat farms that bleed the Ogallala aquifer”
This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR, Radio Reader’s Book Club The book is “Elevations” by Max McCoy.In Wichita, where the Arkansas River runs over a low-head dam under the 21st Street Bridge, the river claimed the life of 24 year old seminary student, Brian Bergkamp, who was kayaking in a 5-person group..
I'm John Harrington from my retirement location in southwest Washington state for High Plains Public Radio, Radio Readers Book Club.Elizabeth Kolbert begins her latest book, Under a White Sky, The Nature of the Future, with a chapter: “Down the River”
Despite the controversary surrounding this classic novel, the themes are most relevant to life today.First published in the United Kingdom in 1884 and then in the U.S. in 1885, Huck Finn is considered one of the great American novels. It is told in first person by Huckleberry “Huck” Finn, a friend of Tom Sawyer and narrator of two other Twain novels.
Returning for our Fall Season, Jane Holwerda -- author, administrator and educator --gets the pleasure of reviewing The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.Dr. Holwerda holds a PhD in American Studies from Saint Louis University in Missouri, and her short fiction, essays, and poetry has appeared in publications such as: Cottonwood, Hurricane Review, MacGuffin, Red River Review, Sou’wester, South Loop Review, The Langdon Review, Guilty Pleasures, Out of Line, and Elegant Rage.
Here we are, Radio Readers, midstream in our fall book club series on rivers and making meaning. How could we not talk about one of the most iconic –and controversial—of American novels, set along and upon the mother of American rivers, the mighty Mississippi?
This is Leslie VonHolten broadcasting from the High Plains of Kansas with another HPPR Radio Readers Book Byte.When it comes to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, my heart races with anxiety. What a wonderful book. What a heavy, complicated, imperfect book. It was immediately controversial when it was published in 1884, and 137 years later, it is still one of the top stars of the Banned Books list.
For High Plains Polar Radio Readers Club, I'm Shane Timson in Colby, Kansas.Today, I'm talking about the book Dust Bowl, The Southern Plains in the 1930s by Donald Worster. This book is a fascinating read because I have studied this topic probably more than any other since moving to Kansas in 1986.
This is Jennifer Kassebaum, owner of Flint Hills Books in Council Grove Kansas, for High Plains Public Radio Reader’s Summer Book Club Reading List. Summer reading means different things for different people, but a good book is always in season. That is why I selected SIPSWORTH by Simon Van Booy as a book to review this summer for High Plains Public Radio.
I’m Leslie Barrett and this is a Radio Readers BookByte from High Plains Public Radio. I’ve just read Dangerous Latitudes, a historical spy novel by Jack Woodville London, a historian and award-winning author from Groom, located in the Texas panhandle.
For High Plains Public Radio Readers Book Club, I'm Shane Timson in Colby, Kansas.Today we are going to discuss Henry David Thoreau's Civil Disobedience. I chose this interesting book because we live in a world today where we disagree with the government and what it does; people take to the streets and protest, but they get violent.
Hello, Radio Readers. I’m Julie A. Sellers for the HPPR Radio Readers Book Club. Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murders by Jesse Q. Sutanto is a cozy mystery that combines a suspenseful who-done-it with themes of family, aging, usefulness, and dreams.
Hello, my name is Andrea Elise and I live in Amarillo, Texas.When we think of science and poetry, we often attribute one discipline to our left brains and the other to our right brains.
Hi, I’m Tara Shaw from Edina, Minnesota—although I grew up in Kansas and am a longtime HPPR listener. I’ve got a summer reading pick for you that might sound a little hefty, but I promise it’s a page-turner. It actually just hit #1 on the New York Times nonfiction list. The book is Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson.
Hello, everyone! From Pasadena, California, this is Jill Hunting for the HPPR Radio Readers Book Club.My choice for the 2025 Summer Read is F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. This year marks the 100th anniversary of its publication.
For High Plains Public Radio Readers Book Club, I'm Shane Timson in Colby, Kansas.I'm talking about the book When the News Broke by Heather Hindershot. This book talks about the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago.
This is Shelley Armitage for Radio Readers Book Bytes Summer Reading wishing you a good day. In my latest book of poems, From a Sandstone Ledge, I explore the ways in which landscape draws us into a greater understanding of ourselves and others by experiencing a deeper connection with the places we inhabit.
For High Plains Polar Radio Readers Club, I'm Shane Timson in Colby, Kansas.Today, I'm talking about the book Dust Bowl, The Southern Plains in the 1930s by Donald Worster. This book is a fascinating read because I have studied this topic probably more than any other since moving to Kansas in 1986.
This is Jennifer Kassebaum, owner of Flint Hills Books in Council Grove Kansas, for High Plains Public Radio Reader’s Summer Book Club Reading List. Summer reading means different things for different people, but a good book is always in season. That is why I selected SIPSWORTH by Simon Van Booy as a book to review this summer for High Plains Public Radio.
I’m Leslie Barrett and this is a Radio Readers BookByte from High Plains Public Radio. I’ve just read Dangerous Latitudes, a historical spy novel by Jack Woodville London, a historian and award-winning author from Groom, located in the Texas panhandle.
For High Plains Public Radio Readers Book Club, I'm Shane Timson in Colby, Kansas.Today we are going to discuss Henry David Thoreau's Civil Disobedience. I chose this interesting book because we live in a world today where we disagree with the government and what it does; people take to the streets and protest, but they get violent.
Hello, Radio Readers. I’m Julie A. Sellers for the HPPR Radio Readers Book Club. Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murders by Jesse Q. Sutanto is a cozy mystery that combines a suspenseful who-done-it with themes of family, aging, usefulness, and dreams.
Hello, my name is Andrea Elise and I live in Amarillo, Texas.When we think of science and poetry, we often attribute one discipline to our left brains and the other to our right brains.
Hi, I’m Tara Shaw from Edina, Minnesota—although I grew up in Kansas and am a longtime HPPR listener. I’ve got a summer reading pick for you that might sound a little hefty, but I promise it’s a page-turner. It actually just hit #1 on the New York Times nonfiction list. The book is Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson.
Hello, everyone! From Pasadena, California, this is Jill Hunting for the HPPR Radio Readers Book Club.My choice for the 2025 Summer Read is F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. This year marks the 100th anniversary of its publication.
For High Plains Public Radio Readers Book Club, I'm Shane Timson in Colby, Kansas.I'm talking about the book When the News Broke by Heather Hindershot. This book talks about the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago.
This is Shelley Armitage for Radio Readers Book Bytes Summer Reading wishing you a good day. In my latest book of poems, From a Sandstone Ledge, I explore the ways in which landscape draws us into a greater understanding of ourselves and others by experiencing a deeper connection with the places we inhabit.
On Sunday, May 4, 2025, book leaders and contributors from the HPPR Radio Readers Book Club came together in Garden City, KS, for a two-hour, live on-air discussion of the novel, a travelogue, a memoir, and a comic blog explored with an impressive array of Radio Reader BookBytes this season.
Greetings from Goodwell in the Oklahoma Panhandle! I’m Marjory Hall with a BookByte for the Radio Reader’s Series. Words are important. The words we use reflect how we perceive the world and how we react to it. We can choose whether that perception is positive and accepting or negative, rejecting people and experiences without really giving them much consideration.
In his seminal work Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, Scott McCloud argues, “We all live in a state of profound isolation. No other human being can ever know what it’s like to be you from the inside. And no amount of reaching out to others can ever make them feel exactly what you feel.
Hello High Plains listeners.This is Stella for HPPR’s radio reader book club.I recently read Allie Brosch’s graphic novel, Hyperbole and a Half which is the fourth book included in our spring read.
Hi there. I’m Jenny Inzerillo, HPPR’s Music Director and host for High Plains Morning. Today, for HPPR Radio Readers Book Club, I’m going to review the fourth book in the Spring Read. The full title is Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened, by beloved underground blogger Allie Brosh.
Like many of the books in our series on humor, Allie Brosh's Hyperbole and a Half is so specifically temporally located that a less generous person, or even my younger college-aged students, might call it "dated." There is something about the freneticism, vulnerability, and seeming universality of "adulting," to crib a similarly dated phrase, that calls to mind BuzzFeed quizzes, Onion horoscopes, and the early days of YouTube virality.
Hello, Radio Readers. I’m Julie A. Sellers, author of the novel Ann of Sunflower Lane. Welcome to this High Plains Public Radio Radio Readers Book Club BookByte of Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened by Allie Brosh.
Hello! I’m Tito Aznar for the HPPR Radio Readers Book Club’s 2025 Spring Read. Allie Brosh’s Hyperbole and a Half is a book that thrives on failure: funny and painfully relatable failure. Whether it’s failing at adulthood, failing at self-improvement, or failing at simply understanding why she is the way she is, Brosh embraces her imperfections in a hilarious and deeply honest way.
Sometimes, being an adult just means being a larger version of the tiny little monsters we were when we were children. In Allie Brosh's Hyperbole and a Half, the book-length collection of Brosh's popular mid-aughts webcomic and blog, readers encounter the familiar struggles of getting up in the morning, compulsive behaviors, and everyday absurdities.
Aired twice, this holiday tradition features a two-hour conversation with author Thomas Fox Averill who discusses his book A Carol Dickens Christmas.
Congratulations to HPPR Radio Reader Miriam Scott of Amarillo, shown here with a 2022 Kansas Association of Broadcasters first place award for her commentary in a Radio Readers BookByte written and produced in the 2022 Spring Read – Graphic Novels: Worth a Thousand Words.
In case you missed it, the culmination of the Fall Read featured a two-hour live book discussion on Sunday, November 17th with book leaders and community partners discussing the breadth of books from the latest series, "Through the Eyes of a Child."
Well, Radio Readers, how about this fabulously curious Fall 2024 book series “Through the Eyes of a Child”? What a fascinating stretch of reading over the past several months, right? Alice in Wonderland, Everything Sad is Untrue, The Blue Book of Nebo, and Long Way Down: our reading journey this fall has immersed us in various settings, genres, and cultures.
My name is Deana Craighead and I am the Curator of Art at Panhandle Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, Texas. In the spring of 2024, the museum opened Dali’s Wonderland, an exhibition that features a limited-edition copy of Alice in Wonderland from the personal library of local philanthropist Sybil B. Harrington, illustrated by the artist Salvador Dali.
This is Nicole English for the HPPR Radio Readers Book Club for the 2024 Fall Read.This is a discussion of the book, Long Way Down written in prose by Jason Reynolds, and for those who enjoy visuals with their prose, there is the graphic novel version, beautifully illustrated by Danica Novgorodoff.
This is Whitney Hodgin from the historic Cimarron Hotel for HPPR’S Radio Readers BookBytes.When I encounter people with strong personalities, I often consider what it would be like if the two of us were stuck in a broken-down elevator.
Hello everybody, this is Miriam Scott from Amarillo Texas with my last Radio Readers BookByte on Jason Reynold’s Long Way Down.We are still on the elevator with Will and the ghosts of Buck and Dani.
Hello, Radio Readers. I’m Jane Holwerda in Dodge City, Kansas, about the fourth and last book in our Fall 2024 series, “Through the Eyes of a Child.” Published in 2017, Long Way Down is the work of North American author Jason Reynolds, recipient of Newbury and Caldecott literary awards for his children’s and young adult books.
Hello again, this is Miriam Scott from Amarillo Texas.Last time I shared with you that in our book Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds, the protagonist Will, a 15-year-old boy, is on his way to exact revenge on who he believes killed his brother Shawn.
More of Seven Books Plus – A Reading List to Save Democracy – Part IIIby Kansas Reflector columnist Max McCoy. This is a list of seven books to save democracy, one reader at a time.
Four of Seven Books – A Reading List to Save Democracy – Part II by Kansas Reflector columnist Max McCoy. This is a list of seven books to save democracy, one reader at a time.
One day last week, I went to a coffee shop downtown to meet a friend. I had a hardback book tucked under my arm to give to the friend, a historian who shares my interest in the twisting and sometimes tortured arc of American democracy.
Hi everyone. This is Andrea Elise coming to you from Amarillo, Texas, to talk about the memoir, Call Me Debbie.If you have never heard the name “Deborah Voight,” you are probably in the majority.
MIA – Hi, my name is Mia Mendez and I’m 13 years old and I’m from Cimarron, Kansas. I recently read the book Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna by Alda P Dobbs and her second book continuing on to that story The Other Side of the River.
Hello, this is Michelle Reid for the HPPR Radio Readers Summer Book Club. Today I’m here with my granddaughter Claire to talk about one of her favorite books.
Hello, this is Michelle Reid for the HPPR Radio Readers Summer Book Club. Today I’m here with my granddaughter Emma to talk about one of her favorite books. Good morning!
This is James Kenyon for the High Plains Radio Readers Book Summers Reading List. I am an active reader and writer. I authored Golden Rule Days. It is a history of the former high schools in all 105 counties in Kansas.
I am Tracy Million Simmons, owner of Meadowlark Press. As a small regional press specializing in stories from the Midwest, I’d like to take this moment to introduce you to a Meadowlark book. One of my all-time favorites is Gravedigger’s Daughter: Vignettes from a Small Kansas Town, by Cheryl Unruh.
I’m Emilie Moll, editorial assistant for Meadowlark Press, for the High Plains Public Radio Summer Reading List. Our small, independent press specializes in stories from the Midwest, and today I'll be talking about a Meadowlark Book, I’ve Been Fighting This War Within Myself by Antonio Sanchez-Day.
It is with deep sadness that we share the passing of PJ Pronger of Amarillo. PJ was a Book Leader for the 2020 Spring Read – Radio Waves and a contributor of Radio Reader BokBytes. We appreciated his insight as well as his eloquence. The HPPR Radio Readers Book Club is an on-air, on-line community of readers exploring themes of interest to those who live and work on the High Plains. We will miss PJ in that community and thank his family for sharing him with us.
The HPPR Radio Readers Book Club is sad to learn of the passing of Mike Strong of Hays and Kansas City. For more than five years, Mike has been a steady source of Radio Readers BookBytes. We continue to air his thoughts as a tribute to our friend and as a thank you to Mike for sharing his insight, eloquence and broad talent. Radio Readers across the High Plains will long remember you, Mike. Rest well.
Hello, Radio Readers! I’m Jane Holwerda and – believe it or not –it’s time to wrap up this most incredible of Spring Reads, “Water, Water, Neverwhere.”
To end this set of readings with Plainwater by Anne Carson feels perfect. If not perfect, well, it still feels. Carson, once described by Bruce Hainley as “a philosopher of heartbreak” doesn’t just mix genres in her works but calls into question linguistic and cultural bedrocks that inform our reading of the continuity of human experiences.
I’m Pat Tyrer from Canyon, Texas for the High-Plains-Public-Radio-Readers Book Club.Today I’ll be sharing some poetry, all tangentially connected to our spring theme of “Water, Water, Neverwhere.” I’ve included poems from famous poets as well as those from poets on the High Plains.
Hello, Radio Readers! I’m Jane Holwerda from Dodge City, Kansas, thinking about Plainwater, a multilayered work from early in the career of Anne Carson, a writer pegged as a contender for a Nobel.
I’m Pat Tyrer from Canyon, Texas for the High-Plains-Public-Radio-Readers Book Club.Today I’ll be sharing some poetry, all tangentially connected to our spring theme of “Water, Water, Neverwhere.”
Hello, Radio Readers! Jane Holwerda from Dodge City, Kansas, here to reflect on Anne Carson’s Plainwater, an eclectic collection of essays and poetry – and just in time for April, National Poetry Month.
Hello HPPR listeners. I’m Andrea Elise in Amarillo, and I am excited to tell you about a poem called “A Song of Winter Weather.”Isn’t it fun to stumble upon an author who, though widely published, is new to you?
Through essay and poetry, Carson envisions a present-day interview with a seventh-century BC poet, and offers varied lecturettes. She imagines the muse of a fifteenth-century painter attending a phenomenology conference in Italy.
Download this episode to hear the Fall 2023 Book Club discussion in its entirety!
This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR. The book is “Running With Sherman” by Christopher McDougall.Digit, another of our rescues, was a three-legged dog. Medium height, two front legs and one back leg. Wayside Waifs thought she had been run over and tried to put her broken back leg together but eventually had to amputate it. Still, for the most part, you would think she barely noticed, although going upstairs was tougher with only one rear leg to push her upward.
When I saw the selections for the Radio Readers Fall read I was so intrigued by the idea of donkey racing that I read the last book first! “Running with Sherman” by Christopher McDougall just sounded like a book I’d enjoy and its 340 pages didn’t disappoint.
Hello, Radio Readers! I’m Jane Holwerda from Dodge City, Kansas. I’ve been sitting with the words and imagery of Ada Limon, a poet who calls both Sonoma, California and Lexington, Kentucky home. The Hurting Kind is her 6th collection of poetry over 20 years.
I’m Bob Seay. This is the third of three HPPR book byte commentaries I’ve made about “Running with Sherman,” by Christopher McDougall.Sherman is more than a story of the little donkey that could. McDougall immerses his readers in the world of competitive burro racing, a sport I never even knew existed before I read this.
Hello, Radio Readers. I’m Jane Holwerda from Dodge City, Kansas, enjoying the gestalt of Christopher McDougall’s Running with Sherman: The Donkey with the Heart of a Hero. A journalist and marathoner, McDougall is a self-described city boy who moved with his family off the grid to Pennsylvania Amish country.
Hello, my name is Andrea Elise and I live in Amarillo, Texas.Let’s start this book byte with a quote from Robert Browning. Browning once wrote: “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” In other words, we can try all we want to achieve our goals, but if they are too easy, there is no challenge.
This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR. The book is “Running With Sherman” by Christopher McDougall.As much as “Running With Sherman” centers about a donkey who is rescued from near death caused by ignorant care, the author, with family and friends bring out a range of issues and needs vital to the functioning of community, relationships and living with a sense of personal worth.
I’m Bob Seay with another book byte from High Plains Public Radio. This segment is the second of three commentaries on the book, “Running with Sherman,” by Christopher McDougall.
This is Leslie VonHolten from the High Plains of Kansas with another HPPR Radio Readers Book Byte.Here on the High Plains, we can forget that some folks live lives separated from animals. I have two dogs, which I am obsessed with, and every so often my work finds me on a gravel road, chatting it up with curious cattle gathered along a fence line.
Hello, Radio Readers! I’m Jane Holwerda for High Plains Public Radio. About our 2023 Summer Read. You know, every week in June and through most of July, Radio Readers have talked about books worthy of sharing, and now we have an incredible book list. Do you have time for one more recommendation?
Hello, my name is Andrea Elise and I live in Amarillo, Texas. I just finished reading the excellent short story “Miss Brill” by Katherine Mansfield, published in the author’s 1922 collection of stories called The Garden Party.
Hi, I am Holly Mercer, Library Director at Dodge City Community College. I selected the book Poverty, By America written by Matthew Desmond because I read his first book Evicted when it was published in 2016 and found it to be intriguing.
Hi! I’m Calliope from Wichita and I’ve been reading a lot this summer between Scout camp, jazz classes, and – well, regular reading!
My summer reading recommendation is not a book, but a magazine—which is also, in so many ways, a community. The New Territory calls itself “an autobiography of the Lower Midwest,”—the Lower Midwest being Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Northwest Arkansas, Southern Illinois, and Iowa. But in their words, quote, “When it feels right, we color outside those border lines.”
Hello, I’m Sara Crow, co-owner of Crow & Co. Books in Hutchinson. I’ll be talking about The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, by Michael Finkel, a true crime story about one of the world’s most successfully notorious art thieves in history, Stéphane Breitwieser.
Hello, HPPR Book Club members. My name is Andrea Elise and I live in Amarillo, TX.I just finished reading Barbara Brown Taylor’s extraordinary memoir, Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith.
Hello, my name is Andrea Elise and I live in Amarillo, TX. I just finished reading Rosemary Brown’s compelling memoir, Unfinished Symphonies, published in 1971.
I’m Pat Tyrer from Canyon, Texas for the High-Plains-Public-Radio-Readers Book Club. Over the past few years, I’ve noticed that some of the most provocative and enjoyable writing is being published in the genre of young adult novels. Such is the case with Daniel Nayeri’s Everything Sad is Untrue (A True Story). In fact, I was so affected by this book that I have bought and given away several copies.
Let’s turn to the book that is the subject of this review: Ann Nepolitano’s Hello Beautiful. I read – or rather devoured – this book shortly after it was released in March of this year due to an ordering error.
In case you missed it, the culmination of the Spring Read went down on Sunday, May 7th with book leaders and community partners discussing the breadth of books from the latest series, "In Touch with the World." Click the audio link at the op of this page to hear it in full.
The HPPR Radio Readers Book Club’s 2023 Spring Read – In Touch with the World ends on Sunday, May 7, 2023, with a two-hour, live book discussion. Since January, 27 contributors have posted 51 Radio Readers BookBytes covering 23 books from 14 countries.
I am Xánath Caraza, and I today will read one bilingual poem from my book Sílabas de viento / Syllables of Wind
Hello, friends. I’m Jane Holwerda for High Plains Public Radio Radio Readers with a friendly FYI: the end is near for this most incredible Spring 2023 Read, “In Touch with the World…At Home on the High Plains.”
Thank you for joining us for the High Plains Public Radio Readers Book Club. I’m Jessica Sadler, a Science Teacher and STEAM facilitator in Olathe, Kansas. I am here with the other book leaders to discuss Once Were Warriors by Alan Duff.
Once Were Warriors is a brutal story of a Maori family living in poverty in New Zealand. The author, Alan Duff, is also Maori, and he spent part of his childhood in low-income housing.
Our final book, the fourteenth in our series is Once Were Warriors, Alan Duff's harrowing vision New Zealand's indigenous people some two hundred years after the English conquest.
Welcome, this is Mary Scott with a Radio Readers BookByte for the HPPR Radio Readers Book Club. I recently finished “I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and was Shot by the Taliban” written by Malala Yousafzai and Christina Lamb.
Hi, I’m Marcy McKay from Amarillo, author of the award-winning novel, Pennies from Burger Heaven. I’m excited to be a Radio Reader for High Plains Public Radio’s Book Club. The book I chose for In Touch with The World was I Am Malala, by Malala Yousufzai. She’s the girl who stood up for education in Pakistan and was shot by the Taliban in 2012 when she was just 15 years old.
Hello, Radio Readers; this is Kim Perez, and I am coming to you from Hays with a few thoughts about the book I Am Malala for the spring 2023 Radio Readers Book Club.
In case you missed it, hear the full audio from the Fall 2022 On-Air Live Book Discussion on the link at the top of this page!
The 2022 Fall Read - Rural Life Revisited culminated in a lively discussion Sunday evening, November 13, 2022. Thanks to all who participated!
Hello, Radio Readers. Jane Holwerda here from Dodge City, Kansas. It’s almost the end of our Fall 2022 read, Rural Life Revisited. And of course, we’re gearing up for our on-air program in mid-November to revisit the ways our perceptions of rural life may have been challenged by our conversations about Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg OH, Annie Proulx’s That Old Ace in the Hole, and Winfred Gallagher’s How the Post Office Created America.
As the United States expanded in the 1800’s, communication needs also expanded. Mail service was social media. People would write to tell relatives where they were and what they were doing. So, when Facebook’s subject line entices us with “Mamie Smith was in Hays …..” the line is far from new.
One of our most visible unnoticed most ubiquitous features of daily life was the result of the US Post Office solving a need and being sensitive to feelings. House numbers. Free city delivery by postal carriers to addresses. Much later, 1923, mailboxes on houses.
This is the first time for me to review a book for Book Byte. I am sitting at my kitchen table writing to you while my cat, Kitten, tries to take my pen away.
Hi, I'm Alan Erwin from Amarillo and I've been reading Winifred Gallagher's How the Post Office Created America.The American postal system is a marvel. Often maligned, it is a miracle of efficiency that every one of us takes for granted.
This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR. The book is “How the Post Office Created America” by Winifred Gallagher.As I was working on reviewing Winifred Gallagher’s book, I was also shooting photos and video for a dance concert. One of the pieces was nostalgic about physical, paper mail. Specifically, about getting paper rather than texts or email.
This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR. e book is “How the Post Office Created America” by Winifred Gallagher.
In the novel Medicine Walk by Richard Wagamese, hunting is a major theme. Perhaps some readers are surprised by how young Franklin Starlight is when he learns to clean a rifle, age five, and by age seven, he is learning to shoot. He shoots targets and learns now to track. At the age of nine, he gets his first deer.
Hi, I am Phillip Periman from Amarillo, Texas and I am one of the discussants for the HPPR Reader’s book club. This spring we are reading “Neither Wolf nor Dog” by Kent Nerburn. This is a book I would never have bought except that it was chosen for this year’s read.
Hi, this is Sara Crow, owner of Crow & Co. Books in Hutchinson, Kansas, recommending one of my favorite books of the past year: When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill."I encourage you to consider a question: who benefits, my dear, when you force yourself to not feel angry?"
Raylene Hinz-Penner here, coming from central Kansas, North Newton east of Wichita, but I grew up east of Liberal in High Plains territory and am delighted to share in the Book Byte program. A retired college English professor, I am sharing a book that is not fiction, my normal pick, but a lyric genealogical history by notable historian, Tiya Miles, a most amazing book about an object, a sparkling masterpiece of African American women’s history published in 2021. Its title: All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake.”
Hello, my name is Andrea Elise and I live in Amarillo, Texas.When you think of the different fairy tales you’ve read to your children or students, and those other people have read to you, what are the first four words that often come to mind?
Hello Fellow Readers. This is Jennifer Kassebaum, Owner of Flint Hills Books in Council Grove, Kansas for the High Plains Public Radio Readers Book Club.One of my favorite books this summer is LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY, a debut novel by Bonnie Garmus. I admit that I enjoy a book with a sense of humor, and LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY is witty and smart.
Hello, I am Jennifer Kassebaum, Owner of Flint Hills Books in Council Grove, Kansas.For my first review for the High Plains Public Radio Readers Book Club, I have selected a University of Oklahoma Press publication titled FOR WANT OF WINGS: A Bird with Teeth and A Dinosaur in the Family (2022) by author Jill Hunting. This book is about Hunting’s great-grandfather, Thomas Russell, who discovered 83-million-year-old dinosaur bones in western Kansas during an expedition with the legendary paleontologist O C Marsh in 1872.
Hello! This is Michelle Reid in Dodge City for HPPR’s Radio Readers Book Club Book Bytes. I’m the school librarian at Dodge City High School, and I will mostly be talking about some of the best young adult books I’ve read. Please don’t make the mistake of thinking that young adult books are only for teens. YA authors are producing some of the best written, most thoughtful books that are being published right now.
Welcome to “Book Bytes;” I am Dr. Mary Scott, Professor of Biology at Dodge City Community College. I want to introduce you to We are Not from Here by Jenny Torres Sanchez. This gut wrenching, acclaimed novel is based on factual research of the dangerous routes followed by undocumented immigrants desperate to get to the United States.
Hi, I am Holly Mercer, Library Director at the Dodge City Community College. If you are like me, you may have several authors you look forward to reading whenever a new book is published. For me, Brené Brown is one such author. Two of my favorite titles from her are Raising Strong and Dare to Lead.
This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR. The books are “Persepolis” and “Persepolis 2” by Marjane Satrapi. Marjane Satrapi was 10 in 1979. I was tending bar and waiting tables at The American Restaurant, the fancy-dining restaurant on top of Hall’s at Crown Center in Kansas City, working with an Iranian waiter and his Iranian wife. Their country was coming apart from the reports we heard.
Hello, Radio Readers; this is Kim Perez, and I am coming to you from the history department at Fort Hays State University. The books I will be discussing, the two-book series Persepolis and Persepolis 2 by Marjane Satrapi, are the first in our Spring 2022 reader’s theme: Graphic Novels: Worth a Thousand Words.
In 1990 when I was 10 years old, I remember a lot of talk about a very dangerous man and an invasion of a tiny country. I remember yellow ribbons and signs to support our troops. I remember that it was only a little while before we welcomed the troops home, and some of us kept the ribbons wrapped around our trees until they unraveled. In 1991, less than seven months after it began, my first war was over.
Hi I’m Valerie a radio reader from Topeka and I just finished the first book of our series this fall Graphic Novels: Worth a Thousand Words. The book was Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. I’ll be the first to admit that I do not read a lot of graphic novels nor am I a big fan of the genre for my personal reading pleasure. My main reason for not reading them more often is that the font of the dialogue is usually too small for me.
Hello, Radio Readers; this is Kim Perez, and I am coming to you from the history department at Fort Hays State University. The books I will be discussing, the two-book series Persepolis and Persepolis 2 by Marjane Satrapi, are the first in our Spring 2022 reader’s theme: Graphic Novels: Worth a Thousand Words.
Hi, I'm Alan Erwin from Amarillo and I've been reading Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi. Marjane is an Iranian artist, author and director.Persepolis is a graphic novel about Marjane’s life from age 10 to 24. A time of revolution and war in Iran. The book's mostly uncomplicated black and white artwork propels the story in a way that is sometimes very humorous and at other times just horrific.
This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR. The books are “Persepolis” and “Persepolis 2” by Marjane Satrapi.Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novels provide information we in the US did not get at the time. From a journalist’s perspective, I now know how much information was never provided to us by our news media. The coverage sounded too much like State Department press releases. The Iranian revolution of 1978-79 really started in 1953.
Born after the fall of the Nazi regime, Nora Krug lived with a long shadow cast by World War II. Yet, she knew little about her own family’s involvement. While all four of her grandparents lived through the war, they never spoke of it.
Hello, Radio Readers! Miriam Scott here. I was born in a small town called Mechernich in western Germany in September of 1979. Those of you who are “nearest town people” would recognize my home area as near Cologne, which is about 1.5 hours from Mechernich. My parents owned a restaurant/hotel/ bowling alley/movie theatre -- yes, all in one weirdly shaped building.
This is Miriam Scott from Amarillo, Texas.This book grabbed my attention with the title and cover alone, quickly. “Belonging” is what I like to call a substantial word. Let me explain what I mean: substantial words, they pack a lot of meaning.
I’m Hannes Zacharias from Lenexa for High Plains Public Radio, Radio Reader’s Book Club. The book is “Elevations: A Personal Exploration of the Arkansas River” by Max McCoy.As Patrick Dobson says, “Max McCoy’s Elevations is a sensitive, in-depth view of a river and its human and natural history…as fluid and adsorbing as the river itself.”
Hi I’m Valerie a radio reader from Topeka and I just finished Elevations: a Personal Exploration of the Arkansas River by Max McCoy. The volume was chosen as a 2019 Kansas Notable book and I can see why. I really enjoyed this book. Elevations fits into this fall’s Radio Readers theme of Rivers: Meandering Meanings as it is an intimate telling of the histories of the land and communities surrounding McCoy’s by-water-voyage of the Arkansas River...
This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR, Radio Reader’s Book Club. The book is “Elevations” by Max McCoy.Where do you go with meandering rivers, one of water - sometimes - and another of thought? Journalist Max McCoy follows the track of the Arkansas River...
I’m Hannes Zacharias from Lenexa for High Plains Public Radio, Radio Reader’s Book Club. The book is “Elevations: A Personal Exploration of the Arkansas River” by Max McCoy.As George Frazier says “McCoy floats through a valley haunted by gold-not only in mines along the Continental Divide, but also in corporate wheat farms that bleed the Ogallala aquifer”
This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR, Radio Reader’s Book Club The book is “Elevations” by Max McCoy.In Wichita, where the Arkansas River runs over a low-head dam under the 21st Street Bridge, the river claimed the life of 24 year old seminary student, Brian Bergkamp, who was kayaking in a 5-person group..
I'm John Harrington from my retirement location in southwest Washington state for High Plains Public Radio, Radio Readers Book Club.Elizabeth Kolbert begins her latest book, Under a White Sky, The Nature of the Future, with a chapter: “Down the River”
Despite the controversary surrounding this classic novel, the themes are most relevant to life today.First published in the United Kingdom in 1884 and then in the U.S. in 1885, Huck Finn is considered one of the great American novels. It is told in first person by Huckleberry “Huck” Finn, a friend of Tom Sawyer and narrator of two other Twain novels.
Returning for our Fall Season, Jane Holwerda -- author, administrator and educator --gets the pleasure of reviewing The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.Dr. Holwerda holds a PhD in American Studies from Saint Louis University in Missouri, and her short fiction, essays, and poetry has appeared in publications such as: Cottonwood, Hurricane Review, MacGuffin, Red River Review, Sou’wester, South Loop Review, The Langdon Review, Guilty Pleasures, Out of Line, and Elegant Rage.
Here we are, Radio Readers, midstream in our fall book club series on rivers and making meaning. How could we not talk about one of the most iconic –and controversial—of American novels, set along and upon the mother of American rivers, the mighty Mississippi?
This is Leslie VonHolten broadcasting from the High Plains of Kansas with another HPPR Radio Readers Book Byte.When it comes to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, my heart races with anxiety. What a wonderful book. What a heavy, complicated, imperfect book. It was immediately controversial when it was published in 1884, and 137 years later, it is still one of the top stars of the Banned Books list.
For High Plains Polar Radio Readers Club, I'm Shane Timson in Colby, Kansas.Today, I'm talking about the book Dust Bowl, The Southern Plains in the 1930s by Donald Worster. This book is a fascinating read because I have studied this topic probably more than any other since moving to Kansas in 1986.
This is Jennifer Kassebaum, owner of Flint Hills Books in Council Grove Kansas, for High Plains Public Radio Reader’s Summer Book Club Reading List. Summer reading means different things for different people, but a good book is always in season. That is why I selected SIPSWORTH by Simon Van Booy as a book to review this summer for High Plains Public Radio.
I’m Leslie Barrett and this is a Radio Readers BookByte from High Plains Public Radio. I’ve just read Dangerous Latitudes, a historical spy novel by Jack Woodville London, a historian and award-winning author from Groom, located in the Texas panhandle.
For High Plains Public Radio Readers Book Club, I'm Shane Timson in Colby, Kansas.Today we are going to discuss Henry David Thoreau's Civil Disobedience. I chose this interesting book because we live in a world today where we disagree with the government and what it does; people take to the streets and protest, but they get violent.
Hello, Radio Readers. I’m Julie A. Sellers for the HPPR Radio Readers Book Club. Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murders by Jesse Q. Sutanto is a cozy mystery that combines a suspenseful who-done-it with themes of family, aging, usefulness, and dreams.
Hello, my name is Andrea Elise and I live in Amarillo, Texas.When we think of science and poetry, we often attribute one discipline to our left brains and the other to our right brains.
Hi, I’m Tara Shaw from Edina, Minnesota—although I grew up in Kansas and am a longtime HPPR listener. I’ve got a summer reading pick for you that might sound a little hefty, but I promise it’s a page-turner. It actually just hit #1 on the New York Times nonfiction list. The book is Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson.
Hello, everyone! From Pasadena, California, this is Jill Hunting for the HPPR Radio Readers Book Club.My choice for the 2025 Summer Read is F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. This year marks the 100th anniversary of its publication.
For High Plains Public Radio Readers Book Club, I'm Shane Timson in Colby, Kansas.I'm talking about the book When the News Broke by Heather Hindershot. This book talks about the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago.
This is Shelley Armitage for Radio Readers Book Bytes Summer Reading wishing you a good day. In my latest book of poems, From a Sandstone Ledge, I explore the ways in which landscape draws us into a greater understanding of ourselves and others by experiencing a deeper connection with the places we inhabit.
