Wgtd's The Morning Show With Greg Berg

From 2017 comes this conversation with Meta Wagner, author of "What's Your Creative Type: Harnessing the Power of Your Artistic Personality."  

From the archives comes this 2009 conversation with Dr. Mardy Grothe, author of "I Never Metaphor I Didn't Like: a Comprehensive Compilation of History's Greatest Analogies, Metaphors and Similes."  

From the archives comes this 2005 conversation with Dan Koeppel, author of "To See Every Bird on Earth: a Father, a Son, and a Lifelong Obsession."  This book examines birdwatching at its most elite level, when people will travel the globe in order to see literally thousands of different species of birds in the wild.  

We spend most of the program looking back at the terrifying Polio Epidemic of the late 1940s and early 1950s.  We begin by previewing the American Experience documentary "The Polio Crusade," which is being rebroadcast Tuesday night on PBS.   After that, you'll hear an interview with David Oshinsky, author of "Polio: An American Story,"  which served as valuable source material for the film.  The hour finishes out with a brief 2003 interview with former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, talking about her memoir "Madame Secretary." 

We begin with a newly-recorded interview with Dr. Beth Rush, a neuropsychologist with the Mayo Clinic, who offers some advice to people on how to maintain their mental and emotional health during the COVID-19 crisis.   After that is a 2008 interview with food writer Frederick Kaufman, author of "A Short History of the American Stomach."  

From the archives comes this 2008 interview with Beth Lisick, who takes an amusing look at the self-help movement in her book "Helping Me Help Myself:  One Skeptic, Ten Self-Help Gurus, and a Year on the Brink of the Comfort Zone."  

From the archives comes this 2008 interview with Mark Kreidler, author of "6 Good Innings: How one small town became a Little League Giant."  Kreidler explored a spectacular Little League program in a small community in New Jersey in order to determine what was behind their exceptional success. 

This interview was recorded one week ago with Hope Jahren, a writer and teacher who is one of the most compelling voices on the topic of Climate Change.  Her new book is "The Story of More:  How We Got to Climate Change and Where to Go from Here."  The book spells out the most significant ways in which our planet has changed drastically over the last 50 years- and how those changes are inter-related.  We open the interview by talking briefly about what life is like in Norway (where Jahren lives) during this COVID-19 Crisis.  

I hope you will derive some listening pleasure and diversion from this conversation with Bob Hurst, one of the editors of a new edition of "The Autobiography of Mark Twain."  

Even in the midst of this COVID-19 Crisis, we still can seek Happiness.   Ginny Sassaman has studied and written about happiness for many years.  Her latest book is titled "Preaching Happiness:  Creating a Just and Joyful World."  

As we hunker down during this COVID-19 Crisis, many of us are turning more and more to books.  From 2010 comes this interview with Sean Manning, editor of a marvelous book titled "Bound to Last: 30 Writers on Their Most Cherished Book."  In this fascinating and moving volume, 30 different writers each talk about the book that means the most to them.   It is one of my all-time favorite interviews about books themselves and their place in our lives.  

Amy Shira Teitel, who has written extensively on topics related to space and space travel, discusses her new book "Fighting for Space: Two Pilots and their Historic Battle for Female Spaceflight."    The book chronicles the careers of two extraordinary female pilots,  Jackie Cochran (1906-1980) and Jerrie Cobb (1931-2019) and, in particular, how they became adversaries when it came to the fight in the early 1960's to persuade NASA to include women in its astronaut program.  

Earlier this week, we aired a new interview with Neal Bascomb about his latest book,  "Faster."  Today's podcast is a 2004 interview with Bascomb about his book "The Perfect Mile: 3 Athletes, 1 Goal, and 4 Minutes to Achieve It."   The book was published to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the world's first 4-minute mile, which was run by Englishman Roger Bannister.  

Today's Morning Show features newly-recorded interviews with 1) Bryan Albrecht, president of Gateway Technical College ... 2) John Swallow, president of Carthage College, ... and 3) Debbie Ford, Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, talking about how their respective schools have had to respond to the COVID-19 Crisis. 

From 2005-  We replay a conversation with best-selling author John M. Barry about his book "The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History."   Barry's book is widely-regarded as the definitive account of the horrific influenza pandemic of 1918.  

Best-selling author Neal Bascomb discusses his latest book,  "Faster:  How a Jewish Driver, an American Heiress, and a Legendary Car Beat Hitler's Best."    The book explores the enormous interest surrounding car racing in Europe in the 1930's - Hitler's interest in having Germany become the dominant force in car racing - and how his wishes were thwarted in a dramatic race in 1938.  The story, now largely forgotten, bears some resemblance to the better-known story of track star Jesse Owens and his triumph at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.  

This is a discussion of the Racine Unified School District Referendum that will be on the ballot on April 7th.  Brian O'Connell and Mike Frontier are from the School Board, and Shannon Gordon is the Chief of Operations for the school district. 

Dr, Temple Burling, Associate Professor of Biology and Physics at Carthage College, chronicles his recent experience with the COVID-19 scare.  In early March, he was in the UK and Belgium on a research trip that he was forced to cut short when President Trump announced the travel ban.   He describes what he saw and experienced once he landed at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport and what it is like for him to be in precautionary  self-quarantine. 

The day before the birthday of Jerry Lewis, we replay a 2005 conversation with James Kaplan,  who assisted Jerry Lewis in the writing of his memoir "Dean & Me: a Love Story," which chronicles the memorable partnership between Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin.

From 2004- a conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Anna Quindlen about her best-selling book "Loud and Clear."