Megan A. Volpert: Performance Poetry from Forum Network | Book Tour Podcast Podcast

Megan A. Volpert reads from her latest poetry collection, The Desense of Nonfense. Listen to the podcast.

Atlantic: Vast Ocean of a Million Stories from Forum Network | Book Tour Podcast Podcast

Simon Winchester, master raconteur, tells a series of gripping and little-known tales of the Atlantic, the ocean he calls "the inland sea of modern civilization." Simon Winchester is a bestselling author, journalist and broadcaster. Prior to writing, he studied and worked in the field of geology. Listen to the podcast here.

Kenji Yoshino: Uncovering the Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights from Forum Network | Soapbox Podcast Podcast

Yale Law School professor Kenji Yoshino explores the pressure in American society to hide our authentic selves. In discussing issues from book Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights, Yoshino will lecture on topics such as what role does the legal system have in ensuring civil rights for those who do not fit in, and how can we create an authentically diverse society? Kenji Yoshino is the Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Constitutional Law at New York University School of Law, and formerly the the Guido Calabresi Professor of Law at Yale Law School. A Harvard graduate, Yoshino's interests lie Constitutional law and civil liberties. In addition to his book, Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights, Yoshino has also written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, and The Advocate, among others.

The podcast to the show can be found here.

Justice Stephen Breyer: Making Our Democracy Work from Forum Network | Book Tour Podcast Podcast

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer discusses the role and future of the Court in American democracy, and his book Making Democracy Work: A Judges View. The Supreme Court is one of the most extraordinary institutions in our system of government. Charged with the responsibility of interpreting the Constitution, the nine unelected justices of the Court have the awesome power to strike down laws enacted by our elected representatives. Why does the public accept the Court's decisions as legitimate and follow them, even when those decisions are highly unpopular? What must the Court do to maintain the public's faith? How can the Court help make our democracy work? Today we assume that when the Court rules, the public will obey. But Breyer declares that we cannot take the public's confidence in the Court for granted. He reminds us that at various moments in our history, the Court's decisions were disobeyed or ignored. And through investigations of past cases, concerning the Cherokee Indians, slavery, and Brown v. Board of Education, he brilliantly captures the steps--and the missteps--the Court took on the road to establishing its legitimacy as the guardian of the Constitution. Justice Breyer discusses what the Court must do going forward to maintain that public confidence and argues for interpreting the Constitution in a way that works in practice. He forcefully rejects competing approaches that look exclusively to the Constitution's text or to the 18th-century views of the framers. Instead, he advocates a pragmatic approach that applies unchanging constitutional values to ever-changing circumstances--an approach that will best demonstrate to the public that the Constitution continues to serve us well. The Court, he believes, must also respect the roles that other actors--such as the president, Congress, administrative agencies, and the states--play in our democracy, and he emphasizes the Court's obligation to build cooperative relationships with them. Finally, Justice Breyer examines the Court's recent decisions concerning the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, contrasting these decisions with rulings concerning the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. He uses these cases to show how the Court can promote workable government by respecting the roles of other constitutional actors without compromising constitutional principles.

Listen to the podcast here.

Drawing the Map of Life: Inside the Human Genome Project from Forum Network | Book Tour Podcast Podcast

Science writer and founder the Knight Science Journalism Fellowships at MIT, Victor McElheny, for a look into the workings of the Human Genome Project and his new book, Drawing the Map of Life. Drawing the Map of Life is the dramatic story of the Human Genome Project from its origins, through the race to order the three billion subunits of DNA, to the surprises emerging as scientists seek to exploit the molecule of heredity. It's the first account to deal in depth with the intellectual roots of the project, the motivations that drove it, and the hype that often masked genuine triumphs. Victor McElheny offers profiles of key people, such as David Botstein, Eric Lander, Francis Collins, James Watson, Michael Hunkapiller, and Craig Venter. McElheny also shows that the Human Genome Project is a striking example of how new techniques (such as restriction enzymes and sequencing methods) often arrive first, shaping the questions scientists then ask. Drawing on years of original interviews and reporting in the inner circles of biological science, Drawing the Map of Life is the definitive, up-to-date story of today's greatest scientific quest.

Download the podcast here. This is what Salon.com had to say about the book:

But these days, the popular excitement surrounding the project has largely abated: The sequencing of the genome hasn't led to the rollout of any game-changing new drugs; we've yet to discover the genes responsible for Alzheimer's or Huntington's, among many other diseases, and the era of mass personalized medicine — in which doctors can tailor treatments to people's specific genetic code — has yet to come. But as Victor McElheny, a longtime science reporter and the founder of the Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT, points out in his new book about the tumultuous evolution of the Human Genome Project, "Drawing the Map of Life," the widespread impact of genome sequencing is only now beginning to be felt, and a new era of genetically informed medicine is just around the corner.

Read the full Salon.com piece here. See also: Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters (P.S.), A Short Guide to the Human Genome, Inside the Human Genome: A Case for Non-Intelligent Design, The Genome War: How Craig Venter Tried to Capture the Code of Life and Save the World

Eli Kintisch: Hack the Planet from Forum Network | Book Tour Podcast Podcast

Eli Kintisch and Bethanne Patrick discuss Kintisch's new book, Hack the Planet: Science's Best Hope - or Worst Nightmare - for Averting Climate Catastrophe.

Listen to the podcast here.