Rich Fisher

[Aired on Friday, March 2nd.] Book reviewer Nancy Pearl joins us to talk about the best new books of 2012 and a few overlooked gems from the past couple of years. Pearl is the author of six highly regarded "books about books" in her Book Lust series, and she's embarking as the series editor for "Book Lust Discoveries," which will revive twelve classic, long-out-of-print titles that are worth a fresh read. The series gets underway in April with Merle Miller's "A Gay and Melancholy Sound."

Here's Nancy's latest picks:

[Aired on Thursday, March 1st.] Today, we speak with Jamal Joseph, whose new memoir is "Panther Baby: A Life of Rebellion and Reinvention." This engrossing autobiography --- a gritty yet hopeful hybrid of coming-of-age candor, street-savvy wisdom, and recent socio-political history --- follows Jospeph from his early years in the Bronx and Harlem, to incarceration stints in Riker’s Island and then Leavenworth, to the Film School faculty of Columbia University.

[Also aired on Wednesday, February 29th.

[Aired on Wednesday, February 29th.] (Note: This show originally aired last year.) Today we speak with the music historian, writer, and educator Harvey Sachs, whose latest book, just out in paperback from Random House, is "The Ninth: Beethoven and the World in 1824." It's a fascinating, in-depth, and wonderfully readable account of the creation and reception of one of the world's immortal pieces of music: Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

[Aired on Tuesday, February 28th.] On today's program, we chat by phone with Dr. Lenn Goodman, Mellon Professor of Humanities and Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. He'll present the Annual Snuggs Lecture in Religion tomorrow night (Wednesday the 29th) at 7:30pm in Helmerich Hall on the TU campus; the lecture is free to the public and is entitled "Creation and Evolution." An award-winning scholar and prolific author, Dr.

[Aired on Monday, February 27th.] On today's show, we speak with Kelly Kurt, a former AP reporter and freelance writer here in Tulsa whose article, "Death's Yellow Door," is the cover story in the current issue of This Land.

[Aired on Friday, February 24th.] On this edition of StudioTulsa, we speak with Jake Heggie, the composer of "Dead Man Walking," which premiered in San Francisco in 2000, and has since become one of the most popular and most widely performed American operas of today (with more than 150 performances worldwide). Tulsa Opera will stage "Dead Man Walking" at the Tulsa PAC on Saturday the 25th (at 7:30pm), Friday the 2nd (at 7:30pm), and Sunday the 4th (at 2:30pm).

[Aired on Thursday, February 23rd.] On today's show, we learn about the 19th Annual New Genre Festival, which is being presented by Living Arts of Tulsa at various venues in downtown Tulsa through March 3rd. First, we hear from Steve Liggett, the Artistic Director of Living Arts, who describes several of the outstanding events that've yet to occur at NG19. Then, we hear from the Chicago-based performance artist Erica Mott, who will perform a work called "Revised and Revisited" as part of the NG festival on Friday the 24th and Saturday the 25th at 8pm.

[Aired on Wednesday, February 22nd.] On today's ST, we speak with the sharp and ever-colorful Sister Helen Prejean, 72, who gave a free-to-the-public lecture here at TU last night in the Lorton Performance Center. A longtime and deeply committed critic of capital punishment in America, Sister Helen made a few recent appearances in Tulsa --- last night, today on our show, and elsewhere --- in order to promote Tulsa Opera's new production, "Dead Man Walking," which will open on Saturday the 25th at the Tulsa PAC.