Wendell Pierce; Carrie Brownstein; Elizabeth Gilbert; Sarah Vowell; and More

Today's show is a holiday treat of some of our favorite book interviews from 2015:  

• Actor Wendell Pierce (The Wire, Treme) talks about the aftermath of Katrina and value of art in times of crisis and his book The Wind in the Reeds (Riverhead, 2015).
• New York Post theater columnist Michael Riedel tells the story of how "A Chorus Line" saved NYC from Razzle Dazzle: The Battle for Broadway (Simon & Schuster, 2015).
• Patricia Park set a modern-day Jane Eyre among Korean Americans in Queens in Re Jane: A Novel (Pamela Dorman Books, 2015).
• Elizabeth Gilbert gives advice from Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear (Riverhead Books, 2015).
• Actress/rocker Carrie Brownstein on going from punk to Portlandia and writing Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl: A Memoir (Riverhead Books, 2015).
• Anna Badkhen "follows the cows" and talks about a disappearing way of life from Walking with Abel: Journeys With the Nomads of the African Savannah (Riverhead Books, 2015).
• And the inimitable Sarah Vowell brings her distinctive blend of ambivalence and hope to Lafayette in the Somewhat United States (Riverhead Books, 2015).

The interviews originally aired earlier this year. Links to the unedited audio are here: 

• Wendell Pierce on Art in the Face of Catastrophe (10/29/15)
• From Damon Runyon to Disney (10/8/15)
• Jane Eyre with a Korean-American Immigrant Spin (5/6/15)
• Elizabeth Gilbert on Creativity (9/22/15)
• Carrie Brownstein on Hunger and Self Discovery (10/28/15)
• Journeying with Nomads (8/6/15)
• A Teenaged French General in the American Revolution (10/20/15)