Dr. Raymond Williams did an excellent interview with author Sharron Wilkins Conrad!

Lisa Silverman is an historian whose books I want to explore, based on this interview. I’m not an academically-trained historian, but read and study a lot, especially from the first half of the twentieth century. Thank you for giving her the platform for explaining her ideas. I’m embarking on post-WWII histories now, and my reading list is enhanced.

fav was Wonderworks

At times, I miss the far reaching, less socio-political subjects that were more common in years previous, but overall what a wonderful resource.

You will never run out of episodes. This is a great contribution to intellectual history.

This is my library, I got to it to keep up with new academic books, it saves time and introduce the listeners to the authors behind the books.

A collection of all the network's other channels, everything from neuroscience to history to religion. The result is a firehose of interviews with researchers, academics, authors, and others who talk about their latest publication or project in detail. The publications range from high-level academic minutiae to work oriented towards the general public. Any inquisitive listener is guaranteed to come across something fascinating and possibly wind up going bankrupt buying books. The podcast updates in chunks but averages around an episode a day.

I love this podcast and am very grateful for it. I have purchased so many books I have learned about through this podcast. I was thinking the other day as I went to purchase a book I learned about here that there should be a code we can type as opposed to having to click through the links or whatever in order to give credit where credit is due. Because if I scroll through my podcasts, see a title of a book on the podcast app, I click right over to amazon and put that book in the cart or buy it now, etc. I figured I would mention it if it was in fact important, maybe it isn’t and at this point the NBN is aware of how much they impact sales based on the correlation of when the post is made and when the books are purchased. On another note, I do get the distinct impression that sometimes the interviewer has not read the book at all and when this happens it is quite obvious for the audience and the author. I think authors of academic books maybe just go with the flow because they are obligated by their big academic publishing house, first, and also would rather be in that type of interview than no type of interview. But in those cases, I think it would be better if the author was given the opportunity to do a presentation for an hour or so without the terrible questions with no follow up and the absolutely dreaded “I think it is so interesting that you [insert partial sentence from the second paragraph of the introduction]; will you elaborate more on that?” Incidentally, “interesting” is a concept for the crowd, not the critic. Big ups to Marshall Poe, though, that he remain touched by the light of Clio.

I learn SO much from this

I’ve listened to several channels for a couple of years now, and I’ve learned a lot. As a busy academic, I appreciate the opportunity to hear about new books that I may not have time to read. The usual length is about 45 minutes, which allows for the author to go into the book’s main arguments in some detail. The audio quality does vary somewhat, but I’ve noticed that it’s improved over the years. Find a channel or two that fit your interests and give it a listen!

Every interview allows an expert to talk about what they know, at length, with just a few questions to keep it going. Totally different from most other podcasts, where the host dominates the conversation. You can learn a lot. If you find the sound quality for one interview is poor or the subject too narrow, just move on to the next one. There are hundreds, many first rate.

I love the books but most of the interviews are painful to listen to. I would hate to stop listening but really can’t tolerate the bad sound—there is no excuse for this.

I can’t believe I’ve only just now stumbled upon this podcast! I’ve always wanted to read more, but it can be hard to find time to get through a whole book with so many other obligations. Now I can get introduced to new books while walking outside or while I’m commuting. The number of episodes y’all put out every day is remarkable! Unfortunately I do have to agree with other commenters that the audio quality is unreliable, and some of the interviewers will either cut off the speaker or not ask the right questions. I hope this will improve over time; it’s such a great concept.

There is little excuse for the terrible production values. Sometimes all you need to do is equalize the vol. or tell your guest not to shuffle everything on their desk.

The New Books podcast is a great idea that is poorly executed. Some of the most inept interviewers you will ever hear are the hosts of these podcasts. If you are listening to these podcasts in the hope of learning what the book is about, you often will be disappointed. Interviewer mistakes include: -- Failure to understand that people are tuning in to hear what the AUTHOR has to say, not what the interviewer thinks. -- Boring, trivial, tangential questions that elicit little information about what the book says. It is possible to listen to some of these podcasts and never learn what the book says. -- Far too much introductory background. It’s not unusual to slog through 15 or 20 minutes of such introductory blather before the first question is asked about what the book says. -- Overlong questions in which the interviewer tries to show off his/her erudition by outlining every possible answer before giving the author a chance to answer. The other big disappointment of this podcast is the choice of books to review. A large percentage of the titles are eye-glazing renditions of race/class/gender victimology. Zzzzzzz......

There are several books in political science that I heard about first through this podcast. In one case, I wound up using it in a class that started a month after the podcast, and in another I assembled an APSA panel on the book. Without the podcast, it takes the profession longer to have timely conversations about new books.

Such great content; can’t get anywhere else via podcast. But when I’m about to begin listening, I know there’s a 75% chance of audio problems. I think the interviewer was typing the whole time on the last one in between questions. Very wierd and persistent audio problems for years.

The new books network is consistently filled with fascinating original interviews with a wide array of writers and academics who have changed the ways I think about a number of fields and sparked many lines of inquiry. Many of the interviewers and very skilled and I especially appreciate the typical introductory biographical questions to help situate how these books come to be.

The podcast on Patricia Strach's "Hiding Politics in Plain Sight: Cause-Marketing, Corporate Influence, and Breast Cancer Policymaking" was wonderful! I already read the book, and the podcast gave me the opportunity to listen to the author talk about some of the most interesting aspects of her book, such as commercial social movements and their effect on breast cancer policymaking. Super interesting to hear about the political effects of cause-marketing, which although ubiquitous, we hardly think of as political.

Please invest in some better recording equipment, the wonderful content is almost unlistenable. If you do these remotely, consider using teamspeak3. In any event, something has to change, it's sad to see such great interviews being presented as tinny, compressed, warbled sound. I will grit my teeth and bear it, but I really shouldn't have to.