Ann Hagedorn returned to the program to talk about the Soviet spy who had grown up in Iowa then went on to steal atomic secrets that helped the Soviet Union develop their own nuclear weapons. They never caught him, he had made a clean getaway. Sleeper Agent recently came out in paperback. Her book was a finalist this year for an Edgar Award in the category of True Crime.
*Best of the Book Nook Bonus Segment: Remembering Thomas Cahill - 'How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role From the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe' by Thomas Cahill
(Original recording made in 1996)
In 1996 Thomas Cahill came out to Yellow Springs to do a live interview for his book "How the Irish Saved Civilization." That book became his best known work, it ruled the non-fiction best-seller lists for years. He arrived at WYSO shortly before St. Patrick's Day. St. Patrick is the major figure in the book. It was Patrick who brought Christianity to a pagan Ireland and thus created the environment for reading and writing to survive in remote Ireland as the whole of Europe was sinking into an illiterate darkness following the collapse of the Roman Empire in the 5th Century.
Thomas Cahill died in October.
The Book Nook on WYSO is presented by the Greene County Public Library with additional support from Washington-Centerville Public Library, Clark County Public Library, Dayton Metro Library, and Wright Memorial Public Library.
