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Imagine yourself in the excitement at NASA’s manned space center in Houston in the time leading up to the first moon launch in 1969. In elegant and evocative prose Isa Arsen takes us there in her debut novel, Shoot The Moon, described as “deep, bold and crackling smart” we travel backwards and forwards and backwards time and again with Isa’s protagonist Annie from her childhood in Santa Fe’s east side to her dream on the launch team. An interview that may raise the hairs on the back of your neck as we explore how a writer brings the mysterious equations of soul love and the anomalies of physics to the page. Meet Isa Arsen at Collected Works Bookstore on Sunday, October 22nd at 4:00. www.inarsen.com

A treat for animal lovers today from multi award-winning Junkyard Girl author Carlyn Montes de Oca.

Fourteen months out from the next general election is it possible to break big money’s stranglehold on our electoral system ? Former Santa Fe attorney and social justice activist for more than 40 years, Bruce Berlin joins me with his critically acclaimed book, Breaking Big Money’s Grip on America. With lobbyists and super PACs soliciting seemingly unlimited funds from corporations and individuals how can we break the cycle ? A fascinating and important conversation that we all need to hear, understand and learn effective ways to take action. More in Bruce Berlin’s topical weekly blogs at breakingbigmoneysgrip.com

An insight into one of this country’s appalling injustices, the life imprisonment in adult penitentiaries of teenagers as young as 13 who have been convicted of murder. Author, activist and retired pediatrician Bettye Kearse joins me to speak about an upcoming local event to help to bring awareness that may change young people’s lives, to be tried in juvenile courts and given a real chance to understand their crime. Bettye Kearse is the author of The Other Madisons: The Lost History of A President’s Black Family. Join her to hear wonderful soul music and dance at Gathering Up: The Gospel of Community. Saturday, October 7, 2:00 pm at United Church of Santa Fe on Arroyo Chamiso and Sunday 8th, 2:00 pm at the Railyard Performance Center. Come prepared to dance! Full details at inspiritstudio.com/gathering-up

A priceless interview for all animal lovers with Santa Fe’s Hersch Wilson, recently retired volunteer firefighter after 33 years, soccer coach, organizational consultant, master storyteller, former dancer, author of the acclaimed Firefighter Zen and today’s newly released Dog Lessons: Learning the Important Stuff from Our Best Friends.

A fascinating insight into the Western United States with historian Betsy Gaines Quammen in her new book True West: Myth and Mending on The Far Side of America. Her extensive travels and conversations with people on all sides of the political spectrum and of all the different cultures that make up the West bring much needed clarity and integrity to our sometimes distorted images of this magnificent land and it’s peoples. Meet Betsy at Collected Works Bookstore on Tuesday, November 7 at 6:00 and learn more about her observations at betsygainesquammen.com

It’s my fourth anniversary hosting The Last Word and celebrating with me are intrepid travel journalists Judith Fein and Paul Ross, aka Cowboy Poet PJ Ross. Judie is back with more stories from her very popular book How to Communicate with Dead and How Cultures Do It Around The World. She meets a realGhost during a ceremony in Brazil and honors the beautiful rituals of our Mexican neighbors for whom a conversation with a deceased beloved relative is often part of everyday life. Keep your mind and heart open as you listen and discover Judie and Paul at globaladventure.us

Mary L. Grow’s beautifully rendered story Night Train to Odessa is set 100 years ago in Ukraine as it is torn apart by civil war and the Bolshevik revolution. Yet events could be mirror images of Ukraine now, of loss of all that is loved and familiar and the desperate need to flee certain death and horror overnight. I ask the author how she creates a novel so immersive, suspenseful and intimate and yet to bring lightness to even the most dire experiences the characters suffer. Mary L. Grow will be reading from Night Train to Odessa at Santa Fe’s Collected Works bookstore at 6:00 on Thursday, September 14th. Learn more about her now at marylgrow.com

A mouth-watering treat for listeners today with three-time James Beard award-winning culinary writer Anya von Bremzen with her new book, National Dish: Around The World in Search of Food, History and The Meaning of Home. Part geography, part history and an exploration of deep cultural roots, we begin in Paris with the classic home-cooked dish, pot au feu, and travel with Anya onto Naples, Italy, to taste pizza unlike any you’ve tasted before. In a few minutes we’re in Seville, Spain relaxing with friends over tapas and onto Oaxaca, Mexico where the secrets of mole are passed down through generations There we learn of the 3,000 year old fight to keep corn, masa, safe from the wheat barons. Our final moments are spent in war-torn Ukraine the home of borsch, or is it Russia who claims to have created the delicious beetroot soup? National Dish is published by Penguin.

Standing at the gravesite of their grandmother, three young children and their mother were asked to make a solemn promise that they would never, ever, put their Dad in a nursing home. Decades later, their father is deep in the trenches of vascular dementia, and they try to care for him and for their exhausted, burned out, elderly but determined mother. Then, on Christmas Day as the family gathers, Mom asks her daughter Bernadette, who is an ICU nurse, to seriously consider euthanasia to put Dad out of his daily misery. What follows is a brilliantly-written tale filled with wisdom and life, an unexpected page-turner. Essential reading for everyone with a family member suffering from dementia of any kind. Available from the independent bookseller bookshop.org and directly from Debra on her website at http://dliebhart.com/