Front Porch Book Club Podcast
Grab your book and iced tea and join the Front Porch Book Club, your no-commitment, casual, and eclectic podcast about books. We examine the relationship between characters, the worlds they live in, and what that means to us.
Latest Episode
112: Taiwo Bello
Today we interview Dr. Taiwo Bello about the historical and contemporary contexts of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's HALF OF A YELLOW SUN. Nancy loves this interview because neither she nor Linda knew anything about the Biafran War. Linny likes that we then talk about...
112: Taiwo Bello
Today we interview Dr. Taiwo Bello about the historical and contemporary contexts of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's HALF OF A YELLOW SUN. Nancy loves this interview because neither she nor Linda knew anything about the Biafran War. Linny likes that we then talk about lessons we can learn so we don’t repeat those mistakes.
Taiwo Bello is an Assistant Professor of African History and an affiliate faculty member of the Africana Studies Centre at Oklahoma State University. His research and teaching interests encompass gender and women's history, war and society, violence and conflict studies, the history of crime, law, and punishment, Black and diaspora studies, genocide, human rights, and humanitarian histories, as well as global and transnational history. He serves on the Editorial Review Boards of the AFRICAN STUDIES ASSOCIATION journal, HISTORY IN AFRICA, published by Cambridge University Press; and the CANADIAN ASSOCIATION OF AFRICAN STUDIES journal, the CANADIAN JOURNAL OF AFRICAN STUDIES, published by Taylor & Francis. He is a founding editor of SCHOLAR’S CORNER, a subsidiary blog of the journal, GENOCIDE STUDIES INTERNATIONAL, published by University of Toronto Press.
He is revising his second book entitled SOLDIERS ON RAMPAGE: GENDER, BLOCKADE, VIOLENCE AND RESISTANCE IN BIAFRA DURING THE NIGERIAN CIVIL WAR, 1967-1970. The book examines the impact of the wartime violence between the Nigerian and Biafran soldiers on Biafran women and their families, and the women's responses to wartime atrocities. The book demonstrates how food was central to the constant violence unleashed on women in the heartland of Biafra.
His forthcoming book, INVENTING ORDER: CRIME, LAW, AND PUNISHMENT IN NIGERIA AND THE DIASPORA, adopts a multidisciplinary approach to examine the evolution of crimes (armed robbery, immigration fraud, financial fraud, drug trafficking) in Nigeria and their local and global implications.
About Front Porch Book Club
I honestly was blown away by the deep dive Nancy and Linny did into SPARKS LIKE STARS and really appreciated the personal perspectives they brought.
Nadia Hashimi, Author
Every month the Front Porch Book Club features two episodes on our selected book. In the first episode Linda and Nancy introduce the book and discuss their thoughts. In the second episode, Linda and Nancy are joined by the author or an expert to delve deeper into the book. Our book selections are eclectic: fiction, autobiography, history, memoir, investigative journalism, and classics. They are books that give us insights into how we may be more intentional, creative, and loving.
Recent Episodes
67: Marshmallow Clouds
It's children's book month, and our 2023 is a gem: Marshmallow Clouds, written by Ted Kooser and Connie Wanek and illustrated by Richard Jones. The book features 30 poems that celebrate finding wonder through imagination and are loosely categorized by the four...
66: James Ker-Lindsay talks Cyprus
James Ker-Lindsay introduces us to the beautiful and complex island of Cyprus, the setting of Elif Shafak’s The Island of Missing Trees. Ker-Lindsay is a scholar whose research focuses on conflict, and peace and security in South East Europe. He tells us about the...
65: The Island of Missing Trees
In The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak, young lovers Defne and Kostas are torn apart by the Cyprus war in the 1970s. When they meet again, 25 years later, Defne has become part of a team dedicated to finding graves of war victims and Kostas has become a scholar...
64: Julie Des Jardins on Lessons in Chemistry
Was sexism in the STEM workplace really as bad as that faced by Elizabeth Zott in Bonnie Garmus’ Lessons in Chemistry? Cultural historian Julie Des Jardins leads us through the experiences of women in the workforce in the 20th-century. Let’s just say, most women...
Meet The Hosts
Growing up, Nancy always had her nose in a book. She never remembers not loving to read books. Linda, on the other hand, hated libraries and spent her childhood trying to lure Nancy away from books into some other activity that she thought would be way more fun. That’s right – we’re sisters. Nancy was more of an introvert and Linda was more of an extrovert. But, somewhere along the way, Linda started loving books and Nancy started loving talking about books. Nancy is a recovering academic in Nebraska who writes and Linda is a licensed counselor in Pennsylvania.