Now here’s a class to die for: Zombies 101 at the University of  Maryland Baltimore taught by Dr. Arnold Blumberg, the author of Zombiemania and curator of Geppi’s Entertainment Museum. Then the editor-in-chief of Tarcher/Penguin, Mitch Horowitz talks about Occult America.

Jill Lepore, Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer, offers a wry look at American history according to the far right, from the “rant heard round the world,” which launched the Tea Party, to the Texas School Board’s adoption of a social-studies curriculum that teaches that the United States was established as a Christian nation in The Whites of Their Eyes.

Across the country, DNA testing is revealing the innocence of wrongfully convicted and imprisoned people. TESTED dramatically reveals how these men kept their hope, their faith, and their sanity. As authors Peyton Budd and Dorothy Budd interviewed these men, they discovered the secrets of what sustained them behind bars. Two of the men, Richard Miles and Eugene Henton join us also to tell their story.

In a climate of culture wars and economic uncertainty, the media have often reduced America to a simplistic schism between red states and blue states. Journalist Dante Chinni teamed up with political geographer James Gimpel to launch the Patchwork Nation project, using on-the-ground reporting and statistical analysis to probe American communities in depth in Our Patchwork Nation. Then, nearly one-third of the nation’s parents, when asked to identify the biggest challenge to parenting today, pointed to ethical and moral issues. In  Good Kids, Tough Choices, Rushworth Kidder explores how parents can overcome these obstacles and effectively support and lead their children from early years to late teens.

In mid-July, 45-year-old ex-felon Byron Williams  drove to San Francisco with multiple firearms to start a revolution by killing people of importance at the Tides Foundation and the ACLU referring to Glenn Beck and other media figures as “school teachers”. Freelance journalist John Hamilton wrote an article about the research regarding the violent rhetoric that fuels extremists to carry out these heinous acts.

Mara Shalhoup, journalist and editor-in-chief of Creative Loafing spent two years researching the rise and fall of an Atlanta drug kingpin through a series of articles and chronicles it all in Black Mafia Family. Later, for the first time in history, the number of people over age fifty will be greater than those under age seventeen and few under­stand the resulting massive effects on economies, jobs, and families. Jour­nalist and author, Ted C. Fishman explains in Shock of Gray how our world is being altered in ways no one ever expected.

Former network news correspondent Eric Burns charts the effect of television on politics, religion, race, and sex, and how the medium provided a persuasive message to the young, impressionable viewers in Invasion of the Mind Snatchers.

The book, Waiting for Superman was inspired by the Sundance award-winning documentary where leading educational reformers explore how to fix our broken public school system through a series of essays. Karl Weber, the editor of the book joins us.

The con­test between labor and capital for their share of American bounty has shaped our national experience. Historian and author,  Philip Dray’s ambition is to show us the vital accomplishments of organized labor in the twentieth century and to illuminate its central role in our social, political, economic, and cultural evolution in There Is Power In A Union.

In Stalling for Time, former FBI Chief Negotiator Gary Noesner takes readers on a heart-pounding tour through many of the most famous hostage crises of the past thirty years. Noesner offers a candid as well as fascinating look back at his years as a rebel in the ranks and a pioneer on the front lines. Case by case, minute by minute, it’s a behind the scenes view of a visionary crime-fighter in action.