August 24, 2005 - Midday examines the events that shaped the Twin Cities over the last 150 years. Dave Kenney, author of the "Twin Cities Album: A Visual History."
June 29, 2005 - Author Kevin Powell says that African Americans need to be empowered, not just economically and politically, but also in the areas of physical and mental health. Powell spoke recently at a forum in Minneapolis named for his book "Who's Gonna Take the Weight?"
April 28, 2005 - New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has come to the conclusion that Christopher Columbus had it all wrong. He says the world isn't round, at least not anymore. In his new book, "The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century," Friedman argues that communication technology has leveled the international economic playing field, allowing people from Brainerd to Bangalore to compete on a more or less even footing. Thomas Friedman is a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, a bestselling author and a native of St. Louis Park, Minn.
April 14, 2005 - Betty Crocker was born in 1921 in the Home Services Department of Minneapolis' Washburn Crosby Company, which would later become General Mills. She was conceived as a pen name to answer the torrent of baking questions pouring into the office, and the name stuck. In the decades that followed she became the domestic ideal, the role model to which millions of American women aspired, or were expected to aspire. Susan Marks is the author of "Finding Betty Crocker: The Secret Life of America's First Lady of Food."
April 5, 2005 - The Iranian presidential election in June is expected to bring a conservative successor to reformist President Mohammad Khatami, but Iranian-American journalist Azadeh Moaveni says that her generation of young Iranians is hungry for democratic reform. Moaveni is the author of the bestselling "Lipstick Jihad: A Memoir of Growing up Iranian in America and American in Iran."
March 4, 2005 - For years New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote prolifically on globalization. Then 9/11 happened, and the tragedy consumed his attention. Friedman has said he "lost the thread" of globalization for a while. His forthcoming book, "The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century," picks up the thread. Thomas Friedman is a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, a bestselling author and a native of St. Louis Park, Minn.
March 2, 2005 - John Feinstein covered sports and politics in his eleven years at the Washington Post. He has written several bestselling books, including "A Season on the Brink" and "A Good Walk Spoiled," but Feinstein's latest novel is his first foray into the genre of young adult fiction. "Last Shot" is the story of two teenagers who win press passes to cover college basketball's Final Four and unearth a plot to fix the big game.
February 25, 2005 - By the time you finish this sentence, you may very well have decided whether or not to listen to Malcolm Gladwell's speech at the Commonwealth Club of California. Gladwell's book "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking" is about these kinds of split-second decisions: how they are made, why they are often surprisingly good and why they are sometimes tragically bad. Part 2
February 25, 2005 - By the time you finish this sentence, you may very well have decided whether or not to listen to Malcolm Gladwell's speech at the Commonwealth Club of California. Gladwell's book "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking" is about these kinds of split-second decisions: how they are made, why they are often surprisingly good and why they are sometimes tragically bad. Part 1
February 17, 2005 - Author Mary Pipher is out with a new book that details what happened when her hometown of Lincoln, Neb. became an official refugee resettlement community. Pipher talks about writing "The Middle of Everywhere" in this live speech from the Westminster Town Hall Forum in Minneapolis.