“Trying to interview Dervla Murphy is like trying to open an oyster … with a wet bus ticket.” That line came from the 2010 documentary, Who is Dervla Murphy, about the intrepid Irish travel writer. In 2003, I’d hoped to go to Ireland to interview the...
Shapiro's BookTV panel discussion with Isabel Allende, Tim Cahill, Jan Morris and Jeff Greenwald For the book launch of A Sense of Place, I set up a panel discussion with four of the leading literary lights of our time: Isabel Allende, Tim Cahill, Jan Morris, and Jeff...
The football star–turned–soldier became the Pentagon’s poster boy, and when he was shot dead by U.S. Army Rangers, the military said he was killed by enemy fire. The deception, it turns out, was not an isolated incident, but part of a pattern of keeping the...
When President Nixon visited China in 1972, he said that it takes a great people to build a Great Wall. In Mongolia they countered: It takes an even greater people to make them want to build it. That warrior pride is on full display at the Naadam festival. Read the...
A certain magic happens when the right event is held in a town that embraces it. Setting an environmental film fest in Nevada City is an alchemical pairing that brings out the best in the Gold Country town. With its rich prospecting history, 19th-century Victorian...