Alex Vernon on NPR Wednesday
One of Tyrone’s colleagues at Hendrix College is going to be on NPR on Wednesday. Alex Vernon will be on the Diane Rehm show at 10AM central time.
Sorry Nebraskans, this one won’t be on the radio, but you can click on the internet radio feed in the top left hand column. Arkansas (and apparently many other places) actually play NPR talk shows all day, unlike Nebraska’s switch to classical music from 9AM-4PM.
Anyway, I got to talk to Gulf War veteran Dr. Vernon this weekend about this upcoming interview. He’s got a book on the cultural significance of Tarzan coming out October 15, 2008. We started talking about Tarzan this weekend. Whenever anyone starts talking about Tarzan, I try to change the subject to Edgar Rice Burrough’s “Men of Mars” series because I find it much more interesting. I’m pretty embarrassed about that right now, being unaware of the upcoming _On_Tarzan_ book.
On Wednesday, Dr. Vernon will be using his Hemingway expertise in the _A_Farewell_to_Arms_ book discussion on the Diane Rehm show. His book, _Soldiers_Once_and_Still_ examines war veteran writers including Hemingway, James Salter, and Tim O’Brien.
Just to make up for that whole “Men of Mars” gaffe on my part, here’s a link to Dr. Vernon’s first book. His memoir, _Most_Succinctly_Bred_ has a blurb by Tim O’Brien, so I’ll just let that speak for the book:
“Beautiful and smart and original, Alex Vernon’s memoir is a wise, honest, and tautly written account of a man’s journey from youth to West Point to the Persian Gulf War to the world of academia. Beyond that, it is an intensely passionate exploration of the struggle in a young man’s soul between the biddings of Eros and Thanatos, duty and conscience, commitment to ideal and commitment to self.”
Note to RSS Feed readers: I’m working on getting the books to show in the feeds, but you probably want ad-free feeds. If you’d like to click on the book links, open blog entry in a new window.
One final note, now that I’m apart of the Hendrix family, I’d like to brag that the college has been ranked one of the nation’s top 100 colleges by Forbes.com.