Tell Me What You’re Reading

Howard Altarescu
  • 4.9 (14)
  • Society & Culture

Talking about books on the streets of New York, in the mountains of the Catskills and on the road. I find that when I ask people about what they’re reading, they tend to start talking about books generally and then start talking to others about books. Encouraging the discussion of books cannot be a bad thing! “Books are a sort of cultural DNA, the code for who, as a society, we are, and what we know. All the wonders and failures, all the champions and villains, all the legends and ideas and revelations of a culture last forever in its books.” @susanorlean, The Library Book

  1. Jul 12

    Writers of the Catskills: In Conversation with Mikhail Horowitz (TMWYR Ep. #59)

    Writers of the Catskills: In Conversation with Mikhail HorowitzA series of self-portraits by Catskills’ literary voices  (Photo Credit: Dion Ogust) These are clips from my conversation on November 21, 2025, with Mikhail Horowitz, poet, writer, journalist, musician, satirist, performance artist and activist. Mikhail has written more than 1,000 poems (“maybe 25 are any good,” he says), along with book reviews, spoofs and satires. His work includes “Spoon River Apology,” performed at the Woodstock Community Center last June. Mikhail lived in the Town of Saugerties for 34 years, has been living in Woodstock for the past three years, and also lived in Woodstock briefly in the 1980s. In our conversation Mik described his creative process as relying on “a gift from the Muse.” Mik was introduced to me by my Woodstock friend, Frank Spinelli, who participated in the discussion, as did my Woodstock friend, Dion Ogust.They were both also photographing Mik as we talked. A condensed and edited version of this interview was published on December 25, 2025, in The Overlook, a nonprofit news outlet serving the Catskills communities of Hunter, Hurley, Olive, Saugerties, Shandaken, and Woodstock. and my interview with Mikhail can be heard on my podcast, “Tell Me What You’re Reading”, available on Apple Podcasts,  Spotify  and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Howard Altarescu

    Writers of the Catskills: In Conversation with Mikhail Horowitz (TMWYR Ep. #59)

  2. Feb 22

    Writers of the Catskills: In Conversation with Rebecca Rego Barry (TMWYR Ep. #60)

    My discussion with Rebecca Rego Barry for The Overlook, the online nonprofit news outlet serving the Catskills communities of Hunter, Hurley, Olive, Saugerties, Shandaken, and Woodstock. Rebecca has had an exceptional literary journey as a book historian, a library preservationist and archivist, a magazine editor, bibliophile and publisher, as well as the author of hundreds of articles, essays, book reviews, two books, and a chapter in another. Rebecca, who was introduced to me by my friend Beth Waterman of the Phoenicia Library, lives in Chichester, a hamlet of Shandaken, with her husband Brett Barry, the host of the popular Catskills’ podcast “Kaatscast.” The couple recently became part owners of Catskills book publisher, the Purple Mountain Press. In our discussion, Rebecca observed “I literally think of nothing else but books all the time.” We discussed Rebecca’s books, Rare Books Uncovered, and The Vanishing of Carolyn Wells, Investigations into a Forgotten Mystery Author, Rebecca's writing process (‘bird by bird”) and routine, the challenges of writing and publishing, the books she’s currently reading, including with her local book club, and finally the Purple Mountain Press.  A condensed and edited version of our discussion was published in The Overlook.The complete transcript of our discussion can be found on my website, Bookworms In the Wild. (Photo credit: Dion Ogust)

    Writers of the Catskills: In Conversation with Rebecca Rego Barry (TMWYR Ep. #60)

  3. 11/09/2025

    WW II Veteran Albert Lerman at 100 years old (TMWYR Ep. #58)

    While we refer to a few books in the discussion that follows, this discussion with my dear old friend Albert Lerman is primarily about his experience as an 18 year old infantryman in World War II.  And when I say old friend, I really mean it. Albert turned 100 earlier this year and Albert’s son Bill, a dear and old friend as well, suggested that it would be timely to have this discussion. Albert was a grunt in the Army, an infantryman, tough, resilient, essential,  the backbone of the army, and part of The Greatest Generation. Carol and I have known and loved Albert for more than 50 years, and he's exemplified The Greatest Generation his entire life.  I’m so pleased to have had this discussion with Albert and Bill. (U.S. forces met allied Russian forces at the Elbe River in Germany on April 25, 1945, effectively splitting Nazi Germany in half and symbolizing the imminent end to the war.  In the picture above, Albert is the grunt with the cigarette in his mouth greeting Russian soldiers at the Elbe.) Albert discusses the drafting of the entire freshman and sophomore classes from Penn into the Army gearing up to fight the war; the hell of war for the soldiers (“you know, the guy beside you, all of a sudden, he ain’t alive anymore. That’s tough. That’s tough”), including the misery of living in foxholes, and for the German civilians as well (“absolutely, war is hell for them too, the people that we flushed out of these houses were women and children“); his war injuries; the historic meeting of U.S. and allied Russian forces at the Elbe River; the preference of the Germans to surrender to American forces (“they were deathly afraid of the Russians”); his extended honeymoon with Evelyn after the war; and his hope for the U.S. to avoid war in the future. My 2018 discussion with Evelyn, who we all loved beyond measure - Tell Me What You’re Reading No. 32: Evelyn Lerman - Ev's tribute to her Mom, and my tribute to Ev - can be found on Spotify or Apple Podcasts Books referred to in my discussion with Albert. D-Day, June 9, 1944, by Stephen Ambrose The Greatest Generation, by Tom Brokaw When Time Stopped, A Memoir of my Father’s War and What Remains, by Ariana Neumann Some of the other WWII books I’ve read. Roosevelt the Soldier of Freedom, by James MacGregor Burns No Ordinary Time, by Doris Kearns Goodwin Eleanor and Franklin, by Joseph P Lash Roosevelt and Hopkins, by Robert  E Sherwood Leadership in Turbulent Times, by Doris Kearns Goodwin Five Days in London, May 1940, by John LucasChurchill: Walking with Destiny, by Andrew Roberts The Last Lion, by William Manchester The Conquerors, by Michael Beschloss From the Crash to the Blitz 1929 1939, by Cabel Phillips In the Garden of Beasts, by Eric Larson Hitler's Willing Executioners, by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen Inside the Third Reich, by Albert Speer The Brass Ring,by Bill Mauldin Unbroken, A World War II Story, by Laura Hillenbrand Hiroshima, by John Hersey Truman, by David McCullough The Winds of War, by Herman Wouk War and Remembrance, by Herman Wouk #WWII #Veterans #104th Infantry #First Army #First Canadian Army #The Big Red One - The First Infantry Division #General Patton - The Third Army #Terrible Terry Allen.

    WW II Veteran Albert Lerman at 100 years old (TMWYR Ep. #58)

  4. 11/08/2025

    Writers of the Catskills: In Conversation with Martha Frankel (TMWYR Ep. #57)

    My interview on October 24, 2025, of storyteller Martha Frankel, a memoirist, essayist, celebrity profiler, book editor and reviewer, and founder and producer of Woodstock’s Bookfests and Story Slams. A condensed and edited version of this interview was published on  November 7, 2025, in The Overlook, community journalism serving Hunter, Hurley, Olive, Saugerties, Shandaken, and Woodstock, New York. The full text of the interview can be found on my website, and the interview can be heard on my podcast, “Tell Me What You’re Reading”, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and wherever else you listen to podcasts. (Photo Credit: Dion Ogust)

    Writers of the Catskills: In Conversation with Martha Frankel (TMWYR Ep. #57)

  5. 10/17/2025

    Writers of the Catskills: In Conversation with Elizabeth Lesser (TMWYR Ep. #56)

    Writers of the Catskills: In Conversation with Elizabeth Lesser A series of self-portraits by Catskills’ literary voices  My interview on August 15, 2025, of Elizabeth Lesser, New York Times bestselling author and the co-founder of Omega Institute, the renowned conference and retreat center located in Rhinebeck, New York.  A condensed and edited version of this interview was published on  October 17, 2025, in The Overlook, community journalism serving Hunter, Hurley, Olive, Saugerties, Shandaken and Woodstock, New York. The full text of the interview can be found on my website, and the interview can be heard on my podcast, “Tell Me What You’re Reading”, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and wherever else you listen to podcasts.

    Writers of the Catskills: In Conversation with Elizabeth Lesser (TMWYR Ep. #56)

  6. 09/26/2025

    Ep. # 54: Susan Brown: The Secrets of the Great Writers/ Hit Lit/ Ulysses

    Susan Brown is a professional editor, writing coach, and book doctor. She’s had forty years of teaching college creative writing and book editing, and has guided dozens of books into print as an editor, and as a writing coach. My friend Jeff Moran in Woodstock had previously mentioned Susan to me, and so I was intrigued when I heard that Susan was going to run a five week online writing workshop called “The Secrets of the Great Writers”. Jeff had told me that Susan was a James Joyce scholar.  That was a little bit intimidating, but also immediately credentializing. I’ve appreciated a number of books on writing, by Stephen King, George Saunders, Anne Lamotte, Mary Karr and others, and thought it might also be instructive, and interesting, to be part of a writing workshop, so I signed up for Susan’s class.  I learned a lot in the workshop, we had a terrific group of very talented fiction and memoir writers in the class, and it was a lot of fun. ​ One of the dozens of sources Susan identified for us during the workshop was a book called Hit Lit - Cracking the Code of the 20th Century’s Biggest Bestsellers, by James Hall. In his book, Hall identifies the features common to the biggest bestsellers of all time.  Susan and I discussed her Secrets of the Great Writers Workshop. Susan actually conducted an abbreviated Workshop on the Air. We discussed Hall’s Hit Lit and we discussed Ulysses.  We discussed storytelling. I loved this discussion. The books examined in Hit-Lit, many of which are referred to in our discussion. Gone with the Wind*Peyton PlaceTo Kill a Mockingbird*Valley of the DollsThe Godfather*The ExorcistJawsThe Dead ZoneThe Hunt for Red October*The Firm*The Bridges of Madison County; andThe Da Vinci Code**I’ve read these. Some of the other books referred to by Susan: Moby Dick The Scarlet Letter  The Lighthouse Sound and the Fury The Lincoln Lawyer Black Cherry Blues Gone Baby Gone Pride and Prejudice Let the Great World Spin  Madame Bovary The Glass Castle Angela’s Ashes Wild Catcher in the Rye Lolita Ulysses I encouraged Susan to run a class guiding us through Ulysses!

    Ep. # 54: Susan Brown: The Secrets of the Great Writers/ Hit Lit/ Ulysses

  7. 09/25/2025

    No. 55: The Merry Wives of Windsor

    I had a delightful discussion with Hank Neimark, one of the Directors and Eric Hefler, who plays Falstaff, in The Bird-On-A-Ciff’s Woodstock Shakespeare Festival production of “The Merry Wives of Windsor”,  Shakespeare’s light heartened, and raucous, comedy, truly a farce, which focuses on middle class domestic issues and the agency of its female characters.             The Merry Wives of Windsor is Shakespeare’s only contemporaneous play, and features two very clever and able women who turn the tables on the bumptious, raucous, drunken rogue and scoundrel, womanizing, egotistical, deceitful, epicure and glutton, the fragile and fearful, morbidly obese and impoverished knight, Sir John Falstaff.      “Tell Me What You’re Reading” wherever you listen to podcasts. #Shakespeare #Bird-On-A-CliffTheatreCompany #WoodstockShakespeareFestival #communitytheater #summerstock  #woodstock #bookwormsinthewild

    No. 55: The Merry Wives of Windsor

  8. 11/18/2024

    Tell Me What You're Reading #53: Jenni Knight discusses Autoportrait by Edouard Leve

    Jenni Knight, an artist in residence at the Byrdcliffe Arts Colony (Bard MFA grad with a background in sculpture, drawing, painting and working with New York City experimental culture institutions, and currently writing about bodily integrity), discusses Autoportrait by Édouard Levé, 112 pages of mostly unconnected sentences, profound and mundane, serious and lighthearted, many irreverent, several entries referring to suicide, all in just one paragraph; a stream of consciousness exercise perhaps. Comic, unsettling, tragic.

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About

Talking about books on the streets of New York, in the mountains of the Catskills and on the road. I find that when I ask people about what they’re reading, they tend to start talking about books generally and then start talking to others about books. Encouraging the discussion of books cannot be a bad thing! “Books are a sort of cultural DNA, the code for who, as a society, we are, and what we know. All the wonders and failures, all the champions and villains, all the legends and ideas and revelations of a culture last forever in its books.” @susanorlean, The Library Book

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