It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC.

Good morning everyone.

And on this 5th of July, we're indulging

in the long holiday weekend.

So we've put together some recent interviews

with book authors from longtime Democratic Party strategist

Louise Miranda. Yes, he's Lynn Manuel's dad. To sociologist Richard Osijo and

his exploration of gentrification north of the city in the Hudson

Valley, Mayor Bloomberg, so-called master builder, Dan Doctoroff, and Dan Curzon, with her kind Kinder Funer Guide to English usage and Funer is a word in the title of the book.

But we start with New York Times columnist Nicholas Christoph,

who has now been with the Times for 40 years. Times columnist life and you know we could use some hope in these pessimistic times right

interesting that it comes from Christoph who if you read him regularly you know he's

devoted his career to exposing some of the worst suffering in the world.

That's what he's done, but maybe you saw a recent Times

op-ed he wrote that draws on the book called The Case for Hope.

We'll talk about that.

Nick, congratulations on the book and welcome back to WNYC.

Thank you, great to be with you. So I see that even when you were a kid in Yam Hill, Oregon, what a name, Yam Hill Oregon what a name Yam Hill you thought of growing up to be a

foreign correspondent how did you get that bug early on was it from your parents or

some other way you know my dad was a World War II refugee and so you know in a

very mixed-up household he would speak to his brother and Polish and to his sister

and Romanian and so his brother in Polish and his sister in Romanian.

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