Podcast by Mark Perzel
Best Part of the Book
Mark Perzel hosts engaging conversations with authors of nonfiction books published by McFarland.
Best Part of the Book
Latest episodes
04 September 2026
Robert Bakos, MD: Six Dead German Composers
A retired neurosurgeon walks into the Eastman School of Music...and stays for twelve years of lectures. That's really how this episode's book got its start. Robert Bakos, M.D. joins Mark Perzel to talk about "Six Dead German Composers and How They Got That Way,"—a look at what the letters and diaries of Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Robert and Clara Schumann, and Mendelssohn reveal about their health, from the syphilis that shadowed so many 19th-century lives to the still-debated cause of Schumann's ruined right hand, a diagnosis that happens to sit squarely in Bakos's old surgical specialty. Bakos, who studied violin under the legendary Joseph Gingold before choosing medicine over music for college, talks about teaching himself enough German to work through primary sources, the one thing he regrets leaving out of the finished book, and why he was determined never to let the medical details get in the way of a good story.
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21 August 2026
David Wayne Russell: Maico
A small, family-owned German motorcycle company built off-road bikes so good that American racers happily put up with leaky gas tanks, slippery foot pegs, and the general temperament of a thoroughbred because when a Maico worked, nothing else came close. In this episode, Mark talks with David Wayne Russell, author of "Maico: The American History of a German Motorcycle, 1955–1983," about the rise and fall of one of the most influential and most beloved names in off-road motorcycling. David traces Maico's roots back to purpose-built military motorcycles in postwar Germany, through its dominance of American motocross in the early 1970s, right up to its bankruptcy in 1983.
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07 August 2026
Doris Stam: The Early Years of Appalachian State
Before Appalachian State was a university, before it was even a college, it was a wooden building built with borrowed lumber, fifty-cent donations, and two brothers who refused to let their corner of the mountains stay uneducated. In this episode, Mark Perzel sits down with Doris Perry Stam, author of "D.D. Dougherty, Lillie Dougherty and the Early Years of Appalachian State," to trace the improbable origin story of one of North Carolina's largest universities. Whether you're an App State alum, a North Carolina history buff, or just curious how a regional teacher-training school with 53 students turned into a university of nearly 22,000, this one's worth the listen.
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17 July 2026
Rich Teahan and Bob Ward: Face to Face with Whitey Bulger
This month marks 15 years since the FBI finally captured James "Whitey" Bulger — and Mark sits down with two people at the heart of that story: Rich Teahan, the FBI agent who led the Bulger Task Force, and Bob Ward, the Boston reporter who covered Whitey for 30 years. Their book Face to Face with Whitey Bulger (Exposit/McFarland) goes inside the 16-year manhunt, the breakdown of trust between agencies that let Whitey slip away, the PSA that finally flushed him out, and the six-hour debrief Teahan conducted with him on the jet back to Boston. It's history, true crime, and a surprisingly human story all at once.
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03 July 2026
Roy Sucholeiki: The Sand Art Bottles of Andrew Clemens
You've probably seen a sand art bottle in a tourist souvenir shop but Andrew Clemens' work is nothing like that. Mark talks with author Roy Sucholeiki about his book "The Sand Art Bottles of Andrew Clemens (2d ed)," the story of a deaf, 19th-century artist from McGregor, Iowa who built impossibly detailed eagles, locomotives, and flowers inside glass bottles using nothing but naturally colored sand he gathered near his hometown. Learn how he did it and why some of his bottles now sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
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19 June 2026
Brian Patrick Duggan: General Custer, Libbie Custer and Their Dogs
If you think you know everything about General Custer, Brian Patrick Duggan is about to prove you wrong—and he's going to do it through the dogs. Duggan's book "General Custer, Libbie Custer and Their Dogs" traces the remarkable story of the Custers through their lifelong passion for hounds and one very sheet-wrecking English greyhound named Byron. Mark Perzel and Brian dig into how Libby Custer (sheltered judge's daughter turned frontier army wife) became every bit as devoted to the dogs as her famous husband. There's history, myth-busting and stories that didn't make it into any history book. Worth a listen if you ever wondered what General Custer was like when he wasn't being, well, General Custer.
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