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
16 October 2026
Erin McGuire-Thompson: Cross Country Cryptids
Ever wondered why a seven-foot Bigfoot statue guards a shop in small-town North Carolina? So did we, until author Erin McGuire-Thompson explained just how far America's cryptid obsession really travels. In this episode, Mark talks with Erin about her new book, "Cross Country Cryptids: A Road Trip Guide to American Monsters," a five-region tour of the country's favorite folklore, from a wailing little Squonk in Pennsylvania and a bridge-guarding Goatman to Wisconsin's beloved, self-made Hodag, West Virginia's Mothman, and the real science (infrasound, ancient fossils, a fish everyone thought was extinct) that keeps these stories alive.
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02 October 2026
Jesi Stracham: Power in the Roll
Jesi Stracham was on wheels before she could walk; a pedal car at six months, a Power Wheels Jeep at one, and by ten, drag racing ATVs against boys twice her size and winning. In this episode, Mark talks with Stracham, author of "Power in the Roll: A Life at Full Throttle After Spinal Cord Injury," about a life defined by speed across two very different chapters: her early years as a standout off-road racer chasing attention and validation as one of the only girls in the sport, and the aftermath of a motorcycle accident at 22 that left her with a traumatic brain injury, a spinal cord injury, and paralysis from the waist down. It's not a tidy recovery story. Stracham is candid about the healthcare system's shortcomings, the fight for enough rehab time to become independent, old habits that didn't disappear overnight, and the slow work of finding faith and self-love on her own terms, along with founding the Wheel With Me Foundation to help other survivors bridge the gap between hospital discharge and real independence. It's an honest, sometimes difficult, ultimately hopeful conversation about identity, resilience, and what it means to rebuild a life on your own terms.
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18 September 2026
Wendy Welch: Nine Lives at a Time
When bookstore owner Wendy Welch's husband left her for three unsupervised weeks in Scotland, she came home with a rescued dog. Not long after, a mother cat and five kittens were living in the shop. That accidental start became Appalachian Feline Friends, the rural Virginia rescue at the heart of Welch's book, "Nine Lives at a Time: The Inside Story of an Appalachian Cat Rescue," from Toplight, an imprint of McFarland Books. Welch talks with Mark Perzel about learning cat rescue from scratch like spotting coccidia, isolating new arrivals, and being a good judge of character before a good judge of kittens. She also talks about the harder lessons that came with turning a loose group of volunteers into a real nonprofit: setting boundaries, building bylaws after the fact, and learning the difference between people who want to help and people who want to be helped. She shares the story of Hazel, too; a 23-year-old cat surrendered amid a family breakup who nearly gave up entirely, until a flood of well-wishes and a promised new home brought her back.
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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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