Podcast
That Said With Michael Zeldin
Hosted by commpro.biz · EN
Hosted by TV legal analyst and avid reader Michael Zeldin, That Said features in-depth, thought-provoking conversations with best selling non-fiction authors about their recently-released books. Guests include prominent journalists, historians, musicians, medical and legal professionals, and contemporary thought leaders. Each episode explores the stories behind the book and the larger questions the book raises about politics, leadership, history, health, the arts, and society -- providing listeners with a deeper understanding of why these books matter.
Presented by CommPRO and the Museum of Public Relations and is a proud member of the MSW Media Network.
27episodes
Episodes
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Lynne Olson | The Sisterhood of Ravensbrück
1w ago00:57:14Tap to summarizeJoin Michael in his conversation with Lynne Olson about her new book The Sisterhood of Ravensbrück, How an Intrepid Band of Frenchwomen Resisted the Nazis in Hitler’s All-Female Concentration Camp which tells the remarkable story of these women who joined forces to defy their German captures and keep one another alive.Lynne Olson is a New York Times bestselling author of ten books focusing on unsung heroes—people of courage and conscience who helped change their country and the world but who, for various reasons, have slipped through the cracks of history. She has been a consulting historian for the National WWII Museum in New Orleans and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. The Sisterhood of RavensbrückDuring World War II, more than 100,000 women from Nazi-occupied Europe, many of them members of their countries’ resistance movements, were sent to Ravensbrück, the only German concentration camp designed specifically for women. Among them was an extraordinary group of French women that included Germaine Tillion, a brilliant anthropologist; Jacqueline d’Alincourt, an elegant young countess; Anise Girard, an exuberant college student, and Genevieve de Gaulle, the quiet, reserved niece of Gen. Charles de Gaulle.In the midst of the camp’s terror and brutality, these four, along with dozens of their countrywomen, refused to behave like victims. Instead, they formed a sisterhood, joining forces not only to keep each other alive but to continue their battle to resist the Nazis, this time by defying their orders to work in the German war effort. “It was our way of taunting our captors, to prove that we were not defeated,” one of them later said. Knowing full well they risked death if they were discovered, they went even further, creating a satirical musical revue making fun of their SS tormentors.After the war, when many in France wanted nothing more than to focus on the future and forget about those who’d resisted the enemy, the surviving members of the sisterhood refused to allow their achievements, needs, and sacrifices to be erased. They banded together once more, first to support one another in healing their bodies and minds, and then to continue their crusade for freedom and justice—an effort that would have major repercussions for their country and the world into the twenty-first century.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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Nina Willner | The Boys in the Light
3w ago00:55:33Tap to summarizeJoin Michael in his conversation with Nina Willner about her new book, The Boys in the Light, An Extraordinary World War II Story of Survival, Faith, and Brotherhood which tells the parallel stories of the American soldiers of Company D and their march across Europe and that of her Jewish family caught in the horrors of Nazi German. Nina Willner is an American nonfiction author, a former US Army intelligence officer in Berlin during the Cold War. Following her career in intelligence she worked as a human rights activist Moscow, Minsk, Prague, Ottawa and Istanbul promoting human rights and children’s cause among other issues.The Boys in the Light follows the parallel journeys of Company D and Eddie Willner, the author’s father, as they are caught up on two sides of World War II.At sixteen, Eddie Willner was among the millions of European Jews rounded up by Hitler’s Nazis. He was forced into slave labor alongside his father and his best friend, Mike, and spent the next three years of his life surviving the death camps, including Auschwitz. Meanwhile, in the United States, boys only a few years older than Eddie were joining the army and heading toward their own precarious futures. Once farmers, factory workers, and coal miners, they were suddenly untested soldiers, thrust into the brutal conflicts of WWII.A company of 3rd Armored Division tankers, led by 23-year-old Elmer Hovland, quickly became battle-hardened and weary, constantly questioning whether the war was worth it. They got their answer when two emaciated boys stepped out of the woods with their tattooed arms raised.The Boys in the Light is a testament to survival against all odds, the strength of the bonds forged during war and the resilience of the human spirit. This extraordinary true story is a must-read for fans of Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown, and Erik Larson’s The Splendid and the Vile.It is an epic true story of the triumph of good over evil.https://ninawillner.com/abouthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_WillnerAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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Graydon Carter | When the Going Was Good
Apr 2401:10:00Tap to summarizeJoin Michael in his conversation with Graydon Carter about his memoir When the Going was Good, An Editor’s Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines which documents his life and storied journalism career including his twenty-five years as the award-winning editor of Vanity Fair.Graydon Carter is the founder of Air Mail. Before this, he was a staff writer for both Time and Life. He cocreated Spy, edited The New York Observer, and for twenty-five years was the award-winning editor of Vanity Fair. He is also the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning producer of more than a dozen documentaries and one hit Broadway play. He and his wife live in Greenwich Village, not far from his restaurant, the Waverly Inn, and have five children.Book NotesFrom the pages of Spy and Vanity Fair to the red carpets of Hollywood, editor Graydon Carter’s memoir revives the glamorous heyday of print magazines when they were at the vanguard of American cultureAfter working at both Time and Life and cofounding Spy, Graydon Carter was offered the editorship of Vanity Fair in 1992. He knew he faced an uphill battle—how to make the esteemed and long-established magazine his own. With curiosity, fearlessness, and a love of recent history and glamour that would come to define his storied career in magazines, Carter succeeded in endearing himself to his editors, contributors, and readers, as well as those who would grace the pages of Vanity Fair. He went on to run the magazine with overwhelming success for the next two and a half decades.When the Going Was Good is Graydon Carter’s lively recounting of how he made his mark as one of the most talented editors in the business, further planting a flag in Los Angeles with the legendary Vanity Fair Oscar party. With his inimitable voice and signature quip, he brings readers to lunches and dinners with the great and good of America, Britain, and Europe. He assembled one of the most formidable stables of writers and photographers under one roof, and here he re-creates in real time the steps he took to ensure Vanity Fair cemented its place as the epicenter of art, culture, business, and politics, even as digital media took hold. Charming, candid, and brimming with stories, When the Going Was Good perfectly captures the last golden age of print magazines from the inside out.Biographyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graydon_CarterAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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Elliot Williams | Five Bullets
Apr 1001:11:23Tap to summarizeJoin Michael in his conversation with Elliot Williams about his new book Five Bullets, The Story of Bernie Goetz, New York’s Explosive ’80s, and the Subway Vigilante Trial that Divided the Nation which explores the riveting events surrounding the shooting of four Black teenagers by a white man on a NY subway car.Elliot Williams was a Deputy Assistant Attorney General for legislative affairs at the U.S. Department of Justice from 2013-2017. Prior to that, he served as Assistant Director for congressional relations at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and as a counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary.He began his legal career by clerking for Judges Donald M. Middlebrooks of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida and Charles R. Wilson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. He was then accepted into the Attorney General’s Honors Program, where he served as a trial attorney in the Domestic Security Section of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.Elliot earned a law degree and master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University and a bachelor’s degree cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania. He was also a Spring 2022 Fellow at Georgetown University’s Institute of Politics and Public Service.Biohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliot_WilliamsBook descriptionOn a dirty New York subway car on December 22, 1984, Bernhard Goetz shot Barry Allen, Darrell Cabey, Troy Canty, and James Ramseur, four teenagers from the Bronx, at point blank range. Goetz claimed they were going to mug him; the teens claim that one of them had simply asked for five dollars.Crime was at an all-time high. So was racial tension. Was Goetz, who was white, a hero who finally fought back? Or a bigot whose itchy trigger finger seriously wounded three unarmed black kids and condemned a fourth to irreversible brain damage? By the time Goetz went on trial for quadruple attempted murder, the “Subway Vigilante” saga had become a global sensation, and New Yorkers across race and class were split over whether he deserved decades in prison…or a medal.In Five Bullets, Elliot Williams vaults back to gritty 1980s Manhattan and reexamines the first major true-crime story of the cable news era. Drawing on archives and interviews with many main characters, including Goetz, Williams presents a masterful and vivid tale that also tells the origin stories of larger-than-life figures: Al Sharpton, a polarizing young local activist rocketing to national prominence; Rudy Giuliani, a rising-star prosecutor with an important decision to make; the NRA, which needed a poster boy for its transition from hunting club to political juggernaut; and Rupert Murdoch, whose new purchase, the New York Post, grew his empire by keeping a scary story in the headlines.A shocking account of a pivotal moment in our history, Five Bullets demonstrates why, in order to understand today’s debates about race, crime, safety, and the media, it’s imperative to reflect on what went down in the subway four decades ago. As Williams’s powerful narrative reveals, it was not just Goetz on trial, but the conscience of a nation.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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When Caesar Was King | David Margolick
Mar 2701:33:33Tap to summarizeJoin Michael in his conversation with David Margolick about his new book When Caesar Was King, How Sid Ceasar Reinvented American Comedy which chronicles the life and times of Sid Caesar who, essentially, invented sketch comedy for television with his shows Your Show of Shows and the Caesar Hour in the 1950s. As Mel Brooks said “without Sid Caesar there would be no Mel Brooks.” David Margolick is a longtime contributing editor at Vanity Fair, where he writes about culture, the media, and politics. He served as national legal affairs editor at The New York Times, where he wrote the weekly At the Bar column for seven years. His prior books include "Elizabeth and Hazel: Two Women of Little Rock," a study of the iconic photograph taken outside Little Rock Central High School during the desegregation crisis of 1957; "Beyond Glory: Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling, and a World on the Brink"; "Strange Fruit: The Biography of a Song"; “The Promise and the Dream: The Untold Story of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy”; “Dreadful: The Short Life and Gay Times of John Horne Burns”; and Undue Influence: The Epic Battle for the Johnson & Johnson Fortune.When Caesar Was KingAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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Ozzy and Me | Stephen Rea and Guest Co-host Randy Blythe
Mar 1201:32:37Tap to summarizeJoin Michael’s conversation with Stephen Rea about his new book Ozzy and Me, Life Lesson, Wild Stories and Unexpected Epiphanies from Forty Years of Friendship with the Prince of Darkness which chronicles his more than 40-year friendship with Ozzy Osbourne.Stephen Rea is a former United Kingdom newspaper journalist and the author of the memoir Finn McCool’s Football Club. Originally from Northern Ireland, he lives and teaches writing in New Orleans.Joining us as a special guest and co-host in Randy Blythe. Randy is the frontman for the heavy metal band Lamb of God. Randy was a guest on our show in April 2025 where we discussed his new memoir Just Beyond The Light, Making Peace with the Wars Inside our Head.Randy is a writer, photographer, and actor. He lives in Richmond, VA when he is not on the road touring.About the BooksOzzy and Me—Stephen ReaStephen Rea was born in Northern Ireland in 1969, the same year “The Troubles” began. Violence was everywhere. His grandmother was nearly killed when gunmen opened fire on the wrong house, leaving young Stephen to pick at the bullet holes in the walls. He found refuge from this turmoil in heavy metal—especially the music of Ozzy Osbourne. As a pre-internet teenager, he hunted down dozens of live concert bootlegs—corresponding by mail with collectors around the world—and devoured every music magazine he could find.In late 1984, when Stephen was fifteen, he read about a huge festival in Rio de Janeiro that January called “Rock In Rio” whose bill included AC/DC, Queen, and Osbourne. As a lark, he mentioned it to his dad, and was stunned when he said they should go. He was even more shocked when his mother, looking for information about how to get tickets, began a correspondence with Osbourne’s secretary, who scored the family VIP passes and introduced them to Osbourne in Brazil. Thus began a friendship with Ozzy, his wife Sharon and the rest of the Osbourne family that has continued for decades.While traveling on tour in the mid-nineties, Ozzy gifted Stephen a pair of fancy leather notebooks and told him to keep a record of their adventures and conversations. The result is Ozzy & Me: a beautiful behind-the-scenes memoir that proves the life-affirming, soul-nourishing power of music—and disproves the notion that you should never meet your heroes.Just Beyond the LightIn his gripping, bestselling debut memoir Dark Days, Lamb of God vocalist D. Randall (Randy) Blythe unflinchingly wrote about some of the most harrowing episodes of his past. Now, in his highly anticipated follow-up Just Beyond the Light, Blythe shares how he works daily to maintain positivity in a world that feels like it is spinning out of control. In his own words, Just Beyond the Light is a "tight, concise roadmap of how I have attempted to maintain what I believe to be a proper perspective in life, even during difficult times." Written with a scathing balance of hard-edged reality offset by a knowing humor and a razor-sharp wit, voiced in in his inimitable, conversational, everyman-philosopher style, Blythe clearly breaks down his approach to life, which is a personal and idiosyncratic mix of sobriety, art, and surfing. He writes movingly of his childhood in the South, of fallen friends, of what he’s learned touring the world as the vocalist of a successful heavy metal band, and of the very real ways he is doing what he can to leave the world a better place. Above all, he offers readers hope that balance, real balance, is possible, even (or especially) when things seem hopeless. Compelling, compassionate, and refreshingly honest, Just Beyond the Light ultimately reminds readers that “as long as we keep our feet (and minds) planted firmly on the ground that is reality, the sky isn’t falling— it never has been, and it never will.”Bioshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Blythehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_ReaStephen ReaStephen Rea was born in Northern Ireland in 1969, the same year “The Troubles” began. Violence was everywhere. His grandmother was nearly killed when gunmen opened fire on the wrong house, leaving young Stephen to pick at the bullet holes in the walls. He found refuge from this turmoil in heavy metal—especially the music of Ozzy Osbourne. As a pre-internet teenager, he hunted down dozens of live concert bootlegs—corresponding by mail with collectors around the world—and devoured every music magazine he could find.In late 1984, when Stephen was fifteen, he read about a huge festival in Rio de Janeiro that January called “Rock In Rio” whose bill included AC/DC, Queen, and Osbourne. As a lark, he mentioned it to his dad, and was stunned when he said they should go. He was even more shocked when his mother, looking for information about how to get tickets, began a correspondence with Osbourne’s secretary, who scored the family VIP passes and introduced them to Osbourne in Brazil. Thus began a friendship with Ozzy, his wife Sharon and the rest of the Osbourne family that has continued for decades.While traveling on tour in the mid-nineties, Ozzy gifted Stephen a pair of fancy leather notebooks and told him to keep a record of their adventures and conversations. The result is Ozzy & Me: a beautiful behind-the-scenes memoir that proves the life-affirming, soul-nourishing power of music—and disproves the notion that you should never meet your heroes.Randy BlytheDavid Randall Blythe is an American vocalist, best known as the lead singer and lyricist of heavy metal band Lamb of God and Burn the Priest. Randy’s lyrics touch upon politics, war, existentialism, and his own personal challenges such as touring exhaustion, substance abuse, and depression.Just Beyond the Light, Blythe shares how he works daily to maintain positivity in a world that feels like it is spinning out of control. In his own words, Just Beyond the Light is a "tight, concise roadmap of how I have attempted to maintain what I believe to be a proper perspective in life, even during difficult times." Written with a scathing balance of hard-edged reality offset by a knowing humor and a razor-sharp wit, voiced in in his inimitable, conversational, everyman-philosopher style, Blythe clearly breaks down his approach to life, which is a personal and idiosyncratic mix of sobriety, art, and surfing. He writes movingly of his childhood in the South, of fallen friends, of what he’s learned touring the world as the vocalist of a successful heavy metal band, and of the very real ways he is doing what he can to leave the world a better place. Above all, he offers readers hope that balance, real balance, is possible, even (or especially) when things seem hopeless.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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The Traitor's Circle | Jonathan Freedland
Feb 2801:10:29Tap to summarizeJoin Michael in his conversation with Jonathan Freedland about his new non-fiction book The Traitors Circle, The True Story of a Secret Resistance Network in Nazi Germany—and the Spy Who Betrayed Them which tells the story of a circle of unlikely rebels, drawn from the German elite who shared loathing of the Nazis, a refusal to bow to Hitler and the courage to perform perilous acts of resistance. Jonathan is a British journalist who writes a weekly column for The Guardian and presents the BBC Radio 4 contemporary history series The Long View. Freedland has published twelve books: three non-fiction works under his own name and nine novels, eight of them under the pseudonym Sam Bourne.When the whole world is lying, someone must tell the truth.Berlin, 1943: A group of high society anti-Nazi dissenters meet for a tea party one late summer’s afternoon. They do not know that, sitting around the table, is someone poised to betray them all to the Gestapo.They form a circle of unlikely rebels, drawn from the German elite: two countesses, a diplomat, an intelligence officer, an ambassador’s widow and a pioneering head mistress. What unites every one of them is a shared loathing of the Nazis, a refusal to bow to Hitler and the courage to perform perilous acts of resistance: meeting in the shadows, rescuing Jews or plotting for a future Germany freed from the Führer's rule. Or so they believe.How did a group of brave, principled rebels, who had successfully defied Adolf Hitler for more than a decade, come to fall into such a lethal trap?Undone from within and pursued to near-destruction by one of the Reich’s cruelest men, they showed a heroism in the face of the most vengeful regime in history that raises the question: what kind of person does it take to risk everything and stand up to tyranny?The Traitors CircleAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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James Clyburn | The First Eight: A Personal History of the Pioneering Black Congressmen Who Shaped a Nation
Feb 1501:19:36Tap to summarizeOn today's show we'll be speaking with Congressman Jim Clyburn about his new book, The First Eight, a personal history of the pioneering black congressmen who shaped a nation, which tells the story of those black congressmen from South Carolina who were elected in the aftermath of the Civil War while revealing why it took nearly a century before the ninth.The First Eight: A Personal History of the Pioneering Black Congressmen Who Shaped a NationAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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Andrew Porwancher | American Maccabee: Theodore Roosevelt & The Jews
Jan 2801:02:55Tap to summarizeOn today's show, we are speaking with Andrew Porwancher about his new book, “American Maccabee, Theodore Roosevelt and the Jews.” This episode was taped before a live stream audience in conjunction with Adas Israel Synagogue and Temple Beth El.Most Americans underestimate how deeply Theodore Roosevelt's relationship with Jewish communities shaped both his policies and his legacy. Discover how Roosevelt’s personalized diplomacy, daring public stands, and private actions set a new standard for moral leadership on the global stage from fighting anti-Semitism in Russia to integrating Jewish diversity into America’s national identity.Andrew Porwancher is a historian and author of American Maccabee, exploring Roosevelt’s complex and groundbreaking relationship with Jewish Americans.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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Chris Matthews | Lessons from Bobby, Ten Reasons Robert F. Kennedy Still Matters
Jan 1601:14:20Tap to summarizeOn this week’s show we will be speaking with Chris Matthews about his new book Lessons from Bobby, Ten Reasons Robert F. Kennedy Still Matters which offers important lessons for public and private sector leaders alike.Chris Matthews hosted Hardball with Chris Matthews for a generation on MSNBC and now can be found exclusively on Substack. Chris is the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of Bobby Kennedy: A Raging Spirit among many others. Chris was presidential speechwriter for Jimmy Carter and a top aide to House Speaker Tip O’Neil.Chris MatthewsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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