The Leonard Lopate Show

Writing About New Jersey

New Jersey is the Garden State, but it's also known for its highways and chemical plants. Young writers from New Jersey make sense of their home state's mixed reputation in a new collection called Living on the Edge of the World: New Jersey Writers Take On the Garden State. Contributors Kathleen DeMarco, Christian Bauman, and James Kaplan join us to explain what's weird and wonderful about New Jersey.

Living on the Edge of the World is available for purchase at amazon.com

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America's First Superhighway

New Jersey's Pulaski Skyway was the country's first superhighway, designed to connect the hub of New York City to the rest of the USA. The construction project was very contentious, and resulted in a very flawed highway. The Skyway hasn't changed much since it first opened in 1932. Steven Hart's new book is The Last Three Miles: Politics, Murder, and the Construction of America's First Superhighway.

The Last Three Miles is available for purchase at amazon.com

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Getting In

Susan Coll's new comic novel, Acceptance, tracks three high school students as they go through the college admissions process...from SATs, campus tours, and interviews to rejection letters.

Acceptance is available for purchase at amazon.com

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Please Explain: Smell

On today's Please Explain, we get nosey with smell. Biophysicist Dr. Luca Turin and psychobiologist Dr. Charles Wysocki explain what odors are, how our noses work, and what kind of information humans can gather by smell.

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