Books

How to help a friend or loved one who is exhibiting signs of emotional or behavioral turmoil and who could benefit from professional help. How to step in, without being insensitive, creating conflict or damaging your relationship. Dr. Mark Komrad is an award-winning psychiatrist on the teaching staff of Johns Hopkins, as well as the director of clinical ethics for the Sheppard Pratt Health System, where he teaches psychiatric residents. He is author of “You Need Help! A Step-by-Step Plan to Convince a Loved One to Get Counseling.”

Award-winning journalist Nancy Mullane tells the story of five convicted murderers sentenced to life with the possibility of parole and how their second chance, if it comes at all, is a massive struggle for redemption. Once a murderer, always a murderer? Who do these men become during decades in prison? What does it take for a killer to be accepted back into society?

We talk about the lawsuit between Baltimore Comptroller Joan Pratt and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, and examine how it's affecting the functioning of city government.

How many books can you fit into a library the size of a birdhouse? We ask Lesley Noll, library services coordinator at The Village Learning Place. They're planning to bring "little free libraries" to Charm City.

A new kind of library is slowly spreading across America. It’s about the size of a bird-house, holds about 50 books, and you can put it in your front yard.

Web Extra: Lesley Noll on the response to the little free library prototype

When Nelson Mandela became president of South Africa in 1994, the world celebrated the end of apartheid and the dawn of a new democracy with economic opportunity for all. But journalist Douglas Foster says those dreams are far from reality today. Douglas Foster is the author of “After Mandela: The Struggle for Freedom in Post-Apartheid South Africa.”

In the aftermath of the recession, income inequality in the U.S. reached a new high, according to the Census Bureau, and no surprise to political economist and commentator Robert Reich. He says our political and economic systems are rigged against average working people. But what to do about it? Reich, former U.S. labor secretary, is just out with an ebook, “Beyond Outrage: What has gone wrong with our economy and our democracy, and how to fix it.”

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On the November ballot, voters will decide whether to expand gambling in Maryland to include table games--and to add a casino in Prince George's County.  Meanwhile, the state is preparing for an increase in gambling addiciton, and is partnering with the University of Maryland to create a new center that trains counselors in gambling addiction.  We'll talk with the director of the center, and a gambling counselor in Worcester County, which is the where t