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Martin's Must-Reads

There are one million new books published each year.  With so many books and so little time, where do you begin to find your next must-read? There’s the New York Times Bestseller list, the Goodreads app, the Cape Library’s Staff picks shelf and now Martin’s Must-Reads.

Every Wednesday at 6:42 and 8:42 a.m., and Sunday at 8:18 a.m., Betty Martin recommends a must read based on her own personal biases for historical fiction, quirky characters and overall well-turned phrases. Her list includes WWII novels, biographies of trailblazers, novels with truly unique individuals and lots more. Reading close to 100 titles a year, Betty has plenty of titles to share. Tune in each Wednesday and visit KRCU.org for previous must-reads.

Local support for "Martin's Must Reads" comes from the Cape Girardeau Public Library and the Poplar Bluff Municipal Library.

Latest Episodes
  • “Many young authors finding themselves so satisfactorily situated would have waded into the choppy seas of their ambitions without a moment’s delay...."
  • “There was a buzz of excitement when I arrived at my Harvard office on a June morning in 1972. Richard “Dick” Goodwin had just taken an office on the third floor."
  • “It’s the crime of the decade! The early-morning headline explodes across my iPhone as I scan it through bleary eyes."
  • “The day Sloan Cooper died began before dawn and ended shortly before midnight. As a corporal in the Natural Resources Police, she’d helped take down a trio of men who spent most of the fall harassing, robbing and assaulting hikers on the trails in the Western Maryland mountains.”
  • “Theo couldn’t imagine wanting anything in this sadness-infused pile of discards.... There were some old paperbacks slugged into a beer carton. He was always curious about what people read. He reached down to check the titles. And that is when he saw the horse.”
  • “Later, not a single person will recall seeing the lady board the flight at Hobart Airport."
  • “Phillip. The story begins before the reporters and the television correspondents flocked to interview the team."
  • “Day and Night, the final pages of “Clearly It Is Ocean” haunted me. I couldn’t stop rereading them."
  • “April 6, 1865. Well, father, who won the majority? Emma or Mansfield Park? William Stevenson answered from behind his newspaper at the head of the breakfast table, “Emma, of course.”
  • “The monk heard that a ship had arrived carrying one of the dog-headed people whom travelers speak of when they tell tall tales of the one-eyed and the winged, and he went out to the docks to see if it was true.”