Call Me Ishmael en Lee Smith 2025 Best-selling author Lee Smith brings you conversations with fierce Americans about the words that made—and continue to make—America great.   Call Me Ishmael is a show about the power of American words. Together with guests like Senator Ted Cruz, novelist and screenwriter Roger L. Simon, historian Lee Harris, and Former CIA super spy Peter Theroux, Lee Smith will revisit the words—in books, movies, and songs—that have shaped and determined our sense of ourselves and our nation, forging both our private ambitions and our collective sensibility. https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/079ebb0c-2d1e-11f0-9c05-c7e147c914dd/image/daf535f98b74be90def49bdaee800ffb.jpg?ixlib=rails-4.3.1&max-w=3000&max-h=3000&fit=crop&auto=format,compress Call Me Ishmael episodic Best-selling author Lee Smith brings you conversations with fierce Americans about the words that made—and continue to make—America great. Lee Smith Best-selling author Lee Smith brings you conversations with fierce Americans about the words that made—and continue to make—America great.   Call Me Ishmael is a show about the power of American words. Together with guests like Senator Ted Cruz, novelist and screenwriter Roger L. Simon, historian Lee Harris, and Former CIA super spy Peter Theroux, Lee Smith will revisit the words—in books, movies, and songs—that have shaped and determined our sense of ourselves and our nation, forging both our private ambitions and our collective sensibility. Best-selling author Lee Smith brings you conversations with fierce Americans about the words that made—and continue to make—America great.  

Call Me Ishmael is a show about the power of American words. Together with guests like Senator Ted Cruz, novelist and screenwriter Roger L. Simon, historian Lee Harris, and Former CIA super spy Peter Theroux, Lee Smith will revisit the words—in books, movies, and songs—that have shaped and determined our sense of ourselves and our nation, forging both our private ambitions and our collective sensibility.

]]> Lee Smith jkross@tabletmag.com Spy Thrillers, with Peter Theroux During the Cold War, we had brilliant and popular spy thrillers like John Le Carré’s masterpieces to help explain our perilous and ever-changing world. Why didn’t the genre play a similar part during the war on terror? In this episode of Call Me Ishmael, Peter Theroux—former CIA agent, scion of one of America’s most celebrated literary families, and a leading translator of Arabic literature—addresses this question and discusses the evolution of the spy novel and the role it played in shaping American culture and politics. Thu, 29 May 2025 14:28:00 -0000 full 3 Lee Smith During the Cold War, we had brilliant and popular spy thrillers like John Le Carré’s masterpieces to help explain our perilous and ever-changing world. Why didn’t the genre play a similar part during the war on terror? In this episode of Call Me Ishmael, Peter Theroux—former CIA agent, scion of one of America’s most celebrated literary families, and a leading translator of Arabic literature—addresses this question and discusses the evolution of the spy novel and the role it played in shaping American culture and politics. During the Cold War, we had brilliant and popular spy thrillers like John Le Carré’s masterpieces to help explain our perilous and ever-changing world. Why didn’t the genre play a similar part during the war on terror? In this episode of Call Me Ishmael, Peter Theroux—former CIA agent, scion of one of America’s most celebrated literary families, and a leading translator of Arabic literature—addresses this question and discusses the evolution of the spy novel and the role it played in shaping American culture and politics.

]]> 4313 Ross Macdonald, with Roger Simon Ross Macdonald was one of America’s greatest writers of crime fiction, giving us a series of hardboiled novels set in southern California and starring the now-iconic private detective Lew Archer. But Macdonald never really existed: He was the creation of a brilliant liteary critic named Ken Millar, who used the pseudonym to explore post-war America and the demons that plagued it. In this episode of Call Me Ishmael, the novelist and screenwriter Roger Simon, who knew Millar, talks about American noir, why we love our hardened detectives so much, and Macondald’s great masterpiece, The Chill. Thu, 22 May 2025 04:00:00 -0000 full 2 Lee Smith Ross Macdonald was one of America’s greatest writers of crime fiction, giving us a series of hardboiled novels set in southern California and starring the now-iconic private detective Lew Archer. But Macdonald never really existed: He was the creation of a brilliant liteary critic named Ken Millar, who used the pseudonym to explore post-war America and the demons that plagued it. In this episode of Call Me Ishmael, the novelist and screenwriter Roger Simon, who knew Millar, talks about American noir, why we love our hardened detectives so much, and Macondald’s great masterpiece, The Chill. Ross Macdonald was one of America’s greatest writers of crime fiction, giving us a series of hardboiled novels set in southern California and starring the now-iconic private detective Lew Archer. But Macdonald never really existed: He was the creation of a brilliant liteary critic named Ken Millar, who used the pseudonym to explore post-war America and the demons that plagued it. In this episode of Call Me Ishmael, the novelist and screenwriter Roger Simon, who knew Millar, talks about American noir, why we love our hardened detectives so much, and Macondald’s great masterpiece, The Chill.

]]> 3271 'Gone With the Wind,' with Lee Harris Margaret Mitchell was born in Atlanta, GA in 1900, and published only one novel before she died at the age of 49: Gone With the Wind. It won the National Book Award for fiction as well as the Pulitzer Prize, and it was soon adapted into Hollywood's best-loved classics. In this episode of Call Me Ishmael, Lee Harris—novelist, critic, and a Southerner whose ancestors straddled the war's great divide— talks about the role literature played, and continues to play, in understanding the Civil War, about how the war and the novels that depicted it shaped American history, and about what happened to those people who had found themselves on the wrong side of that history after losing everything. Thu, 15 May 2025 04:00:00 -0000 full 1 Lee Smith The historian and best-selling author explains why we frankly do give a damn about Margaret Mitchell's classic, and what happens when you find yourself on the wrong side of history Margaret Mitchell was born in Atlanta, GA in 1900, and published only one novel before she died at the age of 49: Gone With the Wind. It won the National Book Award for fiction as well as the Pulitzer Prize, and it was soon adapted into Hollywood's best-loved classics. In this episode of Call Me Ishmael, Lee Harris—novelist, critic, and a Southerner whose ancestors straddled the war's great divide— talks about the role literature played, and continues to play, in understanding the Civil War, about how the war and the novels that depicted it shaped American history, and about what happened to those people who had found themselves on the wrong side of that history after losing everything. Margaret Mitchell was born in Atlanta, GA in 1900, and published only one novel before she died at the age of 49: Gone With the Wind. It won the National Book Award for fiction as well as the Pulitzer Prize, and it was soon adapted into Hollywood's best-loved classics. In this episode of Call Me Ishmael, Lee Harris—novelist, critic, and a Southerner whose ancestors straddled the war's great divide— talks about the role literature played, and continues to play, in understanding the Civil War, about how the war and the novels that depicted it shaped American history, and about what happened to those people who had found themselves on the wrong side of that history after losing everything.

]]> 4071 Introducing: Call Me Ishmael Call Me Ishmael is a show about the power of American words. Together with guests like Senator Ted Cruz, novelist and screenwriter Roger L. Simon, historian Lee Harris, and Former CIA super spy Peter Theroux, Lee Smith will revisit the words—in books, movies, and songs—that have shaped and determined our sense of ourselves and our nation, forging both our private ambitions and our collective sensibility. Fri, 09 May 2025 21:42:00 -0000 trailer Lee Smith Best-selling author Lee Smith brings you conversations with fierce Americans about the words that made—and continue to make—America great. Call Me Ishmael is a show about the power of American words. Together with guests like Senator Ted Cruz, novelist and screenwriter Roger L. Simon, historian Lee Harris, and Former CIA super spy Peter Theroux, Lee Smith will revisit the words—in books, movies, and songs—that have shaped and determined our sense of ourselves and our nation, forging both our private ambitions and our collective sensibility. Call Me Ishmael is a show about the power of American words. Together with guests like Senator Ted Cruz, novelist and screenwriter Roger L. Simon, historian Lee Harris, and Former CIA super spy Peter Theroux, Lee Smith will revisit the words—in books, movies, and songs—that have shaped and determined our sense of ourselves and our nation, forging both our private ambitions and our collective sensibility.


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