Evan Osnos started interviewing Joe Biden back in 2013. At the time, Biden was Vice President. The journalistic pack does not pursue vice presidents. Osnos "wandered away" from the pack.
That's the way Evan Osnos operates -- wandering away from the pack, towards what he finds most interesting and important. Even if you've been reading non-stop about the President-elect, you'll find fresh insights, anecdotes and context in Osnos' new book -- Joe Biden: The Life, The Run and What Matters Now -- and in our conversation here.
Osnos is a Nantucket Book Festival alumnus. He joined us in 2016 to discuss his National Book Award winner, Age of Ambition, based on nearly a decade of reporting in China. He told us then that Age of Ambition would help Americans sleep better at night. We'll find out in this episode of At Home With Authors whether his book on Joe Biden does the same.
Our conversation took place less than two weeks before Election Day. At the time, Osnos was preparing his latest piece for The New Yorker: "Pulling Our Politics Back From The Brink." It's about the eternal tension in American political culture between the power of persuasion through rational debate and "the violent style." It left me shaken at first, and then reenergized. It's a powerful pairing with Joe Biden: The Life, The Run and What Matters Now.
At the end of this conversation, after we said our goodbyes, I asked Evan to give us a quick show-and-tell of the clutter in the kitchen behind him. I'm glad we didn't stop recording. You'll see why.
