Books & Looks: Real Books for Real Readers was started as a literary podcast to supplement Blaine Desantis’ website, ViewsOnBooks.com, and expand into audio and video interviews with authors.
With Books & Looks, Blaine’s goal is to focus on real books that real people will read. At least half of the books he reviews are either new authors or unknown authors that many in the general public are unaware of. After a segment reviewing books or interviewing authors, Blaine ends each episode with a discussion of the movies and TV shows he is currently watching.
Learn more about BookTrib’s partner and Blaine at ViewsOnBooks.com.
This Week’s Episode
Belle Benchley took a two-week bookkeeping job at a struggling San Diego Zoo and stayed nearly three decades, becoming the world’s first female zoo director. On Books & Looks, host Blaine DeSantis talks with historian Dr. Sandra E. Bonura about her new biography, The Zoo Lady: How Belle Benchley Built the San Diego Zoo, and why the woman who built the zoo has been all but forgotten.
Dr. Sandra E. Bonura is a historian, lecturer and retired professor of education whose award-winning books, published by University of Nebraska Press, bring forgotten Californians out of the shadows, among them The Sugar King of California: The Life of Claus Spreckels and Empire Builder: John D. Spreckels and the Making of San Diego. Denied access to the zoo’s archives, she built The Zoo Lady from Benchley’s scrapbooks and personal correspondence, shared by her granddaughter, and the collections of the San Diego History Center.
Bonura explains how Benchley, with no biology or science degree, kept every animal alive through the Depression and World War II after losing 44 men to the draft; how she won the gorillas Mbongo and Ngagi at half the price, brought west the 1938 hurricane giraffes that inspired West with Giraffes, and broke a 25-year Australian embargo on koalas; and how she became the first woman elected president of what is now the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. She also recounts why the zoo objected to the word “built” in her title, and previews her next book, San Diego Rising, on Henry G. Fenton, due in May 2027.
