David Lipsky is the journalist portrayed in “The End of the Tour,” a film about Lipsky's 5-day road trip with David Foster Wallace. The two hit it off, sharing a wide-ranging conversation about fame, depression, pop culture and junk food. Speaking to Jim Fleming for "To The Best of Our Knowledge" in 2009, Lipsky remembers Wallace and traces the evolution of the depression that ultimately claimed his life.More
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Arts and Culture
Why is filmmaker Errol Morris is still outraged by the famous philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn?More
Famous for his stories of people with brain disorders, Oliver Sacks wrote a lot about neurological mysteries, like the way a song can activate parts of the brain that language can’t even touch.More
Given the hyper-realism of author Karl Ove Knausgaard’s "My Struggle," you might be surprised to hear that the formative books of his childhood were filled with magic and imaginary worlds. He says Ursula K. Le Guin’s "Earthsea" fantasy series shaped him as an early reader.More
Here's an Anishinaabe poem and creation story by Kimberly Blaeser. It's the story of the lowly muskrat, and it reminds us that we are constantly building new worlds - since the beginning of time and even now.More
Because he’s fascinated by the process of collecting and by the impulse to document everyday life, poet Ross Gay recommends “Gene Smith’s Sink,” by Sam Stephenson. It’s a portrait of another collector — the legendary documentarian and photographer, W. Eugene Smith. More
Kevin Gift is an acclaimed classical pianist. Wendel Patrick is a rising hip hop artist. And many people have no idea as they’re the same man.More
Devastated at the unexpected death of her morther, Cheryl Strayed embarked on a three-month solo trip along the rugged Pacific Crest...More
For as long as she can remember, Susan Orlean has had a favorite book, "The Sound and the Fury," by William Faulkner. A Southern gothic novel set over a period of three decades, the book explores the lives of the members of one family, the Compsons. Told from multiple perspectives and set in several time periods, it’s not a chronological or easy read.More
The streaming age means our shows are watched individually, on our own time. That makes it all the more remarkable that a television show about drag queens can bring people together in person.More
Staff meetings, family reunions, dinner parties — even with all the digital ways we have to connect, face-to-face gatherings are still a regular part of our lives. Priya Parker thinks we need new traditions to make those gatherings meaningful.More
Author and speaker Mamie Stewart offers six ways that your meetings could be more productive — and less miserable.More
The world is getting noisier and it's hurting us. When George Mickelson Foy got worried about all of the toxic noise in his life, he set on a quest for absolute silence.More
For author Jennifer Egan — whose novel "A Visit From The Goon Squad" documents the inner life of lifelong rock and roll stars—the pauses in rock ballads might say as much or more than the riffs.More
Point of attack. Defensive Line. Football and war have a lot in common. Former foreign policy advisor to President Bill Clinton Michael Mandelbaum talks conflict and the game.More
"On Immunity: An Inoculation" author Eula Biss recommends a memoir in which author Maggie Nelson asks questions that bend conventions about gender, sexuality, motherhood, family and identity itself.More
Paul Beatty, the Booker Prize Winning Author of "The Sellout" recommends "The Nazi and the Barber," a novel by Holocaust survivor Edgar Hilsenrath. More
Talking about race is fraught these days, so it took guts for Paul Beatty to write his novel "The Sellout." It's a satire about a young black man who winds up on trial at the Supreme Court. And along the way, he enslaves an old friend and re-segregates the local high school.More