"Middle age is when you're sitting at home on a Saturday night and the telephone rings and you hope it isn't for you." That's according to Ogden Nash. Saturday night is definitely a special night. In this hour of To The Best Of Our Knowledge, Susan Orlean tells us about some of the Saturday...Read more
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Episode Archives
In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, it's children's books, for us.Read more
Original Air Date:
June 03, 2007
When asked what he thought about Western civilization, Gandhi once famously said: I think it's a good idea. Gandhi's form of extreme nonviolence led to the civilized retreat of the British from the Indian sub-continent. But does non-violence still have the right stuff to effect social change in...Read more
Original Air Date:
May 13, 2007
It's been described as many things -- a battlefield, a tender trap, a drug. But according to Rob Sheffield, love is a mix tape. In this hour of To The Best Of Our Knowledge, Sheffield will tell us how music was a big part of his marriage to Renee… and how it helps him to cope with her loss. Also...Read more
Original Air Date:
April 01, 2007
William Faulkner, Earnest Hemingway, Virginia Wolfe: they were unknown writers at some point. But, who are the world’s next literary lions? In this hour of To The Best Of Our Knowledge, the young writer. We'll talk with the next generation of novelists about to come into their own. And, a re-...Read more
Original Air Date:
March 25, 2007
These days, everybody wants to make a movie. And with today's technology, just about anyone can. In this hour of To The Best Of Our Knowledge, the rise of the indie film. Chris Gore talks about "My Big Fat Independent Movie." And we'll meet a former waitress who spent her life-savings to make a...Read more
Original Air Date:
March 18, 2007
Daniel Tammet has an amazing mind. He can recite from memory 22 thousand digits in the number pi. He can learn a foreign language in a week. But he also has trouble with simple directions, like telling the difference between left and right, and he's had to teach himself to laugh at jokes. Tammet...Read more
Original Air Date:
February 11, 2007
Smoking cigarettes is bad for you. Ok, we can all agree on that. So then, why are 20 percent of us still smoking? That's 60 million Americans. And new smokers start every day. Why? It's more than just nicotine. In this hour of To The Best Of Our Knowledge, we'll explore the sublime pleasures of...Read more
Original Air Date:
December 31, 2006
Black men are in crisis. And the long-standing ideal of the Strong Black Men might be at the heart of the problems that black men face today. On To the Best of Our Knowledge, we'll explore a revolutionary model of black masculinity - a New Black Man. Also, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author,...Read more
Original Air Date:
December 17, 2006
We look at the controversial Gnostic Gospels and the story of a buried Christianity.Read more
Original Air Date:
December 10, 2006
There are lots of good reasons for belonging to an automobile service club like Triple A, but way down deep, you really only do it for the Trip-Tiks. In this hour of To The Best Of Our Knowledge, maps and the imagination. We'll consider what kind of information belongs on a map - geographical,...Read more
Original Air Date:
December 03, 2006
How did the universe begin? Science says it all started with the Big Bang, an unimaginable explosion some 15 billion years. Religion sees the mysterious hand of God. Is there room in the cosmos for both?Read more
Original Air Date:
November 26, 2006
Whether you call them graphic novels or comic books, there’s no denying that they offer limitless creative storytelling possibilities. Chris Ware and Marjane Satrapi are two of the most critically-acclaimed graphic novelists. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, Ware and Satrapi will...Read more
Original Air Date:
November 26, 2006
Roses are red. Violets are blue. My mistress's eyes are nothing like the sun. A sadder and a wiser man, he rose the morrow morn. I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. Hickory dickory dock, the mouse ran up the clock. In this...Read more
Original Air Date:
October 29, 2006
Remember the girl on TV with the frying pan? She was out to make a point about your brain on drugs, and she did. Now Daniel Levitin's catching a lot of people's ears with a new book called "Your Brain on Music." In this hour, To the Best of Our Knowledge visits with Daniel Levitin and explores...Read more
Original Air Date:
October 22, 2006
"We're all of us guinea pigs in the laboratory of God. Humanity is just a work in progress." So said Tennessee Williams. Inventor and visionary Ray Kurzweil believes the new, improved version of humanity could feature computers the size of blood cells implanted in our brains....Read more
Original Air Date:
October 15, 2006
Richard Dawkins may the world's best-known atheist. A renowned biologist, he's now written his atheist manifesto called "The God Delusion." In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge we'll talk with Richard Dawkins about why he thinks belief in God makes no more sense than belief in Thor,...Read more
Original Air Date:
October 15, 2006
You remember the good old days, don't you? The music was better. The food was better. Cars were better. Everything was better really. Now, everything is all fancy and everyone is in a big rush. But not back then... Those were the days, weren't they? In this hour of To The...Read more
Original Air Date:
October 08, 2006
What do you call young people who strap on explosive vests and detonate them in a crowded marketplace? President Bush says they're fascist terrorists. The Western press labels them suicide bombers. But to a Muslim, particularly one who's sympathetic to their political ideology,...Read more
Original Air Date:
September 03, 2006
You might have thought that the ukulele was gone for good after Tiny Tim tiptoed through the tulips for the umpteenth time. But singer/songwriter Victoria Vox is doing her part to bring the ukulele back into popular music. In this hour of To The Best Of Our Knowledge, we'll meet Victoria Vox....Read more
Original Air Date:
July 23, 2006
They say his stare could give you ulcers or migraines. It could even drive you crazy. In this hour of To The Best Of Our Knowledge, the greatest chess player ever, Garry Kasparov. His most famous opponent was the IBM supercomputer, Deep Blue. Kasparov shocked the chess world when, at...Read more
Original Air Date:
May 28, 2006
Here's a conundrum. Some say the number of Americans who read books for pleasure is at an all time low, yet the internet's teeming with literary blogs, and just about everyone who cares about writing has a manuscript of their own stashed in a desk drawer somewhere. In this hour of To The Best Of...Read more
Original Air Date:
April 16, 2006
Susan Krieger knew she was losing her sight, but she still didn't want to admit she was going blind. Then one day she stepped off a curb and a car hit her. After that, she took lessons walking with a white cane, and learned how to hear buildings as she passed them. In this hour of To The...Read more
Original Air Date:
April 09, 2006
Chef Homaro Cantu wants you to play with your food. After all, he does - with creations like prosciutto cotton candy, Kalamata olive ice-shavings and edible menus. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, a visit to the kitchen of Homaro Cantu at Moto, in Chicago, Illinois. Also, we meet...Read more
Original Air Date:
April 09, 2006