Toni Morrison won the Nobel Prize in 1993. Her novels include "Sula," "Song of Solomon," and "Love."
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
According to self-described "space dork" Andy Weir, he was just sitting around at home one day imagining a manned Mars mission — not with any goal in mind, but just as a thought experiment. Soon, he realized this would be a pretty good premise for a story. And boy was he right. His novel "The Martian" started as a series of blog posts and has become a blockbuster motion picture. In this interview, he reads excerpts from the novel and discusses the balance between pure fantasty and scientific accuracy in science fiction.
The most popular baby names in the US last year were Noah and Emma. We know that because 20 years ago, Michael Shackleford wrote a computer program to track the annual popularity of baby names. Expectant parents everywhere should thank him.
TTBOOK producer Charles Monroe-Kane is a great storyteller who's led an adventurous life. Here's a wild story from his memoir "Lithium Jesus" about smuggling mob money when he lived in Prague in the '90s.
Seymour Martin Lipset tells Judith Strasser that Americans never became revolutionaries because from the beginning, working people here were far better off than those in other countries.
Imagine the government has sealed off part of Florida after people start dying there and strange new life forms pop up. Just what is happening in Area X? That's the premise of Jeff Vandermeer's mind-bending Southern Reach Trilogy.
Ruth Gendler re-tells the story of "The Mountain That Loved A Bird" by Alice McLerran and Eric Carle. Gendler is an artist and the author of "Notes on the Need for Beauty." She tells Anne Strainchamps that we need to learn to see the beauty in the world all around us.
Peter Edelman says government policies can either help or hinder people on the road to economic stability. Edelman’s the longtime policy advisor who quit Bill Clinton’s administration when the President signed new welfare laws that – in Edelman’s opinion – destroyed the social safety net.
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