The first stories in "Thousand and One Nights" were written down in the ninth century. They’ve been added to over the years. In some ways, it’s not so much a book as a living river of stories. Some of the most recent additions come from the celebrated novelist Salman Rushdie.
You can also hear many more interviews with Rushdie.
Ziauddin Sardar, a London based scholar and cultural critic, tells Steve what’s needed now is “an Islamic science” and explains what that is.
The Reduced Shakespeare Company - Reed Martin, Austin Tichenor and Matthew Croke – perform the complete history of the United States with their customary brevity and humor.
By now, it's almost commonplace to worry that the amount of time you spend on the Internet is actually rewiring your brain. But the first person to really put the issue on the cultural map was the writer Nicholas Carr -- in a book that's become a contemporary classic: "The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains."
In all this talk about the future, we should probably remember that the past repeats itself. Here's lauded Latin American author, Eduardo Galeano reading from his “Children of the Days.”
You can also listen to our extended conversation with him.
Point of attack. Defensive Line. Football and war have a lot in common. Former foreign policy advisor to President Clinton, Michael Mandelbaum, talks conflict and the game.
Shakespeare expert Stephen Greenblatt says Shakespeare believed all rulers suffered from insomnia.
Music critic Tom Moon is the author of "1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die: A Listener's Life List." Moon tells Steve Paulson why he chose what he chose and we hear some of his favorites.
