Benjamin Percy's new novel"The Dead Lands" is a wilderness thriller set in a post-apocalyptic landscape. The descendants of Lewis and Clark reprise their ancestors' epic cross-country journey in search of a new beginning.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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If climate change is the most urgent problem facing humanity, why are there so few novels about it? Acclaimed novelist Amitav Ghosh believes that’s a big problem. He says climate change is less a science problem than a crisis of imagination.
The common wisdom is that we’re getting more violent all the time. Witness the genocides and world wars of the last century. But cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker says we have it all wrong. And in his 800 page book “The Better Angels of Ourselves” he makes the case for how violence has declined.
Falling in love is easy. Staying in love for 30 or 40 years takes some skill. Social psychologist Arthur Aron identifies some of the techniques devoted couples use to keep the spark alive. Aron's the psychologist who figured out how to build intimacy in just 36 questions. He gives us some more lab-tested tips for keeping the love you find.
Sharon Lovejoy tells Anne Strainchamps about sunflower houses, the giant’s garden, and why she sends kids into the garden with stethoscopes.
Susannah Cahalan talks about her book, "Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness."
Ron Powers tells Jim Fleming that today’s teens may turn to violence to express their individuality since all the traditional means for signaling coolness have been co-opted by corporate consumer culture.
Tsultrim Allione founded Tara Mandala, a retreat in Colorado, where she teaches students based on her Buddhist training in Tibet.
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