Paul Koudounaris has spent the past decade traveling around the world, climbing into church crypts and bone chambers and taking photos at over 250 burial sites in 30 countries. He's discovered chapels decorared with skeletons and underground caves filled with skulls—among other things. In this interview, he tells us how he began his obsession with displays of death.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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Plenty of men are obsessed with body image, too. Eric Chaline traces the cult of the male body beautiful back to ancient Greece, in "The Temple of Perfection" -- his new history of the gym.
It’s too bad trees can’t talk to us, but storytellers can and Wayne Pauly has a good story about a young woman, a young man, and a tree.
Salman Ahmad is a Pakistani rock star. His group is Junoon, and they're the most popular rock group in South Asia.
Scott Turow has made a career writing hugely successful legal thrillers, but then he turned to a World War II novel.
For others, football is sacred. In fact, William Dean says the game is part of "American spiritual culture." He talks with Jim Fleming about the way religious beliefs crop up in American popular culture.
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