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.
Audio
Marion Nestle is a long-time food industry activist and the author of "Soda Politics: Taking on Big Soda (and Winning)." She explains why sodas are about race and class in America.
Ruth Padel is an acclaimed British poet and a direct descendent of Charles Darwin. She’s now written “Darwin: A Life in Poems,” having grown up hearing stories about her famous ancestor.
Roger Ebert won the Pulitzer Prize in 1975 and is probably the most famous movie critic in America. He talks with Steve Paulson about the movie genre known as film noir.
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.
So, is it society, nurture if you will, that creates the monsters among us or is it our nature? Enter the Fierce People - the indigenous Yanomamo Indians of the Amazon.
Satish Kumar, a former Jain monk and follower of Ghandi, tells Steve Paulson that the secret to a stress-free life is to take it at a walking pace.
Susannah Cahalan talks about her book, "Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness."
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