All eyes have been on the Middle East for some months now. But al Qaeda has been conspicuous for its absence...
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
In this look behind the scenes, producer Veronica Rueckert and Anne Strainchamps remember our interview with Amy Wallace-Havens, the sister of the late David Foster Wallace.
Olivia Laing talks about her book, "The Trip to Echo Spring: On Writers and Drinking."
A forest is an amazing repository of both knowledge and wisdom. Ecologist Suzanne Simard takes Anne Strainchamps on a walking tour of a forest to point out the remarkable web of life both above and below the ground.
Stefan Gates is the author of and a self-described "Gastronaut" – someone who'll stop at nothing to experience a transcendent moment through food, no matter how bizarre.
Rudolph Bell tells Jim Fleming that Italian parents of 500 years ago had some very modern ideas about child rearing. And a few wacky ones about pre-determining the sex of your baby.
Sarah Winchester (born 1840) was the heiress to the Winchester Estate with a 50% holding of the Winchester Repeating Rifle Company. She used her vast fortune to construct a mansion for 38 consecutive years.
Popular legend held that she was cursed by all those who were killed by Winchester rifles. The only way to alleviate her suffering was to continue to add on to her mansion, filling it with strange sealed rooms and staircases and corridors leading nowhere. Pamela Haag tells her tale and gives it some meaning beyond a mere ghost story.
Wendy Shanker is the author of “The Fat Girl’s Guide to Life.” She tells Anne Strainchamps that she prefers “fat” to the euphemisms and says that she is healthy and happy despite her size.
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