Mimi Sheraton, a travel writer, went to the Polish town of Bialystock to find the origins of her favorite bread from childhood, the bialy. It’s a crusty onion roll invented by the Jews.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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Author of "Farm City" faces a drawback to her urban farm dream in Oakland, then called "the murder capital of the world."
Jess Winfield was one of the original members of "The Reduced Shakespeare Company." He's now a novelist and talks with Jim Fleming about "My Name is Will: a Novel of Sex, Drugs, and Shakespeare."
Journalist Marc Cooper tells Jim Fleming that Las Vegas has its own integrity in that all that matters there is money and the city is completely honest about that.
Oxford University philosopher Nick Bostrom offers a cautionary take on artificial intelligence in his new book, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies. In it, he imagines what could happen if computers were to ever become smarter than humans. He tells Steve Paulson that it could have catastrophic effects, unless we start thinking about it now.
Redmond O’Hanlon is travel writer who’s braved the Congo, Borneo and the Amazon. This time around, he tries his luck on a trawler in the icy Atlantic in dangerous waters.
Mark Frauenfelder is co-creator of the weblog BoingBoing.net and the author of "Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World."
Novelist Mary Gordon used to bristle at the label "Catholic writer," but she's made peace with it now.
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