Robert Kaplan tells Jim Fleming that people had a lot of trouble accepting a mathematical symbol for the idea of nothing.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
John Portmann contributed to and edited the collection of essays, “In Defense of Sin.” He tells Steve Paulson why, as a child, he loved going to confession.
Jonathan Lethem's new novel is "Chronic City." The book has been described as a cross between the famous borough-centric New Yorker cartoon and the darkest episode of "Seinfeld."
Jedediah Purdy is the author of “For Common Things: Irony, Trust and Commitment in America Today” and “Being America: Liberty, Commerce, and Violence in an American World.”
Julian Barnes' novel "The Sense of an Ending" won the 2011 Man Booker Prize. Barnes talks with Steve Paulson about the complications of memory, aging and moral reckoning.
Reporter Matt Lieber offers his reflections on crossword puzzles and the people who love them, from the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, held in Stamford, CT in 2002.
Americans spend billions of dollars a year on over-the-counter pain relievers. In fact, all over the world, easing pain is big business. And Aspirin’s one of the top sellers. Why? Charles Mann, author of “The Aspirin Wars”, tells Steve Paulson what happened when a German company called Bayer came to America:
Peter Kornbluh, directs the National Security Archive’s Chile Documentation Project. He’s just published “The Pinochet File,” which uses recently declassified documents to prove that there was American involvement at the highest levels of government in the efforts to foment chaos in Chile.
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