Julia Hansen chained herself to the radiator in her dining room for a week in an effort to quit smoking cigarettes.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Novelists have always mined their own lives for inspiration. But no ever's gone quite as far as Karl Ove Knausgaard. People call him the Norwegian Proust. He recently came out with the sixth volume of his autobiographical novel, "My Struggle." What's remarkable about Knausgaard is not just that he's telling the story of his life as a novel. It's the incredible level of detail.
In 1776 there were no radios or telephones or honking cars, but there were other sounds. The church bell, the town crier, and women beating their laundry all had distinct sounds.
Marco Iacoboni talks about mirror neurons - neurons hard-wired into us and explain how we feel empathy and compassion and why we feel the need to connect with one another.
Kevin Smokler tells Steve Paulson that the Internet is changing the world of letters but he thinks it’s progress. Smokler sees a welcome democratization of literature.
Love him or hate him, presidential candidate and consumer advocate Ralph Nader has stuck to his principles.
Robert Mankoff and Roz Chast talk about what characterized New Yorker cartoons of the past, and how new cartoons are edited at the magazine.
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