If there’s one writer who’s identified with the Mississippi River, it’s Mark Twain. He grew up in Hannibal, Missouri — on the river’s edge — and as a young man, he worked as a steamboat pilot. And then he wrote the “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” the novel that turned the Mississippi into myth. But it also created one of the most enduring controversies in American literary history: how to depict race relations in America's past. In this interview, Andrew Levy says that "Huckleberry Finn" is actually anti-racist — and when it was first published, the big controversy was about Twain’s depiction of wild children.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Patricia O’Connor tells Jim Fleming there’s nothing wrong with splitting an infinitive and that people should stop trying to make English behave like Latin.
Maurice Sendak's new book, “Brundibar” is a collaboration with playwright Tony Kushner. It’s a story about confronting evil, based on events from the Holocaust.
Richard Halpern talks with Jim Fleming about the sexual sub-text in Norman Rockwell’s work
Robert and Ellen Kaplan wrote “The Art of the Infinite.” They talk about it with Jim Fleming.
Kumail Nanjiani is a Pakistani standup comedian living in Chicago and performing a one-man show called "Unpronounceable."
For centuries, the oddities of nature - like two-headed cats and conjoined twins - fascinated people. Science historian Lorraine Daston says a history of wonders is to some degree a history of pre-modern science.
Peggy Orenstein tells Jim Fleming about her ambivalence about having children, her difficulties becoming pregnant, and her adventures with fertility treatments.
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