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.
Joe Nick Patoski has been writing about his friend Willie Nelson for thirty five years. He talks about Nelson's first claim to fame in Nashville was as a songwriter.
Michael Chabon defends the position that genre fiction is just as worthy of respect as any other fiction.
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.
Richard Davidson is a neuro-psychologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a longtime friend of the Dalai Lama. He tells Steve Paulson about observing contemplatives with a brain scanner.
Rick Riordan is the author of the wildly popular series of children's books featuring Percy Jackson - the dyslexic son of the god Poseidon.
Philosopher John Searle talks with Steve Paulson about the most exciting problem in modern philosophy: explaining human consciousness.
