Walter Kirn bookmarks "The Dog of the South" by Charles Portis.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Emily Anthes talks about her book, "Frankenstein's Cat: Cuddling Up to Biotech's Brave New Beasts."
The power of big data—why so many corporations and government agencies and political pollsters and baseball teams are after it—is that it can reveal things we might otherwise not see. But statistics alone can't do that. We need to transform those statistics into stories. One artist doing that is Brian Foo, aka the Data Driven DJ. He takes large data sets and turns them into music. His first song, "Two Trains," amplifies a dire but often ignored truth about our country: income inequality.
Cultural critic David Shields wants to change the way we think about art.
Poor, broke and white. Country musician Brandy Clark's been there, but she made it out. She’s 40 years old and won the country music awards’ Song of the Year and was also nominated for best new artist. Charles Monroe-Kane caught up with Brandy, along with her guitar player and backup singer Miles Aubrey, in a studio in Nashville, to talk about her latest album, Big Day in a Small Town.
Celia Brooks Brown is an American who lives in the U.K. and is making a reputation as a high-brow vegetarian chef. Her books include “Party Food for Vegetarians.”
Christopher Phillips tells Jim Fleming what happens at Socrates Café, and explains how he reveals the deep philosophical implications of everyday events.
For most of recorded history, bread has been the essential food. Darra Goldstein, editor of “Gastronomica” magazine, says you can’t overstate the significance of bread in human history.
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