Chandler Burr's new book explains Luca Turin’s theory of how we smell and recounts his amazing ability to recognize the odor of particular molecules.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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What does it mean to be free? And what does it mean to live a personally authentic, honest life with ourselves and with others? These are the questions that Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and their existential friends wrestled with in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Sarah Bakewell makes the case that their late-night conversations are especially relevant today. She's the author of "At the Existentialist Cafe: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails."
"Religion always starts with mysticism," says David Steindl-Rast. Now 89, he's been a Benedictine monk since 1953. Brother David was one of the first Roman Catholics to engage in dialogues between Christians and Buddhists. He tells Steve Paulson about the joys of life in the monastery.
A few weeks after Dan's funeral, his wife Judy talks about how she's dealing with his absence, and how she wants to remember him.
Diamanda Galas is a classically trained pianist, with a vocal range of three and a half octaves whose music is dark and intense.
Fred Pearce tells Steve Paulson he went to over 30 countries and discovered people are simply taking too much water out of the world's river systems.
"New Yorker" staff writer and book critic James Wood recommends Theodor Fontane's 1894 novel, "Effi Briest."
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