China Miéville´s new novel is called "Embassytown." It features aliens that speak a strange language in a strange way -- with two voices simultaneously. Miéville spoke with Anne Strainchamps about "Embassytown."
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Houston's Rothko Chapel is a shrine to the transformative power of art. Abstract artist Mark Rothko created 14 enormous paintings for this sacred space. Pianist Sarah Rothenberg tells us the history behind the music on her CD "Rothko Chapel," and writer Terry Tempest Williams describes her reverence for the Rothko Chapel.
Angie da Silva is a historian of black cultural life in the United States, going back to the Civil War. She collects stories, both through oral history and archival research. But she's not merely a writer. She brings these stories to life through historical reenactment, often as a slave character she's created named Lila. She says that the stories she hears and tells are too often left out of our history books.
In this interview, she talks about her work and tells the story of Mary Meachum, a free black abolitionist who worked on the Mississippi in St. Louis.
Psychologists John and Julie Gottman are famous for being able to predict with 94% accuracy whether a couple will break up, stay together unhappily, or stay together happily. In their Love Lab, they've identified hidden patterns of behavior that can strengthen or weaken relationships. If we'd known the secret to a good marriage was non-linear differential equations, we might have paid more attention in math class.
Writer Elizabeth Royte spent some time on Panama’s Barro Colorado Island, the best-studied rainforest in the world. She describes some of the naturalists she met and their work in her book “The Tapir’s Morning Bath.”
It sometimes seems as though everyone has read "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" and the books that followed. The author, Stieg Larsson, died before he could tell the stories behind the books. Now his companion of more than 30 years, Eva Gabrielsson, has written about the man and his work. In this NEW and UNCUT interview she tells Jim Fleming about the books and her life with Stieg Larsson.
In her new memoir, "Ongoingness," Sarah Manguso talks about how keeping a diary—so often considered a virture—for her became a vice. But her obsessive diary keeping changed with the birth of her first child.
David Schmader thinks "Showgirls" is the most brilliant bad movie ever made. He did a commentary for the new DVD edition and tells Steve Paulson why it's so hilarious.
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