Diana Athill was the editor of some of the most celebrated writers of our time, including John Updike, Simone de Beauvoir, and V.S. Naipaul.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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Frederic Spotts is the author of “Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics.” Spotts says that Hitler saw himself as a painter and was forever wounded by his failure to impress the artistic establishment.
These days beauty’s got a complicated reputation. One professor of literature and aesthetics at Harvard is giving beauty a makeover.
Eric Kandel has spent a lifetime studying the science of memory and picked up a Nobel Prize while he was at it.
“I learned virtually nothing about mortality when I was in medical school,” Dr. Atul Gawande says. “I was terrible at knowing how to have a successful conversation with people facing terminal illness.” Gawande, author of the bestselling “Being Mortal,” is now trying to get people talking about better ways to live out the final chapter.
Legendary tattoo artist Walter Moskowitz learned how to tattoo from his father and passed on the art to his son, Marvin. Before Walter passed away in 2007, his other son, Doug, recorded his dad’s stories.
Bill Welden, an expert on Tolkien’s Elvish languages, talks about Elvish derivations and vocabulary and remembers his visit to the set of the “The Lord of the Rings” movie.
People have gathered together to dance for centuries. Barbara Ehrenreich says we've become so obsessed with personal happiness, we often neglect the pleasures of collective joy.
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