Canadian novelist Sheila Heti talks about her new novel, "How Should a Person Be?" It's fiction, but the characters are real people -- they seem to be Sheila herself and her friends. Some of the dialogue is from actual conversations she transcribed. So what is this thing?
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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Karen Armstrong is the author of nearly 20 books on religion. She tells Steve Paulson that traditions from Confucianism to Judaism emerged as responses to the rampant violence of their time. And she says our own time has a lot in common with that age.
Novelist Elinor Lipman has written an essay for the New York Times on the fine art of blurbing – writing short, pithy quotes to appear on fellow authors’ dust jackets.
In 2003, Craig Mullaney led an infantry rifle platoon along the hostile border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Azhar Usman is a comedian who's appearing on the "Allah Made Me Funny! Official Muslim Comedy Tour."
Do nations need states? Do ethnic, religious, and/or linguistic groups of people – do they, in this age of globalization, do they need to form a country with borders and an army and all that comes along with that? Do they need to be a state?
Ever wonder why certain foods fall out of favor? In his book “The Gluten Lie” Alan Levinovitz argues that food has become akin to a modern religion for a lot of us, complete with its own set of rules, prohibitions and guiding beliefs.
Christopher Buckley talks with Steve Paulson about his novel "Boomsday," which posits a piece of runaway legislation providing tax incentives for Boomers who choose to commit suicide...sort of an updated "Modest Proposal."
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