John Waters recommends "The Complete Short Stories of James Purdy."
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Most young men during the Vietnam era faced a choice, whether or not to be drafted into the US Armed Forces. For Jim Fleming, and his friends Robert Cardinaux and Mark Peterson, the chose to become Conscientious Objectors. They worked together in alternative service as psychiatric aides.
Doug Quin is trying to help us tune certain sounds in, sounds we don't consider worth hearing -- from the sound of a spider sucking blood from an insect to the sound of a tree falling in a forest.
Austin Grossman is the author of a novel called "Soon I Will Be Invincible" and tells Jim Fleming that he tried to respect the comics conventions in his prose.
We re-examine the myth of Robert Johnson. The most famous blues singer of them all died at the age of 27 after recording only 29 songs. Today he's idolized, but Elijah Wald says that may be for the wrong reasons.
Novelist Ben Cheever, son of John Cheever, talks with Jim Fleming about the price of fame and remembers the way people treated him because of his famous father.
Jon Ronson believes capitalism favors psychopaths and is creating more of them.
Ernie Cline talks to Anne Strainchamps about his novel, "Ready Player One," which revolves around a massively multi-player online game and '80s pop culture.
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