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To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Fear and Loathing in Mosquito-Land

We hate mosquitoes.

But why?  I mean, yes --- West Nile, dengue, malaria, Zika…not to mention ruined picnics, sleepless nights, and bites you scratch until they bleed … Those are logical reasons to dislike mosquitoes.  But admit it – they also just creep you out.

Jeffrey Lockwood gets at the psychology in his book “The Infested Mind.” He’s an entomologist who once had a truly horrific encounter with a swarm of grasshoppers.   He was left traumatized. Afterwards he wondered why we all fear and loathe insects so much.

Lockwood told Rehman Tungekar the answer is deep deep in our psyches.

 

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Eileen Kane on "Trickster: An Anthropological Memoir"

Eileen Kane revisits her experience as a young, newly married, trainee anthropologist studying the Paiute Indians of Nevada.

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Conscious Dying - Extended Interview

In this extended interview, Buddhist chaplain Steve Spiro talks about meditations on mortality, about setting the scene at a deathbed, and shares more stories of conscious dying and living.

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Carl Wilson on Celine Dion

Carl Wilson is a writer and editor at Canada's national newspaper "The Globe and Mail," and the author of "Let's Talk about Love: A Journey to the End of Taste."  The book examines the phenomenon of Celine Dion, the best-selling female recording artist in the world.

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Frederick Turner on 1929: A Novel of the Jazz Age

Frederick Turner is the author of “1929: a Novel of the Jazz Age.”  Turner reads from the book and talks with Steve Paulson about its central character, Bix Beiderbeck. 

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Dangerous Idea: Critical Thinking

Rebecca Goldstein's Dangerous Idea?  Teach children to be rigorous critical thinkers.

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de Botton Goes Arty

Alain de Botton's latest project Is art as therapy. Feeling lonely? Stand in front of the Mona Lisa. Anxious about work? Caspar David Friedrich’s “Rocky Reef on the Seashore” will put everything in perspective. Anne talks with de Botton about his new book, free app, and… upcoming museum shows.

 

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Charles Monroe-Kane Reports on the Field of Dreams

TTBOOK’s Charles Monroe-Kane visits the cornfield in Dyersville, Iowa where they filmed “Field of Dreams.”

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