Anne Strainchamps surveys the enchanting world of children's literature.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
When he was 14, Paul Menendez went to Havana in 1966 to study music. He stayed...changed his name to Pablo, and ever since he's lived in Cuba, where he's now a famous jazz musician. Sitting on his Havana rooftop, Pablo tells Steve Paulson this remarkable story.
Constitution quoting religious fanatics with guns taking over government land might seem as extreme as you could take your beliefs in god and country. But you can take it further. Christian Picciolini is the former leader of the US’s first neo-Nazi skinhead organization. He too was acting out of patriotism. He was also acting out of hate and white supremacy. The title of his 2015 memoir, “Romantic Violence” says it all. But Christian quit being a neo-Nazi skinhead. And in 2010, he co-founded a nonprofit peace advocacy groups called Life After Hate that helps youth leave extremist groups. Charles Monroe-Kane sat down with Christian for a frank discussion on racism.
Andrew Woodcock and Chris Strong are meteorologists and moonlight as a band. They tell Anne Strainchamps how the weather finds its way into their lyrics.
Adam Sisman and Beryl Bainbridge talk with Steve Paulson about Boswell and Johnson and Boswell’s immortal biography of the brilliant 18th century man of letters.
Alfred McCoy explains to Jim Fleming how the CIA made deals with warlords in Asia to help drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan during the Cold War.
Shattered by her father's sudden death, writer Helen Macdonald began dreaming of wild hawks. In an effort to move beyond her grief, she bought and trained a wild goshawk -- one of the world's fiercest birds of prey. But between the bird and her grief, she became, in her words "more hawk than human."
Not all architecture in the Arab world glitters like a golden dome. Some are being shelled to dust by war. Such is the horrifying story of Homs, Syria. Once a cosmopolitan and tolerant city of more than one million, Homs has hosted clashes between rebel groups and President Bashar Assad’s forces since 2011. Those clashes have mortared and shelled the city into an oblivion. Thousands of residents have been killed. Most of the remaining have fled. But not all.
Marwa al-Sabouni and her family have stayed. Marwa al-Sabouni has her PhD. in Islamic architecture and wrote a compelling memoir about architecture and destruction in Homs called “The Battle for Home.”
Marwa al-Sabouni spoke with Anne Strainchamps via Skype from her apartment in Homs, Syria.
Pages
