Ali Allawi tells Steve Paulson why the in-fighting of the transitional government in Iraq forced him to resign and why he feels the American efforts there were doomed.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
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.
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."
Poet Anna Rabinowitz found a shoe box full of old letters and photos of family and friends killed in the Holocaust. She wrote the poem "Darkling" to feature their voices. We also hear excerpts from the opera "Darkling."
Alain de Botton tells Steve Paulson how modern readers can derive comfort from philosophy, and sees no conflict between talking about serious ideas and entertaining the reader.
Allen Long is a former dope-smuggler and the subject of Robert Sabbag’s book “Loaded: A Misadventure on the Marijuana Trail.” Anne Strainchamps interviewed them a week apart.
Screenwriter and novelist Andrew Davies talks about why Jane Austen is hot again, what he had to do to the “Bridget Jones’s Diary” script, and how he felt when someone else adapted and filmed one of his novels
New romances are all about novelty, about breathtaking firsts. Over time, the feel of those firsts can fade from joyful to...
Independent producer Whitney Jones shares First Love and 27 Other Firsts.
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