Writer Stephen Kuusisto is blind and he says that among the many advantages —he gets eavesdrop on the rest of us, because most of the time, we don’t even notice he’s listening.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Before the airplane was invented, ballooning was all the rage, and many people thought this was the future of air travel. Cultural historian Richard Holmes describes the remarkable history of the hot air balloon.
Stephen Greenblatt tells Steve Paulson he thinks Shakespeare’s father was a drunk, leaving Will with complex feelings about alcohol.
Yann Martel's novel "Life of Pi" is an adventure story and also a meditation on religious faith. He says a good religion is like a good story.
Scott Weidensaul talks with Jim Fleming about several animals that have turned up after their species was thought to be extinct.
Thomas Hine is the author of “I Want THAT: How We All Became Shoppers.” He tells Anne Strainchamps how our culture grooms men and women to behave differently as shoppers and exploits the traits of both sexes.
Steve Paulson produced this essay/report on the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges.
Novelist T. Coraghessan Boyle talks with Jim Fleming about his latest. “Drop City” is set in a California commune in the 1970s, and concerns the activities at one of America’s many private little Utopias.
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