Stewart Lee Allen explains why the ancient Greeks wouldn’t eat beans, how Spanish Christians began the tradition of eating ham for Easter, and what he’d serve at a dinner dedicated to the Seven Deadly Sins.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
There was a time when others bagged your groceries, planned your trips and pumped your gas, but now they're just another part of our daily routines. Craig Lambert says these are a few examples of the "shadow work" we've unwittingly taken on in service of companies and other organizations. He warns that it's chipping away at our leisure time, and turning us all into middle class serfs.
A darkly comic debut novel explores the secretive world of industrial flavor manufacturers. Stephan Eirik Clark skewers the food industry, flavor science, and the American way of life.
David Gessner discovered the American West as a young man, and the huge mountains and wide open spaces changed his life. He recently took a road trip through the West, following in the footsteps of two literary heroes, Edward Abbey and Wallace Stegner. Gessner says their books help us see the West in all its complexity.
Roy Kaplan tells Steve Paulson what really happens to those people who hit the lottery.
Sapphire performs several of her poems and tells Judith Strasser why she enjoys working in some very old poetic forms such as the villanelle.
Scott Simon, host of NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday, and his wife have adopted two baby girls from China. Simon tells Anne Strainchamps why he and his wife are such fans of adoption.
Signe Pike chucked her job at a NY publishing house to looking for fairies in Mexico and the British Isles.
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