In her new book, "Now I Know Who My Comrades Are," Emily Parker profiles a few online activists, and writes about how they're transforming life in China, Cuba and Russia.More
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Interviews By Topic
Orhan Pamuk is Turkey’s most famous writer and a cultural ambassador for Turkey around the world. He talks with Steve Paulson about his novel “Snow,” in which a secular poet is confronted by Islamic fundamentalists in a provincial town.More
Junot Diaz recommends Samuel R. Delany's reverse-chronology novel that captures the tragic story of a closeted poet who struggles to reckon with his desires.More
David Foster Wallace’s masterpiece — "Infinite Jest" — is famously difficult to read. Colleen Leahy and Makini Allwood climbed the literary mountain of a book, and they share their experience on a podcast called "And But So."More
It's summertime and the living is easy — but the reading shouldn't be. "To The Best Of Our Knowledge" producers compile a reading list for those seeking a challenge as their beach read. More
Musical guest Syna So Pro explains how her classical music training informs her electronic loops.More
How a brush with cancer inspired three brothers — Sam, Seth and Adam Coster — to build a bigger game.More
Religious historian Jeffrey Kripal believes that anomalous experiences — near-death experiences, telepathic dreams and other primal spiritual encounters — are the deep roots of religion. You might call it "religion before it becomes religion."More
How painting radium on watches and instrument dials killed more than 50 young women working in Ottawa, Illinois.More
Ricardo Pitts-Wiley is the director and writer of the theatrical production of “Moby Dick: Then and Now,” which re-imagines Melville's tale in a context relevant to its cast — inmates at Rhode Island’s state juvenile correctional facility.More
When Steve was handed the assignment of interviewing Jorge Luis Borges — but with less than 24 hours to prepare — the opportunity felt like more of a curse than a blessing.More
Marina Lutz grew up with a father who was obsessed with watching her. She discovered the full extent of his obsession as an adult, and made an award-winning short documentary about it called “The Marina Experiment.”
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Greg Cootsona was born again on February 8, 1981. And this is his “testimony.”More
If you think of your life as a series of births, what changes? Why does the birth metaphor matter?More
How does it work out over time for people who have made the transition to a new gender? Steve Paulson reached out to a transgender man — Benn Marine — to hear his experience.More
Wendy Kline says the history of birth in America is the story of the medical establishment’s deliberate suppression of midwives. For her as for most mothers, it’s a story that’s political and personal. More