Interviews By Topic

Still from "My Friend Dahmer"

So can we empathize with people who become monsters? Derf Backderf — whose teenage self appears in Meyers' film — certainly thinks so.More

basketball rivals

During basketball camp in Fargo, North Dakota, cultural critic Chuck Klosterman made an enemy — for life. And maybe that was a bad idea.More

Eyes everywhere

The personal devices we live with and depend on — our computers, tablets, smartphones and more— all share information about us. Randolph Lewis tells more stories about how we’re being watched in a book called “Under Surveillance.”More

Still from trailer for "Voyeur" (Netflix)

A couple of years ago, journalist Gay Talese published “The Voyeur’s Motel,” the true story of a motel owner who spent more than 30 years spying on his guests while they had sex. The case is now the subject of a Netflix documentary called “Voyeur.”More

The Trial of Saddam

The young American soldiers who protected Saddam Hussein during his trial spent hours alone with the “Butcher of Baghdad” and unexpectedly grew to like him. They were devastated by his execution and its violent aftermath. More

Siri listening in

Do you ever get the feeling that your digital devices are eavesdropping on you?
 More

Hackers and phishers, who can abuse surveillance gathering

In a world filled with devices that could be used to listen in on our daily lives, how do you take back control of your privacy? Steve Paulson asked security reporter Lily Hay Newman.More

Surrounded by jerks.

TTBOOK producer Doug Gordon wonders if he's surrounded by a**holes.More

"That guy" at the office

Robert Sutton talks with Anne Strainchamps about his book, "The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't."More

Tracing the linguistic history of A-hole.

Geoffrey Nunberg talks to Jim Fleming about his book, "Ascent of the A-Word: Assholism, The First Sixty Years."More

At the rock show

An abridged version of Terry Gross' interview with Kiss rocker Gene SImmons from a 2002 episode of "Fresh Air."More

What makes a man turn asshole?

Aaron James talks to Steve Paulson about his book, "Assholes: A Theory."More

A portal to the future

Science journalist Claudia Hammond unlocks the weirdness of how we experience time — including our fixation on the future — in a book called "Time Warped."More

Geoff Dyer

Geoff Dyer talks about his book, "Zona: A Book About A Film About a Journey to a Room."More

"Infinite Jest" by David Foster Wallace

David Foster Wallace wrote memorably about AA in his famous novel "Infinite Jest." Writer Marshall Boswell reads one of his favorite passages.More

General Electric dial

Kurt Vonnegut joined his brother, Bernard, at General Electric in the late 1940s. Ginger Strand explains how Kurt's time at G.E. influenced his fiction.More

Gazing into the future, forever

Canadian cultural critic Hal Niedzviecki makes the case that as a culture, we may for the first time in history be more focused on what is going to happen in the future than on what is happening right now.More

A crystal ball

There's no shortage of forecasts about the future these days. But did you know that ordinary people can out-predict the pros? More

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