Interviews By Topic

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

Shulem Deen

Shulem Deen was a Skverer— a member of one of the most insular Hasidic sects in the U.S.  Then he got curious about secular life and the world outside his small village in Rockland County, NY.  The community branded him a heretic and expelled him.More

Ernest Hemingway and the many endings of "Farewell To Arms"

Hemingway rewrote the ending to his classic novel dozens of times. After he died, his grandson Sean Hemingway collected those other endings and published them in a new edition of the literary classic.More

The people of Twitter

About a year ago, a group of progressive activists started a campaign to buy Twitter. Give the public shares in everyone’s favorite social media platform and turn it into a co-op. How's that working out?More

Nesmith and the guys

If you’re old enough, you’ll remember the Monkees, the pop group with a hit TV show. Michael Nesmith wore the green stocking cap. Since then, he’s reinvented his career several times over. He (sort of) invented country rock. And the music video.More

Addicted to avoiding stuff

Is procrastination just a bad habit? Or is it something worse, like a vice? Jennifer Baker waxes philosophical about the dark side of putting things off.More

Setting goals

Chrisoula Andreou offers some strategies that can help us stop putting things off.More

Procrastinating while writing.

When it comes to writing, it's easy to procrastinate. But Canadian philosopher Mark Kingwell has managed to avoid that temptation.More

Felicia Day at Comic Con in 2011

Web video superstar Felicia Day talks about how the Internet allowed her to use her weirdness to achieve her dreams of becoming an actress and to fulfill her creative ambitions.More

On her phone

Piers Steel gives us a procrastination primer. Steel's the author of "The Procrastination Equation: How to Stop Putting Things Off and Start Getting Stuff Done." He's a Distinguished Research Chair at the University of Calgary.More

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