Julian Barnes is one of England’s most celebrated novelists. He’s fascinated by the ways our minds play tricks with memory, especially as we age. It’s the subject of his Booker Prize winning novel “The Sense of an Ending” – one of several new books that explore the minefield of memory. We...Read more
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Imagine a relative who thinks sex is like a handshake. Who organizes orgies with the neighbors, doesn't mind if their partner sleeps around and firmly believes females should be in charge of everything. Actually, those ARE your relatives. They're bonobo apes and they share...Read more
Rehearsing Shakespeare’s tragedy, MacBeth, one young actor found himself in the mood for mirth. Like a specter rising from the mists, something began to take shape: a new MacBeth for the ages - with fewer daggers and more donuts. In this hour of the Peabody-Awarding winning program To the Best...Read more
Charles Monroe-Kane grew up hearing voices in his head. For years he tried to drown them out with potentially lethal quantities of hard drugs and alcohol. Lithium saved his life but coming clean about his past hasn't been easy. How do you admit, as a public radio producer, that for years you had...Read more
Posters at Starbucks ask customers to focus on the world water crisis. Church congregations ask the faithful to go on a "carbon diet." Slate magazine asks readers to take a "green challenge." We've got green cars, green clothing, green politics and even green weddings. In this hour of To the...Read more
Filmmaker Ken Burns calls the national parks "America's best idea." We'll take you to Yosemite,Denali and Carlsbad Caverns. We'll also explore some forgotten parts of our history: how the "buffalo soldiers" helped create America's first parks, and why the very idea of protecting nature has...Read more
John Brown was a terrorist, a man who led a raid in Kansas that butchered five unarmed men. He was also, arguably, of the few white people in 1850s America who was totally color blind. According to a new book he was "the man who killed slavery and sparked the Civil War." So, was John Brown a "...Read more
For decades “imperialism” was a dirty word, and all talk of empire seemed old-fashioned. Now some people say a new empire has emerged – the American Empire. But is America’s unrivaled power good for the world? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the debate over American supremacy. ...Read more
Salman Rushdie's new novel is called "The Enchantress of Florence." It's a tale of two cities, consisting of stories tucked inside stories tucked inside stories...along the lines of Scheherazade's stories of "One Thousand and One Nights." In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, Salman...Read more
In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, Russia and China. They were the two Communist giants. Now each is carving out a new future. By most accounts, China is doing it better. It’s still an authoritarian state, but the economy if booming. And Russia? Well, it’s capitalism’s wild...Read more
Political animosity between the right and the left is off the charts. Social scientists say we're living in one of the most polarized periods in history and that conservatives and liberals don't just disagree anymore. They hate everything about each other. It's time to de-...Read more
Chris Ayres never wanted to cover the war. He was perfectly content reporting on celebrity gossip in L.A. But through a twist of fate, he found himself embedded with Marines in Iraq, living in a Humvee and waiting for his death at the hands of the Republican Guard. In this hour of To the Best...Read more
You know the earth is round, the sky is up, and your dog loves you. But HOW do you know those things? This week, how we form opinions – the psychology and brain chemistry behind our beliefs.Read more
Noelle Howey got the shock of her life when she was 14. She found out her dad liked to wear women’s clothes. In fact, he really wanted to be a woman. So he re-lived his teenage years ... as a girl, just as Noelle herself hit adolescence. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge stories...Read more
Are you living the American Dream? Or just struggling to get by? Changing the minimum wage, cuts to food stamps, and health care coverage have been all over the news. What does it take to “make it” in America today?
Also, On Our Minds this week, Swedish crime fiction writer Jens Lapidus...Read more
With the war in Iraq winding down, now what? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, a look at the war’s aftermath - and not only for Iraqis, but also for the millions of people who marched against the war. Does America’s quick victory mean the peace movement failed? And what about...Read more
You know those end of the year lists? Best books, movies, music and so on? This hour, To the Best of Our Knowledge shares the best interviews from 2015. Plus a booklist or two.Read more
Reading a good book may be the most fun you can have sitting down. Books can be a hobby or a passion, an interest or an obsession. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, tales from book world. A former bookseller takes us to Hay on Wye - the Welsh town that’s well on its way to...Read more
Want to learn a second or third language? You don’t have to slave away in a French seminar – it only takes a minute or two to pick up “ob.” Next time on tob-oo thob-ah bob-est ob-of ob-our knob-ow-lob-edge. Or should I say To the Best of Our Knowledge, word games, and secret...Read more
In the wake of a number of high profile shootings over the past year, people are talking about policing, racism, and injustice. But there's one issue we don't really talk all that much about: fear.This hour, we take a closer look at negative stereotypes about African American men, how those...Read more
"Shhh… I have a secret… Now, I could tell you but then I'd have to kill you." Classic spy joke – but not so funny when it's true. In this hour of To The Best of Our Knowledge, we'll go the dark side of secrecy - warrantless wiretapping, secret CIA prisons, "extraordinary rendition,"...Read more
Grim news from Africa is easy to find, but there are good things happening there too. The creator of the Number 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency wants you to know all about them. He calls himself a Utopian writer. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we’ll visit the real Botswana with...Read more
Everyone knows what comic books are about, right? But it's not all about people in long underwear hitting each other. This hour on To the Best of Our Knowledge, heroes, anti-heroes, and regular folks strutting their stuff in black and white.Read more
Picking up a bottle of wine for dinner used to be simple. It pretty much depended on how much you wanted to spend, since everything came from France. Not anymore! We'll look at what happened to the wine world in 1976, when wine from the Napa Valley won a blind tasting and turned the industry...Read more