Yann Mantel won the Booker Prize for his novel “Life of Pi.” It’s the story of a young Indian boy, Pi, trapped at sea with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. Pi believes in and practices three major religions.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Singer-songwriter-community organizer Si Kahn tells Steve Paulson the hallmarks of a good political song, and talks about the role music has played in various social causes, including the Civil Rights movement.
One hundred years ago, Fritz Haber invented the first chemical weapon and convinced the German army to use it. His wife Clara, also a chemist, fiercely opposed her husband's project. When she couldn't stop it, she committed suicide. Judith Claire Mitchell tells the story in her tragic and yet funny novel "A Reunion of Ghosts."
Sapphire performs several of her poems and tells Judith Strasser why she enjoys working in some very old poetic forms such as the villanelle.
Thomas Moore is a psychologist and philosopher. He talks with Anne Strainchamps about the spiritual meaning of treasure hunting.
Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt says despite what we believe, our political beliefs aren't always as well reasoned as we think.
How does his childhood as a Jehovah's Witness play a role in his novel?
Stephen Thompson is the founder of the A.V. Club, the arts section of the satirical newspaper, "The Onion," originally based in Madison, Wisconsin. Thompson eventually left Madison for Washington DC, to work at NPR as an editor and reviewer at NPR Music. In this interview, Thompson tells Steve Paulson about the forces that drew "The Onion" staff to New York, and what it means to be an artist in the Heartland.
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