Celebrated jazz pianist Vijay Iyer has a Ph.D in music cognition and a penchant for asking big questions - like, what is music? And what does it do for us? Steve Paulson caught up with Vijay backstage before a recent concert, where they talked about improvisation and the parallels between jazz and basketball.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Simon Winchester tells Jim Fleming about the life of William Smith and his struggle to create the world's first geological map.
Thomas Lynch has written a memoir of his relatives from County Clare and the story of how he found his way back to the old county.
Susan Casey, author of "The Wave," tells Jim Fleming about the recent research into the phenomenon of mammoth ocean waves.
According to self-described "space dork" Andy Weir, he was just sitting around at home one day imagining a manned Mars mission — not with any goal in mind, but just as a thought experiment. Soon, he realized this would be a pretty good premise for a story. And boy was he right. His novel "The Martian" started as a series of blog posts and has become a blockbuster motion picture. In this interview, he reads excerpts from the novel and discusses the balance between pure fantasty and scientific accuracy in science fiction.
Toni Morrison won the Nobel Prize in 1993. Her novels include "Sula," "Song of Solomon," and "Love."
William Gibson talks about his first collection of nonfiction, "Distrust That Particular Flavor."
Tariq Ramadan has been called the Muslim Martin Luther King. The Swiss philosopher travels widely trying to build bridges between European Muslims and conservative clerics...
Pages
