Charles R. Cross talks about Kurt Cobain's influence on hip-hop.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Ever since the Cold War ended, we've largely forgotten about the threat of nuclear war. Ron Rosenbaum says that's a huge mistake. In fact, the threat is very real in today's world.
The first stories in "Thousand and One Nights" were written down in the ninth century. They’ve been added to over the years. In some ways, it’s not so much a book as a living river of stories. Some of the most recent additions come from the celebrated novelist Salman Rushdie.
You can also hear many more interviews with Rushdie.
Before the airplane was invented, ballooning was all the rage, and many people thought this was the future of air travel. Cultural historian Richard Holmes describes the remarkable history of the hot air balloon.
Yann Martel's novel "Life of Pi" is an adventure story and also a meditation on religious faith. He says a good religion is like a good story.
Tom Matthews' first novel, “Like We Care,” tells what happens when some teenagers simply stop spending money on all the stuff that’s marketed to them.
Thomas Hine is the author of “I Want THAT: How We All Became Shoppers.” He tells Anne Strainchamps how our culture grooms men and women to behave differently as shoppers and exploits the traits of both sexes.
Vikram Chandra writes in English, the language of the colonizer, and faces accusations that he's not really an Indian writer.
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