Alex Abramovich recommends "Blues People: Negro Music in White America" by Leroi Jones, who later changed his name to Amiri Baraka.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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About a year ago, independent producer Karen Michel moved from Brooklyn to Pleasant Valley, New York, near the Hudson River. She prepared this piece as a way of getting to know her new neighbors
Patricia Volk recalls growing up in a New York restaurant family. She describes the cuisine at the family’s eateries, and what they ate at home.
Mukoma Wa Ngugi is a poet and English professor who writes crime novels set in his native Kenya. He says the crime genre lets him write truthfully about race, class and violence in cities like Nairobi.
Jonathan Haidt talks with Jim Fleming about an often-overlooked emotion - elevation.
Jean Auel is the author of the phenomenally successful “Earth’s Children” series of books. Auel tells Anne Strainchamps about the extensive hands on research that informs her work.
With tensions flaring up in the Middle East this week, we're thinking about the city of Jerusalem and the role it plays in inspiring religious fervor and conflict. Boston Globe Columnist James Carroll writes about it in his book, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem: How the Ancient City Ignited Our Modern World."
Penny Von Eschen tells Steve Paulson about the State Department's use of jazz musicians as a weapon in the cold war to win hearts and minds in the Third World.
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