J.R. Thornton was once a serious tennis player on the junior circuit. Then he moved to China and spent a year training with the Beijing National Team, where he discovered just how different the life of an aspiring champion could be. His novel "Beautiful Country" reveals the incredibly difficult demands on young athletes in China.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
<p>Climate experts are shocked by the rate at which greenhouse gases are rising. New US government figures show CO2 levels have already topped experts' worst-case scenarios. But if driving hybrids and switching to fluorescent bulbs isn't enough -- what is? William Powers presents a vision of truly sustainable living in an off-the-grid, 12x12 cabin.</p>
Ruth Reichl draws on her career as a high-profile food writer and editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine in her first novel -- "Delicious". It's the story of a magazine writer with a superhuman sense of taste, who discovers a secret cache of letters from the legendary chef and cookbook writer James Beard.
A fantasy novel written by a Somali-American Mennonite raised in the US who wrote it while teaching English during a civil war in what is now South Sudan and then revised it in Egypt.
Sarah Lewis talks about her book, "The Rise: Creativity, The Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery."
Saul Williams has been hailed as hip hop's poet laureate. He talks with Anne Strainchamps, and we hear some of his work.
This week in Watch This! we talk about "Salinger" and "Shakespeare Uncovered."
Stewart Lee Allen designs for Anne Strainchamps a menu based on the 7 deadly sins.
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