Nina Simone's powerful voice and turbulent life are the subjects of an Oscar-nominated documentary, a new biography and a forthcoming Hollywood biopic. But it's her politics that speaks most forcefully to a new generation of African American activists. Biographer Alan Light talks about the incandescent soul singer and Black Power icon.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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The novelist and feminist critic talks about tackling her trolls and “writing to the point of uncomfortability.”
Steve Paulson reports on the tremendous influence and great power of the Pulitzer Prize winning Michiko Kakutani. She’s the provocative and controversial daily book reviewer for the New York Times.
Salman Ahmad, lead singer of the Pakistani rock group Junoon, talks with Anne Strainchamps about being a Muslim and a rock musician.
Jedediah Berry imagines a future where science can unlock buried thoughts.
A film from the point-of-view of the perpetrators, not the victims, of the 1965 killing of over 1,000,000 suspected Communists in Indonesia.
Wendy Shanker is the author of “The Fat Girl’s Guide to Life.” She tells Anne Strainchamps that she prefers “fat” to the euphemisms and says that she is healthy and happy despite her size.
Sarah Winchester (born 1840) was the heiress to the Winchester Estate with a 50% holding of the Winchester Repeating Rifle Company. She used her vast fortune to construct a mansion for 38 consecutive years.
Popular legend held that she was cursed by all those who were killed by Winchester rifles. The only way to alleviate her suffering was to continue to add on to her mansion, filling it with strange sealed rooms and staircases and corridors leading nowhere. Pamela Haag tells her tale and gives it some meaning beyond a mere ghost story.
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