Joan Didion, who died last week at the age of 87, helped shape a highly personal brand of nonfiction that came to be known as the New Journalism. Her early essay collections "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" (1968) and "The White Album" (1979) influenced generations of writers. Her later memoirs, "The Year of Magical Thinking" and "Blue Nights," chronicled the deaths of her husband and daughter. In 2011 Didion talked with Steve Paulson about illness and growing old in the wake of the death of her daughter, Quintana.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Novelist Jeanne Ray is a serious fan of good cake. Her latest novel is called “Eat Cake.”
Mark Anderson tells Steve Paulson that no single piece of evidence for Shakespeare's identity is conclusive, but all the funny coincidences "prove" his thesis.
Russian classical pianist Lera Auerbach discuses her lifelong fear of time with Jim Fleming.
Dr. Norman Rosenthal and Anne Strainchamps discuss several examples of how our feelings influence our bodies, and what we can do about it.
What if Karl Marx were alive today and came back for a visit? That's the premise of the one-man show "Marx in Soho," starring Brian Jones and written by the late historian Howard Zinn.
Ever wonder what caused the outbreak of World War One? Oxford historian Margaret MacMillan recounts its origins on its 100th anniversary.
In this UNCUT interview, Pico Iyer tells Jim Fleming about his obsession with novelist Graham Greene. That obsession is also the subject of Iyer's new book, "The Man Within My Head".
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