Canadian novelist Sheila Heti talks about her new novel, "How Should a Person Be?" It's fiction, but the characters are real people -- they seem to be Sheila herself and her friends. Some of the dialogue is from actual conversations she transcribed. So what is this thing?
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
In 2003, Craig Mullaney led an infantry rifle platoon along the hostile border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Author Chuck Klosterman's Dangerous Idea? Laugh tracks are the most philosophically stupid thing. Ever.
We've interviewed Klosterman a number of times, here's a link to more interviews with him.
Death is not a single moment; it’s can take hours – and some people live again after they die. So says resuscitation physician Sam Parnia. This UNCUT interview with him ranges from the new science of reversing death, to near death experiences, and the possibility of consciousness after death.
The 13th century Sufi mystic is one of America’s bestselling poets, thanks largely to the translations of Coleman Barks. A Muslim born in Afghanistan, he celebrated the underlying unity of all religions
We hate mosquitoes.
But why? I mean, yes --- West Nile, dengue, malaria, Zika…not to mention ruined picnics, sleepless nights, and bites you scratch until they bleed … Those are logical reasons to dislike mosquitoes. But admit it – they also just creep you out.
Jeffrey Lockwood gets at the psychology in his book “The Infested Mind.” He’s an entomologist who once had a truly horrific encounter with a swarm of grasshoppers. He was left traumatized. Afterwards he wondered why we all fear and loathe insects so much.
Lockwood told Rehman Tungekar the answer is deep deep in our psyches.
Brad Hirschfield was once a religious fanatic. He was one of a small number of Jewish settlers living in Hebron, in the middle of thousands of Palestinians.
Pop culture critic Camille Paglia talks with Anne Strainchamps about our obsession with makeovers and the human impulse to mythologize public figures.
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