Sven Birkerts tried to write a novel, but realized he had more success writing about fiction than writing fiction. He tells Steve Paulson how he became a literary critic.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
According to self-described "space dork" Andy Weir, he was just sitting around at home one day imagining a manned Mars mission — not with any goal in mind, but just as a thought experiment. Soon, he realized this would be a pretty good premise for a story. And boy was he right. His novel "The Martian" started as a series of blog posts and has become a blockbuster motion picture. In this interview, he reads excerpts from the novel and discusses the balance between pure fantasty and scientific accuracy in science fiction.
Ziauddin Sardar, a London based scholar and cultural critic, tells Steve what’s needed now is “an Islamic science” and explains what that is.
Ever since the Cold War ended, we've largely forgotten about the threat of nuclear war. Ron Rosenbaum says that's a huge mistake. In fact, the threat is very real in today's world.
TTBOOK producer Charles Monroe-Kane is a great storyteller who's led an adventurous life. Here's a wild story from his memoir "Lithium Jesus" about smuggling mob money when he lived in Prague in the '90s.
Stephen Asma teaches philosophy at Columbia College in Chicago. He talks to Anne Strainchamps about his book "On Monsters: An Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears."
The first stories in "Thousand and One Nights" were written down in the ninth century. They’ve been added to over the years. In some ways, it’s not so much a book as a living river of stories. Some of the most recent additions come from the celebrated novelist Salman Rushdie.
You can also hear many more interviews with Rushdie.
Tim Richardson tells Anne Strainchamps about his favorite candies from around the world.
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