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.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Sjon is the Icelandic trickster, drawing on Icelandic sagas and surrealism to write his mythic stories. He tells Steve Paulson why we need to re-enchant the world.
The most popular baby names in the US last year were Noah and Emma. We know that because 20 years ago, Michael Shackleford wrote a computer program to track the annual popularity of baby names. Expectant parents everywhere should thank him.
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.
Ruth Gendler re-tells the story of "The Mountain That Loved A Bird" by Alice McLerran and Eric Carle. Gendler is an artist and the author of "Notes on the Need for Beauty." She tells Anne Strainchamps that we need to learn to see the beauty in the world all around us.
Tim Richardson tells Anne Strainchamps about his favorite candies from around the world.
Imagine the government has sealed off part of Florida after people start dying there and strange new life forms pop up. Just what is happening in Area X? That's the premise of Jeff Vandermeer's mind-bending Southern Reach Trilogy.
Steven Okazaki is a third generation Japanese-American and an Academy Award winning film-maker. He tells Jim Fleming that Japanese-Americans face racism both at home and in Japan.
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