Piers Vitebsky is an anthropologist who studies the Eveny or Reindeer People of Siberia. They depend on the reindeer for their survival. They keep herds of them for meat - but their connection goes even deeper. Vitebsky says that they also have personal, consecrated reindeer animal doubles, which they believe will die for them.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
David Gessner discovered the American West as a young man, and the huge mountains and wide open spaces changed his life. He recently took a road trip through the West, following in the footsteps of two literary heroes, Edward Abbey and Wallace Stegner. Gessner says their books help us see the West in all its complexity.
T.C. Boyle's new novel features a face-off between an animals rights activist and a biologist.
The Aleppo Codex, the oldest, most complete, most accurate text of the Hebrew Bible went missing? Where did it go?
This story was done in collaboration with Israel Story, the This American Life of Israel.
Salman Rushdie tells Steve Paulson about his very first memories of "The Wizard of Oz."
Persi Diaconis was a stage magician before he discovered probability theory and became one of the world's leading mathematicians. He tells us about some very powerful formulas derived from card shuffles and magic tricks.
As the daughter of a child psychologist, writer Jessica Lamb-Shapiro grew weary of the simple solutions offered by popular self-help books. So maybe it was only natural that she wanted to understand why people liked them so much. To find out, she read hundreds of books and articles, journeyed to conferences headed by self-improvement icons, and even conquered her fear of flying along the way.
Computer paswords are on on our minds this week. "The New York Times" reporter Ian Urbina talks about his feature story, "The Secret Life of Passwords."
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