Colson Whitehead’s novel The Underground Railroad just won the 2016 National Book Award.
Steve Paulson spoke with him about this powerful, sweeping epic.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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Back in 1969, Marine Karl Marlantes was dropped in the middle of a jungle in Vietnam - at the age of 23, put in charge of the lives of 40 other young men. He says he wasn't psychologically or spiritually prepared for that, or for what came after the war.
"I had never known that beauty and death could go together." Joanna Ebenstein runs Brooklyn's Museum of Morbid Anatomy, which celebrates the memento mori that were part of daily life in the past. From art sculpted out of a dead person's hair, to death masks molded from a corpse's face, she give us a tour.
Steven Johnson tells Anne Strainchamps how television storytelling has become more sophisticated with mutiple plots lines extending over several episodes.
Ronda Rousey may be the best mixed martial arts fighter who ever lived, and she continues to dominate the MMA. But her rise to the top hasn't been easy. She tells the remarkable story of how she became a champion fighter.
Susan Jacoby gives several frightening examples of the way American culture is dumbing itself down, and how poorly educated many American college graduates are.
Shane White and Graham White are the co-authors of “The Sounds of Slavery: Discovering African American History Through Songs, Sermons and Speech.”
J.R. Thornton was once a serious tennis player on the junior circuit. Then he moved to China and spent a year training with the Beijing National Team, where he discovered just how different the life of an aspiring champion could be. His novel "Beautiful Country" reveals the incredibly difficult demands on young athletes in China.
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