James Houston is the author of “Snow Mountain Passage: A Novel of the Donner Party.” He tells Jim Fleming about his personal connection to the infamous group.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Historian Ian Buruma tells Jim Fleming that economically China seems to be in better shape than Russia, but its situation is far more precarious in the long run.
Jack Pendarvis reads from his essay "The Fifty Greatest Things That Just Popped Into My Head," published in "The Believer" magazine.
Captain James Yee volunteered after 9/11 to be the US Army Muslim Chaplain at Guantanamo Bay prison. But then he was accused of spying, espionage, and aiding the alleged Taliban and Al-Qaeda prisoners at Guantanamo. He was held in solitary confinement for 76 days.
Prohibition gave us speakeasies, jazz clubs and bathtub gin. But a new revisionist history uncovers a more disturbing legacy: campaigns against immigrants, the War on Drugs,and the rise of America's "incarceration nation" . Historian Lisa McGirr's "War on Alcohol" traces the unintended consequences of America's experiment in collective, state-sponsored renunciation.
Part of what makes city life great is the creative people who live in - and shape - them.
James Frey is the author of “A Million Little Pieces,” a harrowing memoir of his time at an alcohol and drug treatment facility.
Marc Maron says he was washed up. Career? Over.
So he set up a microphone in his garage and starting talking with - and sometimes apologizing to - his fellow comedians.
That's when things started turning around.
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