When blogger Jenny Lawson recently tweeted about an awkward exchange she had with a cashier at an airport, she couldn't have imagined the flood of responses she'd get from fans recounting their own mortifying moments. The tweet went viral and within a few days she'd received thousands of messages from fans recounting their own awkward stories. The whole affair was proof of something Jenny had long suspected -- that awkwardness can help bring people together.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Tim Richardson tells Anne Strainchamps about his favorite candies from around the world.
Scott Weidensaul talks with Jim Fleming about several animals that have turned up after their species was thought to be extinct.
Steve Paulson produced this essay/report on the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges.
Ron Mallett is a theoretical physicist at the University of Connecticut who wrote a memoir about his personal quest to travel back in time.
One of the founders of queer theory says his childhood in the Pentecostal church laid the ground for his evolution as a gay man and literary scholar. Michael Warner grew up around faith healing and speaking in tongues. He says it was an education in thinking beyond "normal".
Simon Montefiore is the author of “Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar.” He says Stalin was more complex than we thought, but still a monster.
Pages
