Leonard Zwilling tells Jim Fleming about boxing’s impact on the English language. It’s yielded such words and phrases as fan, throw in the towel, and up to scratch.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Joan Didion, who died last week at the age of 87, helped shape a highly personal brand of nonfiction that came to be known as the New Journalism. Her early essay collections "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" (1968) and "The White Album" (1979) influenced generations of writers. Her later memoirs, "The Year of Magical Thinking" and "Blue Nights," chronicled the deaths of her husband and daughter. In 2011 Didion talked with Steve Paulson about illness and growing old in the wake of the death of her daughter, Quintana.
Philosopher Judith Butler took a rigorous look at gender in her 1990 book, “Gender Trouble.” In this EXTENDED conversation, Steve asks her - with transexual and gender queer people more visible than ever - what can we say about the state of gender in North America?
Paul Auster is both a film-maker and a novelist. His new book is “The Book of Illusions: A Novel.” It’s about a professor who discovers the work of a silent film comedian.
Jerry Apps is a rural historian and chronicler of country life. His book "Old Farm" is a kind of deep history of his land in Wisconsin.
NY Times film critic Manohla Dargis selects her favorite film of the year: Richard Linklater's "Boyhood," filmed over the course of 12 years.
Celtic historian John Matthews tells Steve Paulson that Merlin probably was a real person and that wizards are related to our ancient shamans.
Poet Lisa Russ Spaar tells Jim about her book “Acquainted with the Night” - an anthology of verse about insomnia, or written by insomniacs.
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