Sarah Manguso recommends "Mes Amis" by Emmanuel Bove.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Scientists believe that near-death experiences are real, but there is much debate why they occur and what they might mean. Here's a quick primer on some of the leading thinkers in the field.
Ellen Prager wants you to care about the oceans. She’s a writer and former chief scientist of the Aquarius Reef Base, the world’s only undersea research station. Her latest book is called “Sex, Drugs, and Sea Slime." She says we ignore the oceans at our own peril.
Christopher Woodward talks with Steve Paulson about the English mania for ruins and why they inspired the Romantic poets. Woodward’s book is “In Ruins.”
With “Hallucinations,” Oliver Sacks has written one of his most personal books. In this NEW and EXTENDED interview, Sacks talks about his personal history with hallucinogens back in the 60s, as well as ecstatic experiences induced by temporal lobe epilepsy, and also how a mysterious voice in his head once saved Sacks’ life.
The Hindu nationalist party, the BJP, has won a landslide election in India, sparking fears of new sectarianism. Celebrated author and activist Arundhati Roy is one of the BJP’s most prominent critics. In this EXTENDED interview, Roy tells Steve Paulson why she stopped writing fiction to focus on political activism. She begins with a reading from her Booker Prize-winning novel “The God of Small Things.”
You're either funny, or you're not. Right?
At Chicago's Second City training center, you can learn to get more giggle.
Matt Hovde runs the training center, and gives us a crash course in comedy.
A few maverick physicists in the 1970s revived interest in quantum physics by exploring some of the deepest philosophical questions about reality.
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