If climate change is the most urgent problem facing humanity, why are there so few novels about it? Acclaimed novelist Amitav Ghosh believes that’s a big problem. He says climate change is less a science problem than a crisis of imagination.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Salman Rushdie talks with Steve Paulson about "The Satanic Verses" – the novel that caused a furor in the Muslim world and sent its author into hiding for a decade.
Maybe love is numerical – or at least, statistical. Comedian and NPR host Ophira Eisenberg went on forty first dates before she found the right guy. For her, the secret to true love was a large sample size.
Have you got a nose for the new? Do you make fast decisions, based on incomplete information? Do you lose your temper quickly? Are you bored a lot? Do you thrive in chaotic situations? You might be a born seeker… what Winifred Gallagher calls a neophiliac.
Take the quiz. Are you a neophiliac?
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/13/the-well-quiz-how-adventurous-are-you/
The common wisdom is that we’re getting more violent all the time. Witness the genocides and world wars of the last century. But cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker says we have it all wrong. And in his 800 page book “The Better Angels of Ourselves” he makes the case for how violence has declined.
Simon Reynolds talks to Steve Paulson about his book, "Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction to Its Own Past."
Terry Ryan tells Jim Fleming that her mother loved crafting contest entries and matched her efforts to the tastes of specific judges. And we hear some of her winning verses.
Stan Freberg visits Jim Fleming and explains how he got into advertising, and why his commercials always tell the truth.
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