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Whatever happened to public goods? And how do we get them back?
That’s the question we ponder this hour with Donald Cohen, talking about his book The Privatization of Everything: How the Plunder of Public Goods Transformed America and How We Can Fight Back.
We also remember Dr. Paul Farmer who died suddenly this week.
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We talk with Malinda Lo about her award winning novel, Last Night At The Telegraph Club. It’s a YA historical novel about a Chinese American lesbian.
Then Syed Masood tells us about his new novel, The Bad Muslim Discount. It’s a poignant, funny and profoundly human novel about Muslim immigrants finding their way in modern America.
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Bestselling mystery writer Elizabeth George tackles the horror of FGM. We talk with her about her latest in the Inspector Lynley series, Something To Hide. It explores the practice of female genital mutilation in the Nigerian community in London and the fight to stop it.
Then, for Black History Month, we re-air our 2019 interview with DaMaris Hill about her narrative in verse, A Bound Woman Is A Dangerous Thing: The Incarceration Of African-American Women From Harriet Tubman To Sandra Bland.
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For Black History Month, we re-air our conversation with Tamara Payne about her late father Les Payne’s acclaimed biography of Malcolm X, The Dead Are Arising. It won the National Book Award in 2020.
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We spend the hour with Howard Mansfield, first talking about his new book, Chasing Eden: A Book of Seekers. It’s about those who long to build a better life for themselves and others.
Then, we replay our 2019 interview with Mansfield about his book The Habit of Turning the World Upside Down. It’s about how American society treats property rights — and who pays the price.
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Today we have two fascinating interviews, both about how human beings are changing the other species with whom we share the planet.
Later in the show, we talk with evolutionary biologist Beth Shapiro about how humans deliberately change species. Her book is Life As We Made It: How 50,000 Years Of Human Innovation Refined And Redefined Nature.
But first, Thor Hanson tells us about how many species are evolving to adapt to human-caused climate change. His book is Hurricane Lizards And Plastic Squid: The Fraught And Fascinating Biology Of Climate Change.
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We talk with archeologist David Wengrow about the groundbreaking book he co-authored with the late David Graeber, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity.
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It’s that time, folks! The time for Ten Best Of The Year lists. We play excerpts from ten of our favorite episodes in 2021:
Hugh Raffles, The Book Of Unconformities; Michael Mann, The New Climate War; Heather McGhee, The Sum Of Us; Elizabeth Kolbert, Under A White Sky; Michaeleen Doucleff, Hunt, Gather, Parent; Cal Flynn, Islands of Abandonment; Nina Burleigh, Virus; Elizabeth Hinton, America on Fire; HonorÁ©e Fanonne Jeffers, The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois; and Eyal Press, Dirty Work.
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Francesca Rheannon reads her story “The Food Philosophe.” It’s about a Winter Solstice feast in Provence that led to some delicious life lessons.
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We talk with Ben Sheehan about his book, What Does The Constitution Say? A Kids Guide To How Our Democracy Works.
Then we talk with constitutional scholar Noah Feldman about his terrific new history of Lincoln and the civil war from a constitutional perspective, The Broken Constitution: Lincoln, Slavery, and the Refounding of America.
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We talk with Leonard Rubenstein about his book Perilous Medicine: The Struggle to Protect Health Care from the Violence of War.
Then, Stan Cox connects the dots between climate chaos, racism and the next pandemic. We talk with him about his book, The Path to a Livable Future: A New Politics to Fight Climate Change, Racism, and the Next Pandemic.
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We talk with deep sea explorer Edith Widder about Below the Edge of Darkness: A Memoir Of Exploring Light And Life In The Deep Sea.
Then, we revisit our 2017 interview with Sy Montgomery about the book she so-authored with Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, Tamed And Untamed: Close Encounters of the Animal Kind.
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Who does the dirty work in our society? And who benefits? We talk with Eyal Press about his new book, Dirty Work: Essential Jobs and the Hidden Toll of Inequality in America.
Then, In the US, more than 23,000 animals, not including fish, are slaughtered for our food every minute. We talk with Melanie Joy about the tenth anniversary of her groundbreaking book, Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism.
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We talk with David Talbot about the book he co-authored with his sister Margaret Talbot, By The Light of Burning Dreams: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the Second American Revolution.
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We talk with best-selling author Ken Follett about his new novel, Never. It’s a chilling look about how a small international incident could lead to nuclear annihilation.
Then, Anthony Horowitz tells us about the third in his meta-murder mystery Hawthorne series, A Line To Kill.