World Book Club - Charlotte Wood: The Weekend

Award-winning Australian novelist Charlotte Wood joins Harriett Gilbert to answer questions from readers around the world about her novel, The Weekend.

It's a story of grief and friendship; three women meet to clear their deceased friend’s beach house and find themselves uncovering secrets and stirring up memories.

(Image: Charlotte Wood. Photo credit: Carly Earl.)

Slate Books - Dear Prudence: Dan Pashman, My Partner Sticks Her Finger in Food to Taste Test It. Help!

In this episode, Dan Pashman (The Sporkful and Anything’s Pastable) joins Prudie (Jenée Desmond-Harris) to answer letters from readers about how to handle a person who tastes food in an unsanitary fashion and deeply annoys you while you’re trying to cook in a tiny kitchen, what to do when your dinner party invitations aren’t reciprocated, and whether two people with extremely different eating habits can have a happy life together.

If you want more Dear Prudence, join Slate Plus, Slate’s membership program. Jenée answers an extra question every week, just for members.

Go to Slate.com/prudieplus to sign up. It’s just $15 for your first three months.

This podcast is produced by Se’era Spragley Ricks, Daisy Rosario, and Jenée Desmond-Harris, with help from Maura Currie.

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Slate Books - How To!: Humor, Seriously!

Did you know that we, as a society, have fallen off a comedy cliff? No joke. Studies have shown that we largely stop laughing when we enter our mid-twenties, which is a shame because delighting in humor has a ton of health benefits. Plus, being perceived as funny can actually make people think you’re more intelligent, more competent, and even better looking! So on this episode of How To!, the first in a two-part series, we bring on Naomi Bagdonas, co-author of Humor, Seriously!, and Michael Terry, an amateur comedian who is working in the funniest of places: high finance. Combined, they have decades of experience harnessing the power humor and applying it to the workplace. 

If you liked this episode, check out “How To Confront a Crazy Neighbor” with Tig Notaro. 

If you want to discover your own humor style, take the test on Naomi and Jennifer’s website. 

Do you have a question with no easy answers? Send us a note at howto@slate.com or leave us a voicemail at 646-495-4001 and we might have you on the show.

Slate Plus members get bonus segments and ad-free podcast feeds. Sign up now at slate.com/howtoplus.

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New Books in Native American Studies - John William Nelson, “Muddy Ground: Native Peoples, Chicago’s Portage, and the Transformation of a Continent” (UNC Press, 2023)

The birchbark canoe is among the most remarkable Indigenous technologies in North America, facilitating mobility throughout the watery world of the Great Lakes region and its borderlands. In Muddy Ground: Native Peoples, Chicago's Portage, and the Transformation of a Continent (UNC Press, 2023), Texas Tech University historian John William Nelson argues that canoes, and a deep understanding of portages sites where canoes could be carried between waterways, helped secure the region around Chicago as decidedly Native space until well into the nineteenth century. By using the methodologies of borderlands history, ecotone and environmental history, and Indigenous Studies, Nelson demonstrates how the story of Chicago's array of portages runs counter to traditional narratives of the inexorable growth of European and American power in North America from the seventeenth century onwards. Indeed, the more colonizers tried to maintain a grip on this slipper landscape, the more it seemed to slide through their grasp. In Muddy Ground, Nelson takes one of the most written-about American spaces - Chicago - and turns the usual narrative on its head, showing how until settlers could actively change Chicago's landscape, it would remain a place of Indigenous power and historical possibility.

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Slate Books - A Word: Love, Family, and Freedom’s Ultimate Price

Myrlie Evers was arguably the first civil rights widow, a woman who was plunged into activism after the assassination of her husband—Mississippi NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers—in 1963. She survived to become a leader of the movement in her own right. But what’s less well known is the remarkable story of how the couple came together, and how their love endures, decades after his death. On today’s episode of A Word, Jason Johnson is joined by journalist Joy-Ann Reid to talk about her book, Medgar & Myrlie: Medgar Evers and the Love Story That Awakened America.


Guest: Joy-Ann Reid, host of MSNBC’s The ReidOut


Podcast production by Ahyiana Angel


Want more A Word? Subscribe to Slate Plus to immediately access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/awordplus to get access wherever you listen.

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New Books in Native American Studies - Christina Gish Hill et al., “National Parks, Native Sovereignty: Experiments in Collaboration” (U Oklahoma Press, 2024)

The history of Native people and the National Park Service in the United States is fraught. Dispossession, cultural insensitivity, and outright erasure characterize the long relationship that the NPS has with Indigenous groups. But change is possible, as Drs. Christina Hill, Matthew Hill, and Brooke Neely adeptly demonstrate in National Parks, National Sovereignty: Experiments in Collaboration (U of Oklahoma Press, 2024). This edited collection contains several case studies that focus not just on critique, but practical tools and outcomes for use by public historians interested in forging partnerships between scholars and Native communities. The book also contains full-text interviews with people who have on-the-ground experience in forging these kinds of partnerships, including Gerard Baker, the first Native person to act as superintendent of Mount Rushmore and several other NPS sites. This book serves as a guide to forging new relationships between history institutions and Native communities, and shows that collaboration can be a bridge to telling truer, more democratic, stories.

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Slate Books - Well, Now: Every Deep-Drawn Breath

While most of the world moves on from Covid-19, millions of Americans remain in limbo: Those living with Long Covid.

Long Covid symptoms are vast and can impact all parts of the body: from gastrointestinal tract issues and fatigue to autoimmune inflammation and cognitive impairment. 

On this week’s episode of Well, Now – Kavita and Maya talk with Dr. Wes Ely, an ICU physician based in Nashville, Tenn.

As the co-director of the Critical Illness, Brain Dysfunction and Survivorship Center, he is one of many doctors demanding our country’s leaders not to leave their patients behind.

If you liked this episode, check out: Life After Lockdown

Podcast production by Vic Whitley-Berry with editorial oversight by Alicia Montgomery.

Send your comments and recommendations on what to cover to wellnow@slate.com.

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Slate Books - Gabfest Reads: The Hunter

Emily Bazelon talks with author Tana French about her new book, The Hunter. They discuss the different perspectives French uses throughout her books, how French happened into writing mysteries, writing as an outsider to Ireland, and more.


Tweet us your questions @SlateGabfest or email us at gabfest@slate.com. (Messages could be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)


Podcast production by Cheyna Roth.

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Slate Books - Dear Prudence: Michael Arceneaux, My Ex Had Sex With My Brother. Help!

In this episode, Michael Arceneaux (I Can’t Date Jesus and I Finally Bought Some Jordans) joins Prudie (Jenée Desmond-Harris) to answer letters from readers about an interracial couple’s debate over African-centered home decor, how to cope with homesickness for a place you don’t actually want to live, and whether it’s fair to cut off an ex.

If you want more Dear Prudence, join Slate Plus, Slate’s membership program. Jenée answers an extra question every week, just for members.

Go to Slate.com/prudieplus to sign up. It’s just $15 for your first three months.

This podcast is produced by Se’era Spragley Ricks, Daisy Rosario, and Jenée Desmond-Harris, with help from Maura Currie.

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Slate Books - How To!: Supercommunicators

Shannon is set to become an ordained minister—but she has always struggled with public speaking. Here’s the thing: She’s fine in front of large gatherings. In smaller gatherings, however, she mentally “freezes up” and rambles until she regains her train of thought. As Shannon prepares to start interacting with a congregation, Courtney Martin sits her down with former How To! host Charles Duhigg, author of Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection. Charles gives Shannon the tools to understand others and be understood herself.  


If you liked this episode check out: How To Speak Up So Others Listen


Do you have a problem that needs solving? Send us a note at howto@slate.com or leave us a voicemail at 646-495-4001 and we might have you on the show. Subscribe for free on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen.


How To’s executive producer is Derek John. Joel Meyer is our senior editor/producer. The show is produced by Rosemary Belson and Kevin Bendis. 


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