Today's episode is a little different. NPR's David Folkenflik sits down with two writers – Walter Isaacson and Michael Lewis – to ask about their experiences writing biographies of Elon Musk and Sam Bankman-Fried, respectively, and what it means to watch the person you're profiling become a villain in the public eye in real time. They discuss the process of getting close – or keeping their distance – from their sources for Elon Musk and Going Infinite, and confront the criticisms of how they do or don't address the wrongdoings of Musk and Bankman-Fried in their books.
To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday
Listen as Rob confesses about that time where he sorta…kinda…maybe…beat up a guy at a Portishead concert in 1997. Stay as he dives into the world of trip-hop while celebrating Portishead’s “Glory Box” as well as other bands such as Massive Attack.
Twitter employees had always imagined the platform would be used for social good. Their idea was that free expression on the internet would lead to good things. But after the 2016 U.S. election, that notion would be put under stress. And Twitter would have to grapple with the question: what happens when its powerful superuser - who also happens to be the most powerful person in the world - creates havoc on the platform?
For the first few years that National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward was writing her new novel, Let Us Descend, she says she really struggled to tap into her main character. Annis is an enslaved Black woman who faces unsurmountable hardships – but she also finds deep comfort in the spirits and elements that surround her. In today's episode, Ward tells NPR's Ayesha Rascoe why she needed to incorporate spirituality into the Southern hellscape Annis faces; and why as hard as it can be to read about slavery, it's also an act of memory and resistance.
To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday
In the early 1960’s the Soviet space program was on a roll. They launched the first satellite into space. They launched the first man and woman into space. They conducted the first space walk.
Then, around 1966, everything changed.
The momentum they had ground to a halt, and the Americans quickly surpassed them in the space race.
What happened?
Learn more about Sergei Korolev, the most important Russian you probably have never heard of, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Hugo Contreras, the protagonist of Raul Palma's new novel, is a babaláwo; he can cleanse evil spirits. Except he doesn't really believe in the whole thing. So when he's able to strike up a deal with a debt collector – get rid of the ghosts in his house in exchange for a clean slate – he assumes he can mostly fake it. In today's episode, Palma joins NPR's Scott Simon to discuss A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens, and how the concept of debt – not just financial, but personal, too – stirs up a lot of trauma for Hugo.
To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday
Amanda Holmes reads Pablo Neruda’s “I Explain a Few Things,” translated from the Spanish by Galway Kinnell. Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you’ll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman.
This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch.
Right now, you are listening to the sound of my voice on some sort of digital audio device. In fact, almost all of the audio you consume today was digitally recorded or edited at some point in the process.
But sound is inherently analog. How does sound, the movement of air, become converted into 1s and 0s?
…and once sound is digitally converted, how is it distributed, and how has the digitization of sound changed the business of music and audio?
Learn more about digital audio, how it works,, and how it changed how we consume audio on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.