Sarah Perry's novel, Enlightenment, recently received a Booker Prize nomination. It follows the relationship between two friends, with a 30 year age difference, as they confront the role of the church, the outside world and the cosmos in their lives over the course of two decades. In today's episode, Perry speaks with NPR's Scott Simon about her religious upbringing, her pandemic telescope and the role it played in her writing.
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
After the end of the second world war, Berlin was a divided city controlled by the four major allied powers. Despite the different zones of control, people could move freely between them.
However, on August 13, 1961, the East German government decided to end the free travel of Berliners by building a wall around West Berlin.
For 28 years, the wall defined the city and served as a metaphor for the entire Cold War.
Learn more about the Berlin Wall on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
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Researchers have catalogued 7,164 languages spoken around the world - some are used daily by billions. Half are spoken by less than 8000 people. The death of a language, when it?s no longer spoken as a first language by anyone living is a deeply significant moment in the cultural life of communities.
Multiple sources including the UN and National Geographic magazine have claimed this happens every two weeks. But we have reasons to be suspicious about that statistic.
Gary Simons, executive editor of the Ethnologue language catalogue, explains where this idea came from.
Presenter: Kate Lamble
Producer: Natasha Fernandes
Series producer: Tom Colls
Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown
Sound mix: Nigel Appleton
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith
Jobs numbers came out today and they weren't great: Unemployment hit 4.3% and only 114,000 jobs were added to the economy in July. The U.S. economy's downshifting gears ... but there are bright spots.
Care jobs grew. Like social assistance: 9,000 new jobs in July.
Social work organizations have been calling out for more men in particular ... and with unemployment rising for men, a lot of them want jobs. So why aren't they meeting?
Today on the show: Getting more men into so-called pink-collar jobs. We learn about an experiment that showed a surprising way to encourage men into industries traditionally represented by women.
Project 2025 has effectively become an epithet for many Democrats. The project was aimed at providing the next administration with a roadmap for reform in a wide variety of areas, some more controversial than others. Neal McCluskey offers a couple cheers aimed at the education portion of the document.
Will, Felix & Séamus discuss western reporting on recent “unrest” in Israel that tries very hard to elide the root cause.
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