The Memory Palace is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX. Radiotopia is a collective of independently owned and operated podcasts that’s a part of PRX, a not-for-profit public media company. If you’d like to directly support this show, you can make a donation at Radiotopia.fm/donate. I have recently launched a newsletter. You can subscribe to it at thememorypalacepodcast.substack.com.
Music
Two versions of Good Morning Melody by Lullatone.
Peter Maxwell Davies plays his own composition, Farewell to Stromness.
Since its publication in 1885, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has been celebrated as one of the great American works of literature. But the novel has also been criticized for how Mark Twain stereotyped Black characters like Jim, the enslaved man who befriends Huck Finn. Now, author David Walker and illustrator Marcus Kwame Anderson have reimagined this story with Jim at its center. Their new graphic novel, Big Jim and the White Boy, is an action story filled with adventures, fight sequences and an acknowledgment of the danger of the world Jim operates within. In today's episode, Anderson and Walker join NPR's Scott Simon to discuss the novel, including what they did to turn Jim into a multidimensional character, their decision to keep the N-word in their retelling and whether Huck and Jim were ever really friends.
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
It’s Jimmy Eat World Day here at '60 Songs,' and in typical Rob fashion, we take the scenic route to get to “The Middle.” Before we talk Jimmy Eat World’s smash hit, we discuss the time Rob’s friend got hit with a t-shirt cannon. Later, Rob is joined by ‘The Watch’ host Andy Greenwald to discuss his days of interviewing Jimmy Eat World, and more.
The election of 1860 was unquestionably the most important election in American history.
The presidential election after that was still important, but it has the distinction of being perhaps the oddest presidential election in history, if for no other reason than it was conducted in the middle of a civil war.
Learn more about the election of 1864 and all the ways we’ve never seen anything like it before or since, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Sign up at butcherbox.com/daily and use code daily to get chicken breast, salmon or ground beef FREE in every order for a year plus $20 off your first order!
Stanley Tucci of Searching for Italy and The Devil Wears Prada fame loves food—especially the comforting taste of home-cooked Italian cuisine. But in 2017, when Tucci was diagnosed with oral cancer, he temporarily lost his sense of taste. A year later, following treatment that included six months on a feeding tube, he became cancer-free. Since then, Tucci has thought and written a lot about death and his desire to freeze time. In today's episode, Tucci joins NPR's A Martinez to talk about what makes a great meal, how life revolves around food, and his new book What I Ate in One Year.
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
Author Winsome Bingham was raised in a community that gathered together to vote. But as a kid, she didn't realize how important this practice was to her life. Illustrator E.B. Lewis had a different childhood experience with elections. His parents voted but would do so almost in secret. As a result, Lewis didn't become a voter until his late 20s. In their children's book, The Walk (A Stroll to the Poll), published in 2023, Bingham and Lewis hope to give kids insight into this democratic process. In the book, a child and her grandmother pick up friends and neighbors on their way to the polls, forming a civically-minded procession. In today's episode, NPR's Scott Simon introduces a conversation between the author and illustrator about how children learn by watching adults act and how voting can be a collective–rather than individual–experience.
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
During the Second World War, the Allies were desperate to develop ideas to help them win the war.
Some of these ideas, such as the atomic bomb and the Norden bombsight, were so promising that they warranted investments of staggering amounts, reaching into the millions and billions of dollars.
Other ideas, such as training bats to drop bombs or pigeon-guided missiles, were so outlandish that they were never seriously considered.
However, there was one idea that seemed crazy, but it actually got attention at the highest levels of government.
Learn more about Project Habakkuk and the idea of making an aircraft carrier out of ice on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Sign up at butcherbox.com/daily and use code daily to get chicken breast, salmon or ground beef FREE in every order for a year plus $20 off your first order!
Amanda Holmes reads Howard Nemerov’s “To David, About His Education.” 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.
