Category: Active

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the memory palace - Nate’s Favorite Episode of the Year: Emma and the Trail

Order The Memory Palace book now, dear listener. On Bookshop.org, on Amazon.com, on Barnes & Noble, or directly from Random House. Or order the audiobook at places like Libro.fm.

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

  • Sincerely Yours by LLLL
  • Across the Other Side by Infinite Scale
  • Sunset by Resavoir
  • Mammoth by Golden Brown
  • Unassigned by Vernon Spring
  • Swimming by Explosions in the Sky
  • Pure (Ride the World) by The Brendan Eder Ensemble
  • Le Tunnel by Sylvain Chauveau
  • Floating Away by Lullatone

Notes

  • There's a ton written about Emma Rowena Gatewood but so much of it, including this story, owes a huge debt to Ben Montgomery's book, Grandma Gatewood's Walk, which excavated the story of her life with her husband. Besides that, it is wonderfully written. Totally recommend it. 
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NPR's Book of the Day - In this novel, the residents of a Brussels apartment building brace for Nazi invasion

33 Place Brugmann opens with a list of the residents of a Brussels apartment building. The year is 1939 and Germany’s invasion of Belgium is on the horizon. Alice Austen’s debut novel winds together the fates of these residents under Nazi occupation. In today’s episode, Austen joins NPR’s Scott Simon for a conversation that touches on the backstory of the building’s address, how she balanced the novel’s many narrative voices, and the questions that consumed her as she wrote the book.


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The Indicator from Planet Money - Catching up with a fired federal worker, a shrimper and a fraudster

After a firehose of economic news in 2025, we wanted to check back on some of the people we’ve heard from on our show. Today, we check in with a former federal employee caught in the Trump administration's wood chipper, a Louisiana shrimper on Trump’s tariffs and an update on a financial aid scam.

Related episodes: 
Why do shrimpers like tariffs? 
What’s the long-term cost of federal layoffs? 
A big bank’s mistake, explained 

For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Fact-checking by Sierra Juarez. Music by Drop Electric. Find us: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Newsletter.  

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The Commentary Magazine Podcast - The Meaning of Norman Podhoretz

Today, we discuss the life, work, and ideas of longtime COMMENTARY editor and intellectual giant Norman Podhoretz, who died yesterday at age 95. From there, we move on to the strange developments in the Brown University shooting investigation, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles's unusual interview with Vanity Fair, and the Trump administration generally. Give a listen.

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More or Less - Do we really have ‘superflu’?

The NHS is warning of an unprecedented flu season - we check what the numbers say.

Is there really a mass exodus of Brits leaving the UK due to Labour tax policies? We look at the latest emigration figures.

We take a look at the prison service’s curious habit of letting prisoners out early – or keeping them in for too long - is there a trend?

Plus - why the US economy can’t grow at 25 percent a year.

Presenter: Tim Harford Reporter: Nathan Gower Producers: Charlotte McDonald, Katie Solleveld, Lizzy McNeill and Tom Colls. Production co-ordinator: Maria Ogundele Sound mix: Gareth Jones Editor: Richard Vadon

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NPR's Book of the Day - William Boyd’s ‘The Predicament’ is a spy thriller with a conspiratorial edge

In William Boyd’s newest novel The Predicament, lead character and travel writer Gabriel Dax becomes a secret spy, scouring the globe on British orders during the Cold War. He’s looking for an escape from espionage, but when he starts to receive envelopes of cash from the KGB, can he resist? In today’s episode, author William Boyd talks with NPR’s Scott Simon about the second book in the Gabriel Dax trilogy, and how his own conspiracies about President Kennedy’s assassination influenced his novel-writing process.

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