Juhea Kim's debut novel, Beasts of a Little Land, is about Korea's decades-long fight for independence and the lives it impacted. Kim wanted the novel to focus on people who often get overlooked, which is why one of the main characters in the novel is a courtesan, or a sex worker. Kim told NPR's Elissa Nadworny that "these characters show how we can live in a meaningful way, even when the world is falling apart, even when the sky is falling down."
Archbishop Desmond Tutu passed away at the age of 90 at the end of 2021. We look back at his legacy by revisiting his 2010 book Made For Goodness. Even after decades of fighting apartheid and seeing the cruelty people were capable of, he still believed that humans were mostly good at their core. Tutu told NPR's Renee Montagne that he was constantly bowled over by people's willingness to forgive.
Princess Olga of Kiev was a 10th-century woman who was born to a royal family and married to Igor, Prince of Kiev.
She led a fairly unnoteworthy life until her husband was murdered by a neighboring tribe. After that, her life took a turn and she became the patron saint……of vengeance.
Learn more about Olga of Kiev, how she brought Christianity to Russia, and how she wreaked vengeance upon her enemies, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
It was the single most sacred object in the Jewish faith. According to the bible, it was an object of incredible power that could win battles. It was the entire reason why the temple in Jerusalem was built.
Then…it just disappeared and it was never mentioned again.
Since then it has become an object of mystery capturing the attention of explorers, adventurers, and even Indiana Jones.
Learn more about the Ark of the Covenant on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Today's interviews are about transporting you to different places. The first is with cousins Tricia Elam Walker and Ekua Holmes who wrote a children's book, Dream Street, about the neighborhood where they grew up in Roxbury, Mass. They told NPR's Scott Simon and producer Samantha Balaban that the characters in the book were inspired by people in their lives. Our next interview is with writer Clint Smith, who traveled to different locations across the country for his book on slavery, How the Word is Passed. He told NPR's Mary Louise Kelly he wanted to talk about places that still exist because slavery wasn't that long ago.
It is an instrument that we are all familiar with, even if we don’t know how to play it. It is one of the most commonly played instruments in the world, yet its origins are rather recent.
Its origins come from an instrument that most people don’t realize and it has significant differences from other instruments which look very similar.
Learn more about the piano, also known as the pianoforte. How it works and how it was invented, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Actress Sharon Gless, who starred in the 80s cop procedural, Cagney and Lacey, is out with a new memoir: Apparently There Were Complaints. The book looks back at her life and career, both the good and the not-so-great moments, like her struggles with alcoholism while filming the show. Gless told NPR's Rachel Martin that she is very strong despite it all: "I have good stuff in here. And I can survive it all."
Reporter Araceli Gómez-Aldana spent the day in Marriage and Civil Union Court in downtown Chicago where she met all kinds of couples who were there to say “I do,” and a clerk that’s helped thousands of couples tie the knot over the last 50 years. She’s seen it all, including brides left at the altar at the last minute, and Chicagoans lining up for hours to wed on the same day as Prince Charles and Princess Diana.
