Category: DailyShorts

If these walls could talk... what might they say to the chairs? In Ruth Ozeki's novel The Book of Form and Emptiness, 13-year-old Benny Oh starts hearing things talk to him after the loss of his father. As he navigates his grief, it's his conversations with books that guide him through.

On May 19, 1946, André René Roussimoff was born into the world in Coulommiers, France. At birth, he weighed 13 pounds or 6 kilograms...and from there, he only got bigger. He eventually topped out at 7 feet, four inches tall, weighed 520 pounds, and became a worldwide phenomenon as a professional wrestler and actor. He is one of the few humans to whom the adjective “legendary” can truly be ascribed. Today people still speak of his incredible feats in awe.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You've likely heard the names of Ruby Bridges, Jackie Robinson and Thurgood Marshall — the first African Americans to desegregate public schools, baseball and the Supreme Court. But do you know the names of Kenny Washington, Woody Strode, Marion Motley or Bill Willis? Unless you're a football fan, you likely haven't. And that's what Keyshawn Johnson is trying to rectify in his book The Forgotten First, the story of the men who helped break the NFL's color barrier. NPR's A Martinez sat down with Johnson to discuss those four men, and the legacy they left behind.

If you think of Spain as the country on the Iberian Peninsula which is sandwiched between France and Portugal, you are not wrong, but you are also not totally right. There is also a significant part of the country which is located in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Morocco: The Canary Islands. Here you will find things that you aren’t going to find in mainland Spain or even the rest of Europe. Learn more about the Canary Islands on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Following the success of his previous novel All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr's latest book is an ambitious epic about the power and immortality of stories. He discusses it all with NPR's Scott Simon here. If you're in the market for a novel written by someone who genuinely loves books, this is the pick for you.

Navigation on the open ocean is extremely difficult. It is a skill that takes years to master. Even with years of skill, an experienced mariner was still able to ground their ship on an unseen reef, underwater rocks, or a sandbar, because they didn’t know their precise location. The main problem, which was unsolved for centuries, was determining your longitude. Learn more about the longitude problem, and how it was eventually solved, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It can be hard enough to answer the question, "what kind of music do you like?" But how about "why do you like it?" That's one of the many questions about the human brain and sound that neuroscientist Nina Kraus set out to answer in her book Of Sound Mind. In this interview with NPR's Ari Shapiro, she breaks down the science behind what our brains do when they process sound, and how it differs for each of us.

As I have mentioned in many episodes of this podcast, there are a great many things that were originally invented in Ancient China. There are literally hundreds of inventions that were developed in China before they were introduced anywhere else. However, there are four inventions in particular which stand out as having revolutionized not just Chinese civilization, but the entire world.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices