In Jas Hammonds' YA novel, We Deserve Monuments, high school senior Avery is faced with moving from Washington, D.C. to her mom's small hometown in Georgia to be closer to Mama Letty, her aging grandma. But as she grapples with her new surroundings and with a dark, family secret, she also falls in love with the girl next door. In this episode, Hammonds talks to NPR's Juana Summers about the themes of family and identity in their debut book – and why they kind of think of it as "Gilmore Girls, but make it Black and gay."
On April 11, 1970, Apollo 13 was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, as the third mission to land on the moon.
It never achieved its mission objective.
Despite having failed in its goal, it still managed to return to Earth and, in its own way, achieved a type of success it could never have planned for.
Learn more about Apollo 13, the most successful failure in the history of space flight, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Timothy Fields and Shereem Herndon-Brown are college admissions experts, so they know how confusing and overwhelming the higher education system can be. That's especially true for Black students, which is why their new book offers a guide for how to think about application timelines, exposure to schools, and financial aid opportunities. In this episode, they explain to Here & Now's Peter O'Dowd why there are specific challenges pertaining to Black students, and why it's important for everyone – parents, guidance counselors, high schoolers – to be better informed about the process.
Formerly located in the territory of Hong Kong was arguably the most densely populated place on Earth. In fact, it might have been the most densely populated place in human history.
Not only was it packed with people, but it also had a unique political status. No government controlled it, which made it lawless, which in turn made it a magnet for organized crime.
Learn more about the Walled City of Kowloon, one of the most dangerous and densely populated places in history, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Climate displacement is already a reality. In Lily Brooks-Dalton's new novel The Light Pirate, which takes place in a near future, a family chooses to stay in a Florida town hit by a severe hurricane. As the state collapses, the people who live there must forge their own path forward. In today's episode, Brooks-Dalton speaks with NPR's Sarah McCammon about the compromises made between nature and civilization, and how the decision to rebuild weighs on those left behind.
There are estimated to be over 1,300 active volcanoes in the world today.
Almost all of them have one thing in common, they were around well before there were humans to record their creation. In fact, their creation might have taken many thousands of years.
However, there is one volcano were know quite a bit about because we were around when it was born, and we have everything on film.
Learn more about Paricutin, the volcano that we witnessed being born, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Everywhere you look on the internet, people are giving — and receiving — advice. Advice that promises to transform our lives. How to eat. How to think. How to get rich. How to manage our time.
Across 8 episodes, Helen Lewis travels through the strange, powerful and sometimes hidden digital spaces created by these new gurus. Where did they come from? How much power do these charismatic individuals wield? And why are so many of us turning away from the mainstream — mainstream medicine, mainstream politics and the mainstream media - and embracing the power of charismatic individuals instead?
Along the way, she considers the dubious benefits of ‘butthole sunning’, seeks help from some productivity gurus, meets a crypto millionaire who bought a football team, and wonders if the architecture of the internet will always drive us to extremes.
This is The New Gurus, a series about looking for enlightenment in the digital world.
Journalist Dawn Turner grew up in Chicago's historic Bronzeville neighborhood in the '70s. Her memoir chronicles the dreams shared between her younger sister, her best friend and herself – and the disparities that Black girls experience in the quest for their own American Dream. In today's episode, Turner opens up to Here & Now's Celeste Headlee about where her path diverged from those of her friend and sister, and how transcendence looks different for everyone.
