The two books in today's episode point up how authors write and empathize with characters that aren't exactly likable. First we hear from Anthony Doerr who spoke to NPR correspondent Arun Rath about his Pulitzer-Prize winning novel All The Light We Cannot See. Doer talks about how we can better understand the moral choices people make by tuning into untold stories. Then, Scott Simon of NPR's Weekend Edition interviews author Yiyun Li about her new novel The Book of Goose. It's a story of two ruthless French girls who write a book that alters their lives.
Prop Fest 2022 breaks down all the statewide propositions on your ballot. Proposition 1 would solidify abortion and reproductive rights into the state constitution. If you thought abortion was already protected in California, you’re not wrong. But today we’ll learn why the California lawmakers who placed this on our ballot want to take things a step further, and we’ll dig into the details that have opponents concerned.
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This story was reported by April Dembosky. Prop Fest is made by the Bay Curious team, Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz, Amanda Font and Brendan Willard, in collaboration with The Bay team, Ericka Cruz Guevarra, Alan Montecillo, and Maria Esquinca. Our Social Video Intern is Darren Tu. Additional support from Kyana Moghadam, Jen Chien, Jasmine Garnett, Carly Severn, Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez, Jenny Pritchett and Holly Kernan.
Born in 1815, Ada Byron was the only legitimate child of the famous poet Lord Byron.
Unlike her famous father, Ada did not pursue a literary career. Guided by her mother, she took a diametrically different path studying math and logic.
At the age of 17, she had a chance encounter with Charles Babbage, who was designing the world’s first mechanical computer. It was the beginning of a groundbreaking collaboration that would only be understood over a century later.
Learn more about Ada Lovelace, the world’s first computer programmer, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
For a long time, Chicagoans were scared of Dunning. The very name “Dunning” gave them chills. People were afraid they would end up in that place. Today, the Chicago neighborhood, out on the city’s Far Northwest Side, looks like a middle-class suburb. You’d never know there was once an asylum there. On this episode we revisit the history of the Cook County Infirmary, later known as Chicago State Hospital but to most, simply “Dunning.”
Author Tochi Onyebuchi says that a majority of space stories he's come across favor those in power. Rich and white people get to escape in spaceships, whereas less affluent Black and brown people are left behind on an increasingly inhabitable Earth. His new science-fiction novel Goliath gets at this power imbalance, and the author spoke to Juana Summers about how it tells us so much about racial and economic disparities right now.
It seems like the sort of thing humans have used throughout our existence, but historically speaking, footwear is a relatively new invention.
For hundreds of thousands of years, humans spent their entire lives barefoot. Then someone got the bright idea that it might be a good idea to put something between our feet and the ground, and from there, it was a direct path to Air Jordans, hiking boots, and flip-flops.
Learn more about the development of the shoe and what our feet would look like if we didn’t wear them on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
In her new graphic memoir, It Won't Always Be Like This, NPR Editor Malaka Gharib revisits the summers she spent in Cairo, Egypt and how they shaped who she is today. She writes about her relationship with her dad and her step-mom, and how that relationship strengthened over the years even as the distance between them grew. The author, her dad, and her step-mom all spoke with NPR's Leila Fadel.
The death of a British monarch is a very big event. Thousands of people may take part in the funeral and procession, with millions more lining up to pay their respects and billions more watching on television.
This didn’t always use to be the case, however.
In particular, there was one English King who not only didn’t get an elaborate funeral, no one knew where his body was for over 500 years.
Learn more about the body of King Richard III and how it was lost and then discovered on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
The Marriage Portrait is Maggie O' Farrell's fictional interpretation of Lucrezia de Cosimo de Medici, who fights to survive her forced marriage with her abhorrent husband, Duke Alfonso II. In an interview with Mary Louise Kelly, O'Farrell discusses themes of loss of control and explains her philosophy in how she portrays these historical figures.
